9
	      Ready for Murder.
his revolver.    It was in his wife�s room, he said,
and he hated, like pison, to frighten her, but if
that son of a b___h came in his way, he reckon-
ed he�d fix him.        When he had departed, Colt
lay on my bed, still excited and asked me if
I had a pistol.    I told him two; he preferred
the one patented in his own name, which lay, load-
ed and capped in my open carpet-bag on the bed.
So he took it and almost immediately there came
another pounding at the door, which I had locked.
I went out to see who it was, having my little
six-shooter in my pocket, and thinking it very
likely that Morgan and some friend had come up 
to take revenge on the New Yorker by assassina-
ting him, in which case I, who couldn�t have
seen the fellow set on by numbers and murdered
in my room, had fully resolved to prevent their
entrance or to blaze away and kill as many 
as I could.    But it proved only to be a middle-
aged South Carolinian, a friendly person, who
had come up rather to sympathize with Colt
than otherwise � Colt who, raising himself on one
arm, had cocked his revolver and was �covering�
the stranger, as he entered.     The Carolinian
had his say and undertook to fetch up Wood-
ward, in whose hands Colt wished to place