“Dry up there, you brass-mounted hirelings, or I’ll snatch you bald-headed.”
This insulting language produced the desired effect. Smarting under the implied reproach it conveyed, one of the soldiers sharply inquired,
“Why do you single us out, when there are others more boisterous?”
Porter waited for no further provocation, but drawing and cocking his revolver with one hand, and seizing the soldier nearest to him with the other, he dragged him ignominiously into the circle where he was standing, ordering the deputy city marshal and Bob and his friends to assist in arresting him. The soldiers offered resistance. An immediate _mêlée_ was the consequence. The women and children in the audience screamed in affright. The other soldiers present rushed with drawn pistols to the rescue of their comrade. The one in the gallery sprang upon one of the officers with the ferocity of a wild beast. Cherokee Bob with a pistol in one hand and a bowie-knife in the other, his voice wildly ringing above all other sounds, was in his true element. More than a dozen pistol shots followed in quick succession. Two of the soldiers were killed, and others fearfully mangled. Porter and his deputy assistant were each shot through a leg, the latter crippled for life. The work of blood was progressing, and but for the interference of an officer of the garrison, would have ended only with the death of the assassins.
The next day the soldiers appealed to their commanding officer for redress. He ordered those of them engaged in the affray to be placed under arrest, and dismissed the subject from his thoughts. Indignant at this unexpected treatment, about fifty of the soldiers armed themselves, and marched into town, with the determination to capture and hang Cherokee Bob, whom they knew to be the chief mover of the murderous assault. Disavowing all riotous intentions they informed the citizens of their design and commenced a thorough search for the murderer. He, meanwhile, fearful of their revenge, eluded them by leaving the town before the dawn of morning on a stolen horse, for Lewiston.
The year before his appearance in Walla Walla, Ridgely was living in Sacramento. During his sojourn there he acquired notoriety for his thievish and villainous propensities. One of the police corps, detecting him in the commission of a larceny, arrested him. He was convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail. He vowed revenge against Gilchrist the policeman, but on his release fled to the gold mines. Soon after his arrival at Walla Walla he fell in with his old enemy, and secretly renewed the determination to take his life. Calling upon a friend to accompany him, he boldly entered a saloon where he knew Gilchrist to be and fired several shots at him. Gilchrist fell at the first fire. Ridgely, believing he had killed him, left the saloon, saying as he went, “I have thrown a load off my mind, and now feel easy.” Gilchrist was badly wounded, but recovered. Ridgely, escaping arrest on the night of the assault, crossed the river into Oregon the next day, beyond the jurisdiction of the authorities of Walla Walla, which was in Washington Territory. Thence he went to Lewiston and joined Plummer.