"I went and sat down behind the stove," said the President, "as far
from him as I could get; and hoped to escape his notice. The fact that
I wore glasses, together with my evident desire to avoid a fight,
apparently gave him the impression that I could be imposed upon with
impunity. He very soon approached me, flourishing his two guns, and
ordered me to treat. I made no reply for some moments, when the fellow
became so threatening that I saw something had to be done. The crowd,
mostly sheep-herders and small grangers, sat or stood back against the
wall, afraid to move. I was unarmed, and thought rapidly. Saying,
'Well, if I must, I must,' I got up as if to walk around him to the
bar, then, as I got opposite him, I wheeled and fetched him as heavy a
blow on the chin-point as I could strike. He went down like a steer
before the axe, firing both guns into the ceiling as he went. I
jumped on him, and, with my knees on his chest, disarmed him in a
hurry. The crowd was then ready enough to help me, and we hog-tied him
and put him in an outhouse." The President alludes to this incident in
his "Ranch Life," but does not give the details. It brings out his
mettle very distinctly.
He told us in an amused way of the attempts of his political opponents
at Albany, during his early career as a member of the Assembly, to
besmirch his character. His outspoken criticisms and denunciations had
become intolerable to them, so they laid a trap for him, but he was
not caught. His innate rectitude and instinct for the right course
saved him, as it has saved him many times since. I do not think that
in any emergency he has to debate with himself long as to the right
course to be pursued; he divines it by a kind of infallible instinct.
His motives are so simple and direct that he finds a straight and easy
course where another man, whose eye is less single, would flounder and
hesitate.