The game had proceeded with • the regular grind, without premonition of trouble. Shaw sat facing the bar, with Collins, the gambler, directly opposite. Collins, the bartender, came along and stood behind Collins the gambler, when the latter, with deliberation took his sombrero from his head, and with a downward sweep, extinguished the lamp. There followed a flash and report. My informant believes that Collins the gambler swung his left arm backwards and discharged the weapon.

Collins the bartender was instantly killed, and Jim Shaw arrested, but after an expensive delay and trial at Sidney, he was liberated for want of evidence.

Campbell's nearest neighbors were ten miles away, and they were ranchmen, but that was not for long. A. W. Mills was soon putting up his soddy just across the river, and Joe Smith was building at Tabor (now Minatare). George W. Fairfield, Wellington Clark, Theodore Harshman, and others builded in the same vicinity. Josh Stevens builded his humble home in Cedar Valley, and Charley Smith in the Creighton flat near the present site of Melbeta. Captain W. R. Akers, the veteran irrigator built near Collins (now Morrill) the famous "sod house that covered seven Akers," as the old settlers used to tell the tenderfeet. Wild horses were plentiful then, while blacktail deer and droves of antelope were common, and mountain sheep sported in the rocks of Scotts Bluff and Castle Rock.

Campbell has always been direct in his dealings with his fellow men, and true to the ways of the untrammeled west, the fine little technicalities so common in law bothered him not one whit when later he was chosen sheriff of the new county of Scotts Bluff.