# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/A Fatal Rivalry

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A FATAL RIVALRY
THE transfer of Alaska by Russia to its new owner, the United States, was denoted by the arrival of a small body of American troops to support the official dignity at Sitka. The officers were at once absorbed into the coterie that made the society of the place, and two of them, a ​captain and his first lieutenant, found in the change from the fairer districts of the south no reason to complain; for among the residents of the little capital was a Russian girl of title, high lineage, amiable, dreamy-eyed, and lovely. Where members of the fair sex are few and soldiers many, jealousies are sure to occur. The young woman apparently liked the lieutenant the better of the two; he was younger, had more polish, and was finer-looking than his superior, although the captain's courage had been tried on many fields, and he made a distinguished figure in his uniform. There was little attempt on the part of either to conceal the fact that he was falling into a passionate love for the young countess, and that the society of his rival was growing irksome. Availing himself of his authority, the captain often assigned duties to his second in command that were plainly invented for the occasion and devised merely to keep him at the barracks while the captain was prosecuting a siege more difficult than any he had before engaged in. Possibly the countess was a bit of a flirt, and gave such slight encouragement to the elder of her suitors as would insure his company.
The situation was sure to lead to a rupture be-tween the two men, and it was known that hot words had passed; hence there was much surprise at head-quarters when both of them returned from a walk, one afternoon, in courteous converse, ​and it was understood that they were going off on a hunt together in the morning. They went up Indian River, and were not followed. At evening the captain returned, alone. He was pale and agitated. His companion had been gored by a buck deer, he said, and he had been obliged to leave the body where it lay. He called on the countess to tell her of the accident, and took a cup of tea from her hands before he left. On reaching head-quarters he found that a search-party had gone up the river trail with lanterns to seek for the body, and his commanding officer, intimating in pretty plain terms his belief that a duel had been fought, advised him to retire to his chambers, which he did. Toward the middle of the night the soldiers came back, bringing the dead man on a stretcher. There was a hole in his chest, but it had been made by a bullet, and his own rifle had been found close by. The captain's arrest was ordered at once. A sergeant and a squad went to his rooms and knocked. There was no answer. The door was forced. The captain lay propped in bed, staring in horror, his jaw fallen, his face colorless, his hands clinched in agony. He had been dead an hour. In the official reports it was said that he had died of heart disease and the lieutenant had accidentally shot himself; but the common belief was that the Russian woman had put poison in his tea, and that in his last moments he believed that his victim was standing at his bedside.