Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-01-11
view { ESCAPED BEING KILLED IN 4
BEL,
bY MARX w AIN .

bY MARX TWAIN.
The only s2er;. claim for the following
narrative is that It Is true story. 1t has
moral a. the end of It, but claim moth.
ing on that, as ii is merely thrown IN TO
curry favor with the religious element.
After l had reported a couple Of years
on the Virginia City (Nev,) Daily Enter
prise, they promoted me to be editor-in-
chief,-and / lasted just week by the
watch But made an uncommonly live
" newspaper while l did last, and when
retired had duel on a1y hands, and
three horse-whippings promised ne.
The latter made no attempt TO collect;
however, this history concerns only the
former. 1t was the old flush times" Of
the silver excitement, when the popula-
lion was wonderfully wild and mixed
everybody went armed 70 the teeth, and
all sights and insults had to be atoned Tor
with the best article of blood your system
could furnish In the course of my edit
ing / made trouble with Mr.. Lord, editor
of the rival paper. He flew up about
some little trifle or other that | said about
him do not remember now what it
was. / suppose | called him a thief, or a
body -snatcher, or an idiot, or something
ike that. | was obliged TO make the pa
per readable, and | could not fail in my
duty to whole community of subscribers
merely to save the exaggerated sensitive
ness Of an individual. Mr.. Lord was Of
Tended, and replied vigorously in his pa
per. Vigorously means great deal when
il refers to personal editorial in IA FROM
tier newspaper. Dueling was all the
fashion among the upper classes in that
country. and very few gentlemen would
throw away the opportunity of fighting
one. To kill person in duel caused
man to be even more looked up to than to
kill two men in the ordinary way. Well.
out there, if you abused man, and that
man did not like it, you had to call him out
and kill him; otherwise you would be dis.
graced.
So challenged Mr. Lord, and did hope |
he would not accept; but knew perfect |
ly well that he did not want to fight, and
so challenged him in the most violent
and implacable manner. And then l sat
down and suffered till the answer came.
All our boys-the editors-were in our
office, ''helping" me in the dismal bust
ness, and telling about duels, and discuss
ing the code with a lot Of aged ruffians
who had had experience in such things,
and altogether there was loving inter-
est taken in the matter, which made me
unspeakably uncomfortable. The answer
came-Mr. Lord declined. Our BOYS
were furious, and so was I--on the sur
face.
] sent him another challenge, and an |
other and another; and the more he did
not want to fight, the bloodthirster | be-
came. But at last the man s tone changed. |
He appeared to be waking up. 1t was be- |
coming apparent that he was going to |
fight me after all. | ought TO have known
how it would be--he was man who |
could never be depended upon. Our
boys were exultant. wa. not. though |
tried to be.
1t was now time to go out and practice.
/, was the custom there to fight duels with
navy six. shooters at fifteen paces-load
and empty till the game for the funeral
was secured We went to little ravine
Just outside the town, and borrowed a
barn-door for target-borrowed it OF a
gentleman who was absent-and we stood
this barn-door up, and stood rail on end
against the middle of it, to represent
Lord, and put n squash on the top of the
rail to represent his head He was very
lall, lean creature. the poorest sort of ma
terial Tor duel-nothing but line shot
could "fetch" him, and even then he
might split your bullet. Exaggeration
aside, the rail was, of course, little too
thin to represent his body accurately, but
the squash was all right. If there was
any Intellectual difference between the
squash and his head, it was in favor OF the
squash.
Well, practiced and practiced at the
barn-door, and could not hit it, and |
practiced at the rail, and could not hit
that; then i tried hard for the squash,
and could not hit the squash. | would
have been entirely disheartened. but that
occasionally crippled one of the boys,
and that encouraged me to hope.
At last We began TO hear pistol-shots
near by, in the next rayine. We knew
what that meant! The other party were
out practicing, too. Then ] was in the
last degree distressed for Of course those
people would hear our shots, and they
would send spies over the ridge, and the
spies would find my barn-door without a
mark or scratch, and that would be the
end of me--for of course that other man
would Immediately become as Iblood-
thirsty as was. Just at that moment
little bird no larger than a sparrow flew
by, and lit on a sage bush about thirty pa.
ces away; and my little second, Steve
ellis, who was a matchless marksman
with a pistol--mGch better than l was
snatched out his revolver and shot the
birds head off, We all ran TO pick up the
came. and sure enough, just at this mo-