Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-01-23
How Escaped Being Killed in Duel.

d V.
It has a moral at the end of it, but 1
claim nothing on that, as it is merely
thrown in to carry favor with the relig-
ious element
After [ had reported couple of years
on the Virginia City (Nevada) Daily
Enterprise, they promoted me TO. be
editor-in-chief- lasted Just week,
by the watch. But I made an uncom-
monty lively newspaper while did last,
and when l retired 1 had duel on my
hands, and three whippings prom
lsed me. The latter I made no attempt
to collect; however, this history concerns
only the former. It was the old ''fush
times" of the silver excitement, when
the population was wonderfully wild and
mixed; everybody went armed to the
teeth, and all Sights and insults had to
be atoned for with the best article of
blood your system could furnish. In
the course of my editing [ made trouble
with Mr. Lord, editor of rival paper
He flew up at some little trouble or
other that [ said about him-I do not re-
member now what it was. | suppose I
called him q thief, or body-snatcher,
or an idiot, or something like that was
obliged to make the paper readable, and
[ could not fail in my duty to whole
community of subscribers merely to save
the exaggerated sensitiveness Of an indi-
yidual. Mr.. Lord was offended and re-
piled vigorously in his paper. Vigor-
ously means great deal when it refers
to a personal editorial in frontier news
paper Dueing was all the fashion
among the upper classes in that country,
and very few gentlemen would throw
away an 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 disgrao ed. So I challenged Mr.. Lord,
and did hope he would not accept; but
| knew perfectly well that he did not
want to fight, and SO [ challenged him
In the most violent and implacable man.
ner. And then / sat down and suffered
and suffered till the answer came. All
our boys-the editors-were in our Office
''helping" me in the dismal business,
and telling about duels, and discussing
the code with a lot of aged ruffians who
had experience in such things, and alto
gether there was loving interest taken
In the matter, which made me unspeaka-
bly, uncomfortable. The answer came
Mr.. Lord declined. Our boys were
furious, and sc was lon the surface
[ sent him another challenge, and
another and another and the more he
did not want to fight, the bloodthirstier
1 became. But at last the mans tone
changed. He appeared to be waking up.
+ hot l,n
going to fight me, after all [ ought to
have known how it would be-he was
man who never could be depended upon.
Our boys were exultant I was not,
though / tried to be.
1t was now time to go out and prac-
tice. 1t was the custom there to fight
duels with navy six-shooters at fifteen
paces-1oad and empty till the game for
the funeral was secured We went to a
little ravine Just outside of town, and
borrowed a tarn-door for targct-bor-
rowed it of a gentleman who was absent
and we stood this barn-door up, and
stood a rail on end against the middle of
1t to represent Lord, and put a SQUASH
on top of the rail to represent his head.
He was a very tall, lean creature, the
poorest sort of material for duel-noth-
ing 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 I
01rI Oh 4l,o, I -
that; and [ 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 ravine. 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 with
out wound or scratch, and that would
SIMPLY be the end of me-for of course
that other man would Immediately be-
come as bloodthirsty as l was. Just at
this moment a little bird, no larger than a
sparrow, few by, and Lit on a sage-bush.
about thirty PAGES away !; and my little
second, Steve ellis, who was match
less marksman with pistol much bet
ter than [ was-snatched out his re-
volver, and shot the birds head off We
all ran to pick up the game, and sure
enough, just at this moment, some of
the other duelists came accommodating
over the little ridge. They ran to our
group to see what the matter was and
when they saw the bird, Lords second
said:
: That was a splendid shot. How far
off was it ?''
Steve said, with some Indifference
Oh, no great distance. About thirty
PAGES"
Thirty PAGES Heavens alive, who
did it ?"
60 Ay man-Twain.'
t'The mischief he did Can he do that
often ?"
''Well-yes. He can do it about