The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1873-01-09
How I Escaped Being Killed
in a Duel.
BY MARK TWAIN.
From Tom Hoods London Annual.

From Tom Hoods London Annual.
The only merit l claim for the fol-
lowing narrative is that it is true
story. 1t has moral al the end OF it,
but claim nothing on that, as it i.
merely thrown i'll to curry favor with
the religious element.
After [ had reported a couple OF
years on the Virginia City (Nevada,
Daily enterprise, thoy promoted Ine
to be editor i'll chief-and L lasted q
week by the watch. But L made an
uncommonly lively newspaper while
did last, and when 1 retired [ had IA
duel on my hands, and three horse
whippings promised me. The latter
L made no attempt to collect; however
this history concerns only the former.
In the old flush times of the silver
excitement, when the population was
wonderfully wild and mixed every
body 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 a
Mr.. Lord, editor of the rival paper.
He flew up about some little trifie or
other that [ said about him--I do not
remember now what it was. 1 sup
pose L called him thief or a body
snatcher. or an idiot, or something
like that. was obliged to make the
paper readable. and | could not fail i'll
my duty to a whole community OF
subscrib bers merely to save the exag-
gerated constituencies OF an Individual
Mr.. Lord was offended, and replied
vigorously in his paper. Vigorously
means a great deal when 1t refers to a
personal editorial in frontier news
paper. Dueliing was ali the fashion
among the upper classes i'll that
country, and few gentlemen would
throw away an opportunity to fight
one. 10 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
a man and that man did not like it.
you had to call him out and kill him !;
otherwise wou would be disgraced.
So challenged Mr.. Lord. and [ did
hope he would not accept; but knew
perfectly well that he did not want to
fight, SO | challenged him in the most
violent and implacable manner. And
then sat down and suffered and suf-
fered until the answer came All our
boys-the editors-were in our office
s. helping" me in the dismal business,
and telling about dueis, and discussing
the code with lot of aged ruffians,
who had had experience in such things
and sltogether there was loving in
teres. taken in the matter, which
made me unspeakably uncomfortable.
The answer came-Mr. Lord declined.
Our boys were furious and SO was l.
on the surface.
sent him another challenge, and
another and another; and the more
he did not want to fight the blood
thirstier became. But at last the
mans tone changed. He appeared to
be waking up. 1t was becoming ap-
parent that he was going to fight me
how it would be-he was man who
boys were exultant. l was not, though
l tried to be.
1t was now time to go out and prac-
tice. II was the custom there to fight
duels with navy six shooters at fifteen
paces-load and empty till the game
| for the funeral is secnred. We went
TO little ravine just outside of town,
and borrowed barn door for a tar
get-borrowed it of gentleman who
was not at home-and we stood this
barn door up, and stood rail on end
against the middle of it to represent
Lord, and put squash on top of the
rail to represent his head. He was a
4 very tall lean creature, the poorest sort
of material for duel--nothing but q
line shot could "fetch" him, and even
then he might split your bullet. Ex-
aggeration aside, the rail was, OF
course, little too thin to represent
his body accurately, but the squash
was all right. If there was any intel
lectual difference between the squash
and his head it was i'll favor OF the
squash.
Well, 1 practiced and practiced at
| the barn door, aud could not hit ii !:
and pracliced at the rail, and could
not hit that; and l tried hard for the
squash, and could not hit the squash.
l would haye been entirely disheart-
ened. 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 this meant. The other party
were out practiciDg too. Then l was
In the last degree distressed; for OF
course those people would hear ouI
shots, and they would send spies over
the ridge, and the spies would find
my barn door without a wound or q
scratch, and that would simply be the
end of me--for of course that other
man would immediately become as
bloodthirsty as / was. just at this
moment little bird, no larger than o
sparrow, flew by, and lit ON a sage
bush about thirty PAGES away; and
my little second, Steve Gillis, who was
a matchless marksman with pistol
much better than was--snatched oul
his revolver and shot the birds mead
off! We all ran to pick up the game
and sure enough, just at that momen
some of the other duelists came re
connoitering over the little ridge
They ran 10 our group to see wha
was the matter, and when they saw
the bird Lords second said:
That was u splendid shot. How
far Off was it 2"
! Steve said with some Indifference