The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1873-01-16
DUEILING.


becoming too prevalent in this section, Mark
Twain contributes the following in the in
teres. of humanity
The only merit that I can claim for the
following narrative is that it is true story
1t has moral at the end of it, but claim
nothing on that, as it is merely thrown in to
curry favor with the religious element.
After I had reported couple of years on
the Virginia City (Nevada) Daily Enterprise,
they promoted me the ditor-in-chief-and
lasted Just week, by the watch But [
made an uncommon lively newspaper while
I lasted, and when I retired l had duel on
my hands and three horse-whippings promised
me. The latter | made no attempt to COL
lect; however, this history concerns only the
former. 1t was the old "Aush times" Of the
silver excitement, when the population was
wonderfully wild and mixed; everybody went
armed to the teeth, and insults had to be
atoned for with the best article of blood your
system could furnish. In the courle of my
editing I made trouble with a Mr.. Lord,
editor of the rival paper. He few up about
some little triAe or other that [ said about
him. | do not remember now what it was.
I suppose I called him thief, or body
snatcher, or an idiot. or something like that.
I was obliged to make the paper readable,
and I could not fail in my duty to q whole
community Of subscribers merely to save the
exaggerated sensitiveness Of an individual.
Mr. Lord was offended, and replied vigor-
ously in his paper. Vigorously means agreat
deal when it refers to personal editorial In
frontier newspaper. Duelling 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, ont 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 disgraced So l
challenged Mr.. Lord, and did hope he
would not accept; but knew perfectly we'll
that he did not want to fight, and so | chal-
lenged him in the most violent and implaca-
bic manner. And then sat down and suf
fered and suffered till the answer came. All
our boys-the editors-were in the Office
"helping" me in the dismal business, and
telling about duels, and discussing the code
with a lot of aged rufians who had expert
ence in such things, and altogether there
was loving interest taken in the matter
which made me unspeakably uncomfortable.
The answer came-Mr. Lord declined. Our |
boys were furious, and so was lon the sur
face.
Isent him another challenge, and another
and another; and the more he did not want
to fight the bloodthirstier became But at |
last the mans tone changed. He appeared |
to be waking up twas becoming apparent
that he was going to fight me, after all. |
ought to have known how it would be-he
was a man who could never be depended
upon Our boys were exultant. was not.
though tried to be.
1t was now time to 60 out and practice.
1t was the custom there to fight dnels with |
navy six-shooters at fifteen PAGES load and |
empty till the game for the funeral was Sc
cured. We went to little ravine just out
side of town, and borrowed barn door for
a targct-borrowed it ola 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 squash on top |
of the rail to represent his head. He was a
very tall, lean creature the poorest sort of
material for duel-nothing but line shot |
could "fetch" him, and even then you might |
split your bullet. Exaggeration aside, the
rail was, of course, little too thin to repre-
sent his body accurately, but the squash was
all right. If there was any intellectual diff
ference between the squash and his head it |
was in favor of the squash.
Well, practiced aud practiced at the barn |
door, and could not hit it; and practiced at |
the rail, and could not hit that; and tried |
hard for the squash, and could not hit the
squash. / would have been entirely dis |
hearteped, but that occasional 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 distress
ed; for, of course, those people would hear |
our shots, and they would send spies over the !
TIuSe, anu Vic sPieo "ouiu AHu MY paih
door without wound or scratch, and that
would simply be the end of me-for Of fcourse,
that other man would Immediately become as
bloodthirsty as | was. Just ut this moment
a little bird, no larger than sparrow, few
by and lit on a sage bush, about thirty PAGES
away; and my little second, Steve ellis, who
was matchlcss marksman with pistol
much better than / was-snatched out his
revolver, and shot the birds head of. We
all ran to pick up the game, and sure enough,
Just at this moment some of the other duel
lists came reconnoitering over the little ridge.
They ran to our group to see what the mat
ter was; and when they saw the bird, Lords
second said "That was splendid shot.
How far was it? ?"
Steve said with some Indifference:
"Oh, no great distance. About thirty pa
ces"
"Thirty PAGES. Heavens alive, who did it,"
".My man-Twain."