Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1876-03-23

! III. 6sf I i.sss ' ~
!; ;
let; however thlS history concerns only
the 1oEmer. II va the old ..Aush
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 ar.
ticle of blood your system could fur
nish. In the course Of my editing l
made trouble with Q Mr.. Lord, the ed.
itor of rival paper. He flew UP about
sore little trife or other that 1 said
about hina-l do not remember now
what it was. suppose I called him
thief or body -snatchcr, or an IDIOT,
or something like that; I was obliged
to make the paper readable, aud
couldn't fail in my duty to . whole
community Of subscribers merely to
save the exaggerated sensitiveness of an
individual. Mr.. Lord was offended
and replied vigorously in his paper
Vigorously means great deal when it
refers to personal editorial in FROM
tier newspaper. Duel was all the fash
ion among the upper classes in that
country, and a very few gentlemen
would throw away the opportunity of
fighting one. To kill one man in duel
caused a man to be even more looked
up to than to kill two men in the ordi-
nary way. Well, out there if you abuse
q man and that man did not like it,
you had to call him out and kill him,
otherwise you would be disgraced. So
I challenged Mr. lord, and l did hope
he would not accept; but / knew per.
fec,ly we'll that he did not want to
fight, and SO challenged h,,n in the
most violent and implacable manner
And then / sat down and snuffcd and
shuffed till the answer came. All the
boys-the editors were in the Office
helping me in the dismal business,
and telling about duels and discussing
the code with lot of aged ruffians,
who had experience in such matters,
and altogether there was loving in
terest taken in the matter that made
me unspeakably uncomfortable. The
answer came-Mr. Lord declined. Our
boys were furious, and SO was l on
the surface.
l sent him another challenge, anoth-
er, and the more he did not want to
fight the more blood thirstier became.
But at last the mans tone began to
change. He appeared to be waking
up. 1t was becoming 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 we've iubi-
liant. I was not, though I tried hard
to be.
1t was now time to go ont and prac-
tice. 1t was the custom there TO fight
duels with navy six-shooters at fifteen
paces-load and empty till the game
for the funeral was secure.
We went to little ravine lust out
Of town and borrowed q barn door for a
target-borrowed it from a gentleman
who was absent-and We stood this
door up, and stood rail on end against
the middle Of it to represent Lord; and
put squash on top of the rail to rep
resent his head. He was a very tall,
lean creature, the poorest sort of mate
rial for duel; nothing but line shot
could fetch him, and even then he might
split your bullet. Exa.geration aside,
the rail vas of course, little too thin
to represent the 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
l practiced at the rail and could not
hit that; and tried for the squash and
could not hit that. l would have been
entirely disheartened but that occa-
sionally I crippled one of the boys and
that gave me hope.
At last We began to hear pistol shots
near by in the next ravine. We knew
what that meant! The other party
Was out tIdcttSiuS too. ucu "dS III
the last degree distressed, for of course
shey would hear our shots and then
send over the ridge, and the spies
would find my barn door without wound
or mark, and that would simply be an
end to me; for Of course the other man
would Immediately become as blood
thirsty as I was.
Just at this moment little bird no
larger than sparrow flew By and lit
on bush about 80 PAGES away, and
nv second, Steve Gills, who was a dead
shot with pistol-much better than /
was-snatched out his revolver and
shot the birds head of We all ran to
pick up the game, aud sure enough,
! Just At this moment, some of the other
duelists came reconnoitering 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 splendid shot. How
Ear of Was it 2" ...
Steve said with some Indifference