Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1884-03-27
CHALLENGING HIM
to q duel.

Inc cnalI6nge was instantly accepted,
the Mexican, as the challenged party,
choosing Colts reVolvers at twenty PAGES,
and an early hour next morning as the
time.
Prompt to the minute they met. Dur
ing the night Norton had worked as usual
at his Office, cody grinding out copy for
the printers and correcting proof as non
chalantly as though he was anticipating
nothing more serious than a good sleep
at the end of it. The last sheet of copy
he wrote was brief obituary of himself
and hanging it on his hook, he told the
foreman, without mentioning it's nature,
to run that in the next issue in case he
did not return.
The place selected for the duel was
level spot in the rear of some shattered
adobe houses. They stood back to back,
and at zone, two, three" were to wheel
and fire. At "three" Norton turned and
deliberately sent bullet straight through
his opponents heart. The Mexican's
ball had passed over his head.
It was yet in the early dawn of day
and the journalist fastened to Black
burns house and told Mary just exactly
what had happened and that he muslin
stantly fly.
81 will go with you" she said
She never re-entered the house. Nor
ton procured her wraps in the camp and
they left together before the sun was up.
Of course she was soon missed, and link
ing her absence, with the news of the
duel which reached him shortly, and of
Norton's departure, Judge Blackburn did
not have much difficulty in arriving at
an understanding of the case. He was a
stern old man, and started in pursuit fully
determined, so he afterwards said, to kill
them both. His instant construction
was that the journalist had enticed the
girl away for the purpose of running her,
and in the relentless old code of morality
he preferred
DEATH To DIsHONOR.
Norton, however, had no such notion'
They struck the stage and took passage
as any lady and gentleman might for Vir-
ginia City. Enroute the angered father
pressed them so hard that they were
compelled to abandon the stage and Sc
curing horses finished the trip in the sad
die. They arrived in Virginia City half
an hour ahead and when Judge Black
burn arrived eWas confronted by amar-
riage certificate. Although he concluded
not to do any killing he never entirely
forgave Norton and returned to his home
feeling that he had been deeply wrong
ed. Nobody was particularly affected by
the death of the Mexican, and the prose-
cution gradually died out for lack of in
terest.
For two years the young couple led a
rowing life, drifting wherever the shifting
fortune of nomadic western journalism
drew the husband. For time they were
in the Black Hills, but some gold brick
confidence men whom Norton exposed
combined to freeze him out. His next
objective point was Leadville, and reluct-
ant to take his girl-wife to so turbulent a
camp, Norton sent her home to her par
ents in Nevada and went to fight the
battle alone. He was soon a popular
character there and became editor of the
Chronicle, which had recently been start
ed. Associated with him at the time on
the paper was Joseph Dixon, formerly of
the Kansas City Journal, Joe Jenkins, a
Kansas City boy whose father is an emf
nent practitioner there, and Fred S Schra-
der at present one of the editors of the st.
Joe Gazette. To these and the wide cir
Gle of friends he soon made, Harry Nor
ton was never tired of telling the story OF
how he had won his wife.
While at Leadville Norton published a
book, halfromance, and halt history, en-
titled
ON THE YELLOWSTONE.
If was the idea1ized story of biS odvoD-