, 1888-04-19
A CURIOUS AFFAIR.
AN INCIDENT WHICH OCCURRED
IN A MEXICAN GAMBLING TOWN.

Allied His Pistol at a Time When He
tion.
A good many years ago, when the Mex
lean Central railroad was under way, con-
struction stopped for several months on
an arid, desert plain south of Chihuahua.
Almos instantly a town sprung up at
hat point, and was christened Tracks
End, after many similar mushrooms.
The town consisted of one side of n street
and some scattering adobe suburbs, and
when it was learned that the road would
not advance for some time, a great horde
of outlaws and adventures who lived off
the railroad men, and followed the line
as coyotes follow a provision train,
came fiocking there. They were nearly
all American fugitives, and found them
selves for the first time in their lives
where there was absolutely no law. no
military, no police, nothing except the
dictates of each mans particular deviltry.
Sodom and Gomorrah was a Chautau-
qua circle by comparison. The gamblers
soon robbed all the workingmen of every
thing they had, and then, for want of
other victims, they fell to rending each
other. 1t was in this particular epoch in
Tracks Ends brief history that l arrived
in the place.
] remembered the old proverb about
Roman etiquette when you are in Rome,
and sauntered into the hotel with all the
nonchalance l could command. 1t was a
miserable den, half wood and half adobe,
and the landlord was as promising n look
ing villain MS l ever laid my eyes on. l
registered by wiping my hands on the
Office towel, and took a mental note to
sleep with one eye open. After going
through the motions of eating supper l
took n look at my six shooter and strolled
out to see the town, but in n few moments
found myself helplessly wedged in a crowd
and temporarily anchored in a large
saloon and gambling house that l judged
to be. the principal resort of the place.
Directly in front of me was a faro table,
and presently l forgot my annoyance in
watching n little scene which was in prog
ress there. The players We're mostly
gamblers, | judged, from their pallor and
the indescribable ear marks of the profess
sion, but among them, playing his
money rather recklessly, was another
stamp of a man. He was a brawny,
thick set fellow, with the hands of n coal
HEAVIER and a curiously innocent looking
face, in spite of the bushy beard thai COW
cred most of it.
This player was in bad luck and pal
pably nervous. He moved his bets in n
hesitating, half hearted sort of way, and
III llo anu . Gu
in his throat when he lost, as he repeatedly
did. In a few moments his last chip was
gone, and, pushing back his chair, he
leaned over the table and said something
l could not catch, pointing to the silver
box from which the cards were dealt.
You're crazy" exclaimed the dealer
loudly, half rising.
What followed happened all in a flash.
The thick set man reached over, seized the
| hoy and hold IT tn the linht Whathar ha
discovered some unfair mechanism 1 do
not know, but he wheeled with an oath
and dashed it into the Dealers face. A
roar of excitement rose from the crowd.
/ was swayed this way and that, and for
n moment lost sight of the table, and when
1 saw it again the dealer was wiping the
blood from his face and the man who had
struck him was gone.
That was enough for me. l went back
to the hotel, but l had barely seated my
self and lit a cigar when l heard a sound
of some one running outside, then more
people running, then a hoarse' iangle of
voices, followed instantly by two loud re-
ports and just two words:
"Oh, don'tV'
I think l never heard so pitiful a cry.
1t struck right into my heart and turned
me sick, for instinctively 1 associated it
with the big, brawny man with the child
ish face; and right enough l was. The
gambler, a man named Newton, had fol-
lowed him out and killed him. In a little
while the hotel was full Of people talking
about the tragedy, and one of them
vouchsafed some details to me.
Ellis name was Ben White,n he said,
land he was a square man. He was u
section boss on the railroad and had saved
some money, but the gamblers got hold
Of him and it all went They say he
found out tonight they were robbing
him, and that's how it started. The
queer thing about 1t is that when Newton
cornered him he got out his pistol first
and snapped all six chambers, but it
wouldn't go off. Nobody understands
that"
This was strange, to say the least, and
the next day it was the tai of the town.
The failure of the weapon had cost this
man his life, and yet nothing seemed to be
the matter with it. On the contrary, il
was in perfect order; only the cartridges,
for some ineXplicable reason, wouldn't ex-
plode in it. Everybody tried it and every
body gave it up. The same shells, placed
in other pistols exactly like it, were fired
without trouble, and half the gamblers in
Tracks End firmly believed that the
weapon was bewitched or ~"hoodooed," as
they called it.
Six months afterward, when Tracks
End was n Renaissance only and las
prominent citizens had been divided be-
tween the cemeteries and the penitenti-
aries of the state, the sequel of hat
tragedy came drifting to me through a
strange channel. l was talking to a
Mexican lawyer in Chihuahua, when he
said:
"By the way, 1 have a curiosity to
show you. Do you see anything the mat
ter with that p~istolS'
AS he spoke he opened a door and
handed me a six shooter-the identical
weapon which Ben White carried when
he was killed. l took it with consider
able r~epugnance, and then he told me o
curious story. The hammer of the pistol,
like all those of large caliber, terminated
in a point, which strikes the cartridge in
the center. Over his point n file had
been drawn, taking off about the thick,
ness of a card; not enough to be seen, but
enough to prevent it from touching the
shell. This completely disabled the
weapon yet left it, to all outward APP
~pearances, in perfect order, and was in
fact a devilish piece of ingenuity.
at seems" said the lawyer, "that
Newton had been expecting trouble with
this man, and some days before obtained