The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-08-16
a FRONTIER TRAGEDY.
How Handsome Harry" Bertram Me
His Death.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer.


through Philadelphia yesterday enroute
for the family burying ground in one of
those quaint and quiet New England towns
In which witches innumerable are buried.
Henry Bertram was known on the south
western frontier as Handsome Harry. y
He was a gambler, and in the vernacular of
the frontier, accounted "a square man. In
1882 he appeared at Murderville, in Pecos
county, Texas. Murderville was the CITY
OF day. 1t was a barren alkah mesa,
about five miles from the confluence of the
PecOs and the Rio Grande rivers. The South
ern Pacific railroad was projected through
that country, and Vaudeville, from a
1-tent saloon, sprang into metropolitan i'm
portance in few weeks. The one saloon
was supplemented by dozens Of Others, and
in three weeks after its inception the Gown
boosted a Justice of the peace, a company
of rangers, forty two saloons, three dance
houses, two hotels, three barber shops, a
laundry, and half dozen dining saloons.
All the saloons bad gambling adjuncts and
poker, keno, Spanish monte. faro, rouge ct
nOir, the mustang game and other schemes
of chance fiourished in every drinking
place.
Jack Harris, afterward killed at San
Antonio by Marshal Ben Thompson, one of
the worst men in Texas, ran the principal
20, 900 navvies at work upon the Sunset ex-
tension of the Southern Pacific railroad
They patronized the bar, got drunk and
when half crazsd with the wretched liquor
sold, lost all that remained out of their
earnings at faro or monte.
AN ALL ROUND GAMBLER.
Handsome Harry" and the name did
not belle him, was monte dealer at Jack
Harris, and, in the language of the from
tier, he was exceedingly ''slick." He lost
no money for his hacker, but steadily added
to the 'velvetn with which he was pro-
vided.
Handsome Harry" differed from the
other gamblers. He was not prOfane, he
did not drink. he did not use tobacco. He
did carry murderouS six-shooter in his
belt, however, and he used it on the slight
est provocation. No one knew whence he
came, and as he did not associate with any
of his fellow gamblers, but little was known
even of his life in Murderville He had a
tent on the outskirts of the town, and to
this he retired when business was over.
always sober, always the gentleman that he
was.
One night when the stage came in from
Del Rio woman, young, and with a face
and manner that stamped her as above the
common herd, alghted.
hotels, wretched concern of canvas, and
when night settled down upon the town and
the revelry began she venUured forth, alone
and unprotected, and after a short confer
ence with rough, turned her steps toward
Jack Harris dance hall
Just as she entered the door an alterca.
ton occurred among the gamblers about
the table where Handsome Harry" was
dealing Pistols were drawn in twinking
ho1f IL Il, =.
the dealers heart. He pulled his six
shooter, but just as he was about to fire the
woman who had entered the tent unob-
served, sprang forward and threw her arms
about his neck
THEY FELL TOGETHER.
There was a succession of binding flashes
a chorus of loud reports. Handsome Harry
and the girl clinging about his neck fell TO-
gether to the rude floor and their life blood
was commingled. One of the opposing
party dropped dead also, but this did not
atone for the murder of Handsome Harry
and the girl that had sprung forward to
save him.
They were both killed and the gamblers
and saloonkeepers and the rustlerS and the
wantons congregated at Murderville sus-
pending their business for few hours, fol.
lowed the blanket-shrouded remains of the
two to their last resting place in the valley
of the Pecos close beside that alkali-tainted
stream, within a few hundred yards of
where 1t empties into the Rio Grande.
All along the bank of the Pecos at this
point are quicksands, and everywhere the
soil is impregnated with alkali. Handsome
Harry and the unknown girl who died in an
effort to save his life we're buried in one
common grave in that shifting alkali soil OF
the PecoS bottom. A rude gravestone of
wnO6-a mara Tlank-Vas Sat aDOVa THAR
graves, and upon it, in rude lettering, was
painted the known story of their lives.
Breast to breast they lay for seven long
years. The railroad, completed, wound
about their heads, and daily the whistles of
the locomotives as they crossed the Pecos
bridge sounded their requiem.
Last week gray-haired man and o
woman in deep mourning aighted at
Langtry, the railroad station nearest the
Pecos. AS they stepped from the cars, the
eyes of the woman were turned across the
mesa, and she saw glistening in the August
sun MurderviAe's monument-an immense
pile of broken bottles, which had been
thrown out by the saloon keepers, when the
town was in all the glory of its crime and
debauchery.
THEIR BODIES TURNED TO STONE.
Some of the railroad laborers-almond-
eyed Cinnamon, who felt no emotion in
common with the straugers-assisted to
hunt up the lonely grave and throw out the
shifting soil.
Seven years of chemical action had
wrought a wondrous change. The bodies
of handsome Harry and the unknown girl,
still lying breast to breast. were exhumed,
but the action of the alkali soil had petri-
fed them, and, perfect as in life, they were
reproduced, wrapped in the blankets that
on the frontier suffice for shrouds, in indis-
soluble and indestructlble stone
When the spades of the Cinnamon re-
vealed the bodies the face Of the yelled
woman flushed, perhaps with anger, per-
haps with shame. Anyway, this was her
order, delivered in clear, metallic tones:
Lift out his body, but leave hers"
The Cinnamon obeyed, and the stiffened
body Of Handsome Harry, as Hfelike as
when he rose, pistol in hand, to face his last
insulter, was lifted out His features were
perfect, and bending over him, the yelled
woman dropped a tear.
Poor HarryW she murmured, and then
she signed for the Cinnamon to fill up the
grave.
Mechanically they obeyed her order, and
the marbleized body OF the unknown
woman who had sacrificed her life in vain
effort to save that Of the handsome gam
bier was recornmitted to the petrifying soil
by order of the woman who shed tears over
his reSurrected remains.