Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-14
A FRONTIER TRAGEDY
The Sad Death of a Texas Gambler
and the Girl Who Loved Him,
PETRIFIED ON THE RIVER PECOS.
Their Bodies Turned to Stone and Ex-
humed After Seven Years.
ONE WAS TAKEN AND THE OTHER LEFT

ONE WAS TAKEN AND THE OTHER LEFT
The body of Henry Bertram passed
through Philadelphia yesterday.en route 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"
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. Vaudeville was the city
of a day. 1t was a barren alkali mesa,
about five miles from the confluence of the
Pecos and the Rio Grande rivers.
The Southern Pacific Railroad was pro-
jected through that country, and Murders
vile, from oDe-tent saloon, sprang into
metropolitan importance in a few weeks.
The one saloon was supplemented by
dozens of others, and in three weeks after
it, inception the town boasted justice of
tho peace, a company of rangers, AZ saloons,
three dance houses, two hotels, three barber
shops, laundry and half dozen dining
saloons. All the saloons had gambling ad-
juncts and poker, keno, Spanish monte, faro,
2 rouge ct noir, the mustang game and other
schemes of chance fourished in every drink
ing place.
Jack Harris. afterward killed at San An
tonic by Marshal Ben Thompson, one OF the
worst men in Texas, ran the principal dive.
His patrons were found among the 20, 900
navvies at work upon the Sunset extension
of the Southern Pacific Railroad. They pat
ronized his bar, got drunk and when half
crazed with the wretched liquor sold lost all
that remained of their earnings at faro or
monte.
AN ALL ROUND GAMBLER.
Handsome Harry" and the name did
not belle him, was a monte dealer at Jack
Harris, and, in the language of the FROM
tier, he was exceedingly slick" He lost
no money for his backer, but steadily added
to the "velvet" with which he was pro-
yided.
Handsome Harry differed from the
other gamblers. He was not prOfane, he did
not drink he did not use tobacco. He did
carry a murderous six-shooter in his belt,
however, and he used it on the slightest
provocation. No one knew whence he came,
and as he did not associate with any of his
fellow-gamblers but little was known of his
life in Vaudeville. He had tent on the
outskirts of the town, and to this he retired
ways the gentleman that he was.
One night when the stage came in from
Del Rio a woman, young, and with a face
and manner that stamped her as above the
common herd, alighteo. She secured apart
ments at one of the hotels, a wretched con-
Germ of canvas, and when night settled down
upon the town and the revelry began, she
ventured forth. alone and unprotected, and
after a short conference with a rough turned
L T. l. > ! l.
Just as she entered the door an alteration
occurred among the gamblers about the
table where Handsome Harry" was deal
ing. Pistols were drawn in twinkling,
and a half dozen weapons were leveled at
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,
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 the saloon-keepers and the rustlers con-
gregated at Vaudeville, suspending their
business for a few hours, followed 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 it empties into the Rio Grande.
All along the bank of the Pecos, at this
point, are quicksands, and everywhere the
soil is impregnated with alkai. Handsome
Harry and the unknown girl who died in an
effort to save his life, were buried in one
common grave in that shifting alkali soil of
the Pecos bottom. A rude gravestone of
wood-a mere plank-was set above their
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.
Lastweek gray-haired man and a woman
in deep mourning alighted 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 Murderville's
monument-an immense pile of broken bot
ties, which had been thrown out by the sa-
loon 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 strangers-assisted to hunt
up the lonely grave and throw out the shift
ing 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,
them, and, perfect as in life, they were re-
produced, wrapped in the blankets that on
the frontier suffice for shrouds, in indissolu-
bic and indestructible stone.
When the spades of the Cinnamon re-
vealed the bodies the face of the veiled
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 lifelike as
when he rose, pistol in hand, to face his last
Insulter, was lifted out. His features were
perfect, and, bending over him, the veiled
woman dropped tear
Poor Harryi" 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 a vain effort to
save that of the handsome gambler was
recommitted to the petrifying soil by order
of the woman who shed tears over Harry's
resurrected remains.