Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1890-09-12
THEY FOUGHT IN MIDAIR.
AN EXCITING DUEL NINETY FEET
ABOVE GROUND.

since on massive iron tower be-
ing erected by the water works
company. The story of the strange
duel il thus described 6y the
Herald. When completed this
tower will be 120 feet high. The
steel plants are five feet wide and
ten feet long, and the line OF rivets
on the main joints, which run hOri.
zontally, and the upright seems,
which connect the plates end to
end, call for riyet at every two
inches. 1t, therefore, takes 10
rivets to set single course OF
plates. The tower had reached
the height of ninety feet, and two
gangs of riveters were at work
with their heaters and their hold
ers.on. The latter work on the in
side of the tower, while the men
who hammer the rivets to a head
work on the frail scaffold on the
outside. To the behOlder who
stands on the solid earth this out
side scaffOld seems to be as thin,
as frail, and as delicate as spiders
web. There il winds around The
tall, black, iron tower, trail below
and dwindling away in the upward
distance into nOthingness. Ninety
feet from the ground, and on this
frall scsfiold, the other morning
two rlveters we're working, and
from some unaccountable cause be.
came involved in an alteration.
Bessemer steel is hard, but it Is
not harder than the hearts of IN.
furiated men. Iron rivets, await
ing the touch OF the hammer, are
hot, but they are not hotter than
the infamed passions of the sons
of Adam. The riveters in question
cane with the water-work CON-
pany from Syracuse, N. Y. One
was Mique, tie other Dennlce.-
Each man swung a seven.pOnnd
Hammer. Mique made a mislick
and struck Dennlce on the hand.
Maddened with the sudden pain,
Dennice became at once demon
aad swung his hammer full and
fair at the head of Mique. Had
the iron head of the hammer crush
ed in those locks a mangled and
lifeless and half-headless corpse
would have tOppled down to the
solid earth, ninety feet below
Mique, however, throw up his ham.
mer in a defensive way, and par
ried the blow. Again the hammer
of Dennice swung, and again it
was parrled, bat as Its head carom-
ed on the steel head of Mique's
defensive hammer it shot of on a
tangent, like a glancing arrow that
strikes a tree, and knocked away
one Of tho supports of the scaffOld.
There was sickening, cracking
sound as the frall upright was
knocked away from the braces and
down went the ends of two planks
comprising one section of the scat
told. Mique, who had been re-
treating from before the fierce ad-'
vances Of Dennice, was on a firm
footing, but Dennice was compelled
to make a giant spring to save
himself. In the terror of tie mo.
ment lie leaped almost to the very
shoulders of the affrighted MIque
and knocked him down backward,
falling on top of him. The force OF
the cOncussio was such that both
men rolled TO the edge of the scat.
fold, and over went Dennice.
Instinclively, and III the des.
peration Of the moment, he caught
one heel 10 the upright immediate.
~ behind him and threw his left
arm around the neck of Mique.
There he hung on the edge of the
scaffold, suspended by only one
heel and wrist, while below him
nearly a hundred feet below-was
a row of iron pipes and plates of
steel. To tall was 10 be dashed to
pieces.
To fall on the pipes was to break
arms and legs and back. To fall
Oh the curved and upturned edges
of the plates was to be cut into
huge and ghastly slices.
The mau's baDd trembled, and
his hammer dropped from his nerv-
GUS grasp. 1t Went swiftly down.
ward, hit projection in the seal.
fold, bounded off, and striking a
fifteen inch pipe, broke it IN two as
oleverly and as keenly as if it had
been split with a knife. The hand |
swung over and grasped Mique
around the loiDs with an awful
teDaclty, and there the men strug |
gIed on the awful verge of the
scaffold, and at that dizzy height. |
Dennice had almost managed to
swing his weight on the scaffo d
when MIque's hickory shirt ripped,
and back the man went into space,
this time losing the purchase of
his heel, and swinging clear over
so that he held himself only by one
arm, and hung suspended uprigh;
In the air. Mique managed to
thrust the toes of his lett foot be.
tween the two narrow planks that
constituted the scaffOld, and thus
acquired a leverage. Throwing
over The other shoulder, by strong
and almost miraculous movement,
be swung the suspended body OF
Dennice back to the platform and
dashed his face against the tower.
There be lay, mOtiOnless and still,
lhd when their companions reached
hem they found that both had
ainted dead away. The awful
Iuel had lasted less than forty
econds, bat there is none on record
hat can compete with it.
Ten minutes latter Dennlce and
IInua were hammarinO away at