The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-12-09
At THE PISTOLS MOUTH.
Humiliation Well Deserved and Beauti-
fully Administered.

Sympathy.
From the New York sun.
MY first experience with the real west
ern rufian who shoots as willingly
as he eats. and with the peren-
tally fresh young drummer whose
nerve of the offensive kind is much
greater than his nerve Of the defen-
sive kind. two characters whom had. up
to that time. supposed to exist only in fc-
ton and on the stage. occurred simultan-
eously just twenty-five years ago. and
though have occasionally seen both types
since, l have never seen them come to-
gether with such satisfactory results"
The nightly game of whist had just
ended in the City club Of Auburn. and the
three companions of the Hon. William H.
4 Seward leaned back in their chairs to lis
ten, while the billiard contingent who had
just come down stairs drew near in an
ticipation of good story.
my father. Secretary Seward. had sent
me to look after some land he owned up
near where Duluth now stands. There
wasn't very much of Duluth then. but
! NHtAO was just dbOul IouEAACSA NAONA
travelling up there in consequence of the
boom in land that I've ever met with.
/ They We're scattered all over, and they
/ owned the land Every man Jack of them
was a walking arsenal On my train was
a drummer of the most festive type. The
word fresh doesn't begin to describe him.
/ He wore the gayest of clothes. and at
/ every station he would climb off the train
/ and strut about like a peacock, particu-
/ larly if there We're any women about.
/ Everybody on the train was heartily
/ tired of him and his everlasting stories
/ about himself and his rash way of appro-
/ brating whatever was best. But he
/ couldn't be suppressed, and he wasn't
/ suppressed until one fine day the train
4 broke down, and we found ourselves miles
/ from any place, early on a gray morning,
with absolutely nothing to eat.
mot far from where we broke down was
a small encampment of road-trampers en-
route for the golden country supposed to
lie about Duluth. Some of them had stuck
up tents, and to this encampment | went
/ in the hope of buying something to eat.
1t was quite early, and the encampment
seemed asleep, but from one tent heard
! a hoarse voice eXclaim:
That's the third - - bobtail I've
caught. Pass the deal for dollar jack
pot
THAT didn't sound particularly prom
ising but at least it indicated that there
was somebody awake there, so l pushed
aside the tent flap and looked in. There
sat two of the toughest characters have
/ ever SEEN They were playing poker.
Each was fianked with a bottle of whisky
and a big revolver. In their belts were
more reviewers and some ugly looking
| knives Two piles of money were on the
board that served for table. All these
things / took in, and then my eye trav-
eled over to a corner where a tin pail of
something hot was steaming over some
embers. This looked promising.
"Excuse me, gentlemen said I polite
| W. but I'm very hungry. Sould you
spare me some of that-that-that soup
in the pails?
zone of the men looked at me, then at
his cards, then at his revolver then at me
again, and said, in thick accents
".'Taint soup, it's coffee. You play,
Bill
"As he spoke he wavered gently from
| side to side, and 1 saw that both he and
his companion were very drunk. 1t struck
me that 1 might have safer neighbors
| than these, but / was frightfully hungry
so / braced up my courage and said:
"'Coffee is good enough for me. I've
| got money enough to pay for it.
s'The man called Bill looked up, scowled,
| and ierked his head toward the pail. L
needed no further invitation. seized the
/ nail and took a good long swallow of the
! contents. 1t was the most awful dose
| imaginable, worse than all the physic of
nv childhood. L gasped for breath, ana
| the card players looked up suspiciously.
| II occurred to me that l might hurt their
| feelings if l appeared not to ike the al
! legged coffee, which was a compost OF
/ beans and cinders, and wouldn't have
/ hurt their feelings for anything Wnlle
was in range of their guns. So said:
Much obliged. How much do 1 owe
your MN ,u ,or
his whisky.
| ...Noth =" snorted Bills opposite, reach
/ ing for has revolver
II didn't press the point, but thanked
! them again, and went out. At the en-
/ trance | met my drummer friend.
"'Aha, me boy he said, in his cheerful
/ way, 'scraping acquaintance IN camp.
| hey? Anything good inside? Guess III
| have look in
/ att wasn't my part to prevent him. l
couldn't have done 1t if 1 had wanted to.
! Rut I had an idea that something would
! happen after he got in, so just walked
/ around to the rear and glued my eye TO
/ hole in the tent. This is what l saw and
! hoard The drummer jauntily entered and
| sized up the place
e.Poker. hey?' he observed in his genial
vav ANYTHING to eat here|
s'The players glanced up from their
game. The look they gave that drummer
! ought to have warned him, but he had
lot of things to learn.
- Lost your voices" he pursued. What's
that stuff over there? Coffee? Say, l
guess could get away with some of that
myself
IAN omnibus silence prevailed as he
walked over lifted the pail, and took
/ mouthful, which he Immediately spat
out with a grimace.
light B-r-r-r! What the devil kind of
! stuff is that?' he exclaimed. Mud soup,
] hey? That's the rottenest stuff 1 ever
/ tasted
simultaneously the two poker players
/ reached for their guns The muzzles point
! ed directly at the drummer's head.
| ',Drink it, commanded Bill
/ Drink it, supplemented Bills com
4 panion.
/ {" But it's poison, protested the drum
| ner. turning pale. It's murder to
/ /" Drink, shouted Bill, cooking his pis-
/ toll.
Drink it up, d quick added the
| other man, cooking his
ugh, OH gasped the unfortunate