Connecticut western news., 1908-01-16
HIS PROOF
 OF COURAGE.
[Original.1

Philip Woodsum; you are too prosaic. Now, if you would only knock some one down-some one who had insulted me-
 "But no one has insulted you"
 Some one might, then what would I do for a protectorw
 Phil left her much depressed, and when a man Is depressed about his love affairs it either takes away his appetite or makes him hungry. It made Phil hungry. He started for a restaurant picking up his friend Sid ney Searle by the way, to whom. he told his troubles Searle told him that the proper thing for him to do under the circumstances was to find some means of showing his prowess. The friends went into cafe and ordered brace of chops and a toby of ale for each. At table near by were several young men in evening dress regaling themselves with oysters and cham pagne.
 Phil" said Sidney, that fellow with a molasses candy mustache Is staring at you"
 w udL yOu lLuluh l u DCLIOE uO1
 GO up to him and tell him that you'll give him a chance to stare at you over the muzzle of pistol"
 Phil reluctantly dragged himself from his chair and went through the required performance. Cards were ex- changed the offenders pasteboard bearing the name of Harold Littlefeld. He explained that he thought Phil was an acquaintance of his, but the ex- plantation was not accepted, and Sidney took it upon himself to arrange for a meeting The principals were to fight at o'clock the next morning at a lonely spot a few miles out of town on the bank of the river.
 Phil went home and to bed, first set ting his alarm clock. He went to sleep at o'clock, and the alarm went off at 4. It is hard to conceive of any thing more uncomfortable than being sound to the consciousness of having to go out in the raw air to be shot at. Phil got up languidly, dressed himself slowly and started for the dueling ground. The nearer he approached it the weaker grew his resolution. The result was that 6 o'clock found him half a mile from the appointed spot, sitting on log looking very disconso- late.
 Then he was seized with curiosity to go and, unobserved, take a look at the place and see how his friend and his enemy took his absence. So he got up and trudged on, stopping at a place where he could overlook the field from behind a tree. He saw the two seconds walking back and forth to keep off the morning chill, but there was not a principal in sight. It oc- cured to Phil that Harold Littlefeld was as averse to being shot as himself. Here was the chance of a Lifetime. Phil determined to hurry down to the seconds, trumping up by the way an excuse for being late, and bluster about the absence of the man who had agreed to fight him.
 MT. Littlefeld had suffered the same disinclination as Phil to having the warm blood let out of his body on a cold morning. He had halted in a wood on the side of the field opposite to where Phil was in hiding and, see ing that his enemy had not appeared, resolved to go down and claim a vic tory by default. By curious coin cidence in time the two men started forward at the same moment. Unfer tunately they caught sight of each oth- CT when 1t was too late to retreat. Both stopped and stared. Both half turned as if to flee, then simultaneous ly dragged themselves forward.
 The seconds looked at them sternly and asked the cause of their delay. Both gave very lame excuses, but so long as they were there to shoot each other the rest was unimportant. The seconds proceeded to get all in read1- ness, pacing off the ground and look ing to the condition of the weapons.
 Whats the distance?" faltered Phil in whisper to Sidney.
 Twenty paces," replied his second.
 Cant you make 1t fortyr"
 'I'll sec"
 Sidney marched up to the opposing second and asked the wishes of his principal as the challenged party con corning the distance.
 My principal says sixty paees," re- piled the second.
 Sidney went back to Phil and report ed the result.
 "Try for eighty" said>Phtl
 Eighty! Nonsensew Phil insisted, and Sidney went back and succeeded in arranging for eighty paces on the ground that his man was farsighted. The men were placed in position, and Sidney was about to give the signal for firing when a chatter of horses hoofs was heard on the road behind the rise from which Phil had started to claim a bloodless victory. The next minute girl on horseback shot over the rise and, seeing the men in position to shoot at each other, gave a shriek. Riding between them, she drew rein. She was Stella Hopkins.
 It was impossible that the duel should proceed. Phil threw down his pistol as though greatly aggravated, the op-