Year: 1876

/ t1


Mark Twain contributes the follow
ing to Tom Hoods Annual:


The only merit. I claim for the fol
/ lowing narrative is that it is a tru,
story. It has a moral on the end of it
| but claim nothing on that, as it i.
merely thrown in to curry favor with
the religious element. Iv


After | had reported couple o.
years on the Virginia City (Nev. Daily
Enterprise they promoted me to be Ed
itor-in- Chief; and / lasted just week
by the watch. Butl made an uncom.
monty lively newspaper while / did
last, and when [ retired / had duel
on my hands and three horsewhippinga
promised me.


The latter I made no attempt to col
lect; however, this story concerns only
the former. 1t was the old flush
times" of the silver excitement, when
the population was wonderfully wild
and mixed; everybody went armed to
the teeth, and all Sights and insults
had to be atoned for with the best ar
ticle of blood your system could fur
nish. In the course of my editing |
made trouble with Mr.. Lord, the
editor of rival paper. He few up
about some little trifie or other that |
said about him-I do not remember
now what it was. suppose | called
him thief, or a body-snatcher, or an
idiot, or something lihe that; | was OBJ
liged to make the paper readable, and
couldn't fail in nay duty to a whole
community of subscribers merely to
save the exaggerated sensitiveness
of an individual. Mr.. Lord was of
Tended, and replied vigorously in his
paper. Vigorously means great deal
when it refers to personal editorial
in frontier newspaper. Dueling was
all the fashion among the upper classes
in that country and very few gentlemen
would throw away the opportunity of
fighting one. To kill one man in a
duel caused man to be even more
looked up to than to kill two men in
the ordinary way. Well, out there if
you abused a man and that man did not
like it, you had to call him out and
kill him, otherwise you would be dis
graced. So | challenged Mr.. Lord,
and I did hope he would not accept;
but knew perfectly we'll that he did
not want to fight, and so l challenged
him in the most violent and implaca-
BILE manner. And then sat down and
snuffed and snuffed till the answer
came. All the boys-the editors
were in the Office helping me in the
dismal business, and telling of duels,
discussing the code with a lot of aged
ruffians, who had experience in such
matters, and altogether there was a
loving interest ia ken in the matter that
made me unspeakably uncomfortable.
The answer came-Mr. Lord declined.
Our boys were furious, and so was |
on the surface.


| sent him another challenge, and
another, and the more he did not want
to fight the more bloodthirsty | be-
came. But at last the mans tone be-
gan to change. He appeared to be
waking up. Itw becoming apparent
that he was going to fight me after all.
| ought to have known how it would
be-he was man who could never be
depended upon. Our boys were jubi-
liant. | was not. though | tried hard
to be.


Itwas now time to go out and practice.
1t was the custom there to fight duels
with navy six-shooters at fifteen PAGES
load and empty till game for the fu-
neral was secure. We went to ravine
Just out of town and borrowed a barn
door for a target-borrowed it from
gentleman who was absent-and we
stood his barn door up, and stood
rail on the end against the middle of
it to represent Lord, and put squash
on top of the rail to represent the
head. He was very tall, lean crea-
ture. the poorest sort of material for
duel; nothing but line shot could
fetch him, and even then he might
splity your bullet Exaggeration aside,
the rail was, of course, little too thin
to represent the body accurately, but
the squash was all right Ifthere was
any intellectual difference between the
SQUASH and his head it was in favor of
the squash.


Well, practiced and practiced at
the barn door and could not hit it; and
| practiced at the rail and could not
hit that; and | tried for the squash
and could not hit that. would have
been entirely disheartened but that oc-
casionally / crippled one of the boys,
and that gave me hope.


At last we began to hear pistol shots
near by in the next ravine We knew
what that meant The other party
was out practicing too. Then [ was
in the last degree distressed, for of
course they would hear our shots, and
then send over theridge, and the spies
would find my barn door without a
wound or mark and that would simply
be an end to me for of course the other
man would Immediately become as
bloodthirsty as | was.


just at that moment little bird no
larger than sparrow few by and lit
on bush about thirty PAGES away, and
my little second Steve Gills, who
was dead shot with a pistol-much
better than | was-snatched out his
revolver and shot the birds head off!
We all ran to pick up the game. and
sure enough, just at this moment, some
of the other duelists came reconnoit-
erine over the little ridge. They ran
to our group to see what the matter
was. and when they saw the bird Lord S
second said:


That was splendid shot. How far
off was it2"


Steve said with some Indifference:


"Oh, no great distance. About
] thirty PAGES,