MORE DEADLY THAN KNIVER.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 16, 15 July 1893, Page 14

MORE DEADLY THAN KNIVER.

We were in camp on the banks of the Brazos River of Texas for the night. At supper time a dispute arose between two men, and before anyone had looked upon it as a serious matter, they were facing each other with knives in their hands. The disputants were border men. The lie had been given and the} r meant fight. It was simply how they should fight —how to give the smaller man an equal chance. “ Look here,” said Big Carter, who had charge of the outfit, “ thar’s an old adobe, and we’ll hang a blanket at the door. We’ll turn you both loose in thar, and when I fire my revolver the fun can begin.” Robody said no. He would have been looked upon as chicken-hearted. The disputants readily agreed. Had one of them declined he would have been branded a coward. The frontier has its laws and customs. Both men stripped to the waist, and each was armed with a keen bowie knife. There were no threats, no boasting. Each pulled off his shoes, and Jim, the half-bred, was the first man to pass in after the blanket had been hung up. That blanket made it midnight darkness inside. Frank, as we called him, followed within ten seconds. “ Row, boys,” said Big Carter, as he stood at the door, “ take opposite sides. Row, git ready. Row, hunt dor each other!” At the lost -word he fired his revolver in the air, and the whole crowd stood in a half-circle before the door. Five minutes passed aud there was no sound. Some one whispered that they were circling around the wall in the darkness. Another five five minutes, but no clash of, steel, no vengeful cry, no shriek of pain and fury as one of the murderous knives drank blood. Come, hoys, don’t be afraid of each other !” cried big Carter in his impatience, and almost every individual murmured his applause. Five minutes more, and still no sound. The scars which these men had exhibited in the firelight were proofs of their courage. The hut was not a large one. One should have found the other in the first five minutes. “ Boys, they are afraid of each ether !” shouted Big Carter when the watch showed that they had been inside twenty minutes. I reckon we’d just better have them out, and ” “Sh !” interrupted a man who had crept close to the door. All listen. “ What’s that.” “ Rattlesnakes, by jingo !” replied Cartel*. “ A dozen of ’em !” shouted two or three others in chorus. We got a pole and removed the blanket. Then we tied a torch to the pole and thrust it into the hut. Both men were lying on the floor, their knives clutched in their hands. Between them, around them, crawling over them, were a dozen or more monster rattle-snakes. Both had been bitten over and over again before their knives had crossed. Jim had entered first and probably felt the deadly fangs first. It was a duel to the death, and he had not cried out. Frank had followed, to be struck in the same way, but he, too had maintained silence. They were past all help when we pulled them out. Each had been bitten three or four times. Even the hands which held the bright-bladed knives had been struck as the men sank down in their tracks. A cry, a rush outdoors, would have saved both, but were the fangs of tht serpents less deadly than the knives ? “Both game men, and you bet they ■was !” said Big Carter as we filled up the shallow graves, and that was all. Rext day they seemed to have been entirely forgotten by everybody.—■ Rew York Sun.