those are dangerous spots. Aim below the knee; cripple him, but leave the rest of him to his mother.”
By grace of these truly wise and excellent instructions, Joe tumbled Fitch down next morning with a bullet through his lower leg, which furnished him a permanent limp. And Joe lost nothing but a lock of hair, which he could spare better then than he could now. For when I saw him here in New York a year ago, his crop was gone: he had nothing much left but a fringe, with a dome rising above.
(1864.)
About a year later I got my chance. But I was not hunting for it. Goodman went off to San Francisco for a week’s holiday, and left me to be chief editor. I had supposed that that was an easy berth, there being nothing to do but write one editorial per day; but I was disappointed in that superstition. I couldn’t find anything to write an article about, the first day. Then it occurred to me that inasmuch as it was the 22nd of April, 1864, the next morning would be the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s birthday — and what better theme could I want than that? I got the Cyclopædia and examined it, and found out who Shakespeare was and what he had done, and I borrowed all that and laid it before a community that couldn’t have been better prepared for instruction about Shakespeare than if they had been prepared by art. There wasn’t enough of what Shakespeare had done to make an editorial of the necessary length, but I filled it out with what he hadn’t done — which in many respects was more important and striking and readable than the handsomest things he had really accomplished. But next day I was in trouble again. There were no more Shakespeares to work up. There was nothing in past history, or in the world’s future possibilities, to make an editorial out of, suitable to that community; so there was but one theme left. That theme was Mr. Laird, proprietor of the Virginia “Union.” His editor had gone off to San Francisco too, and Laird was trying his hand at editing. I woke up Mr. Laird with some courtesies of the kind that were fashionable among newspaper editors in that region, and he came back at me the next day in a most vitriolic way. He was hurt by something I had said about him — some little thing — I don’t remember what it was now — probably called him a horse-thief, or one of those little phrases customarily used to describe another editor. They were no doubt just, and accurate, but Laird was a very sensitive creature, and he didn’t like it. So we expected a challenge from Mr. Laird, because according to the rules — according to the etiquette of duelling as reconstructed and reorganized and improved by the duellists of that region — whenever you said a thing about another person that he didn’t like, it wasn’t sufficient for him to talk back in the same offensive spirit: etiquette required him to send a challenge; so we waited for a challenge — waited all day. It didn’t come. And as the day wore along, hour after hour, and no challenge came, the boys grew depressed. They lost heart. But I was cheerful; I felt better and better all the time. They couldn’t understand it, but I could understand it. It was my make that enabled me to be cheerful when other people were despondent. So then it became necessary for us to waive etiquette and challenge Mr. Laird. When we reached that decision, they began to cheer up, but I began to lose some of my animation. However, in enterprises of this kind you are in the hands of your friends; there is nothing for you to do but to abide by what they consider to be the best course. Daggett wrote a challenge for me, for Daggett had the language — the right language — the convincing language — and I lacked it. Daggett poured out a stream of unsavory epithets upon Mr. Laird, charged with a vigor and venom of a strength calculated to persuade him; and Steve Gillis, my second, carried the challenge and came back to wait for the return. It didn’t come. The boys were exasperated, but I kept my temper. Steve carried another challenge, hotter than the other, and we waited again. Nothing came of it. I began to feel quite comfortable. I began to take an interest in the challenges myself. I had not felt any before; but it seemed to me that I was accumulating a great and valuable reputation at no expense, and my delight in this grew and grew, as challenge after challenge was declined, until by midnight I was beginning to think that there was nothing in the world so much to be desired as a chance to fight a duel. So I hurried Daggett up; made him keep on sending challenge after challenge. Oh, well, I overdid it; Laird accepted. I might have known that that would happen — Laird was a man you couldn’t depend on.
The boys were jubilant beyond expression. They helped me make my will, which was another discomfort — and I already had enough. Then they took me home. I didn’t sleep any — didn’t want to sleep. I had plenty of things to think about, and less than four hours to do it in, — because five o’clock was the hour appointed for the tragedy, and I should have to use up one hour — beginning at four — in practising with the revolver and finding out which end of it to level at the adversary. At four we went down into a little gorge, about a mile from town, and borrowed a barn door for a mark — borrowed it of a man who was over in California on a visit — and we set the barn door up and stood a fence-rail up against the middle of it, to represent Mr. Laird. But the rail was no proper representative of him, for he was longer than a rail and thinner. Nothing would ever fetch him but a line shot, and then as like as not he would split the bullet — the worst material for duelling purposes that could be imagined. I began on the rail. I couldn’t hit the rail; then I tried the barn door; but I couldn’t hit the barn door. There was nobody in danger except stragglers around on the flanks of that mark. I was thoroughly discouraged, and I didn’t cheer up any when we presently heard pistolshots over in the next little ravine. I knew what that was — that was Laird’s gang out practising him. They would hear my shots, and of course they would come up over the ridge to see what kind of a record I was making — see what their chances were against me. Well, I hadn’t any record; and I knew that if Laird came over that ridge and saw my barn door without a scratch on it, he would be as anxious to fight as I was — or as I had been at midnight, before that disastrous acceptance came.
Now just at this moment, a little bird, no bigger than a sparrow, flew along by and lit on a sage-bush about thirty yards away. Steve whipped out his revolver and shot its head off. Oh, he was a marksman — much better than I was. We ran down there to pick up the bird, and just then, sure enough, Mr. Laird and his people came over the ridge, and they joined us. And when Laird’s second saw that bird, with its head shot off, he lost color, he faded, and you could see that he was interested. He said:
“Who did that?”
Before I could answer, Steve spoke up and said quite calmly, and in a matter-of-fact way,
“Clemens did it.”
The second said, “Why, that is wonderful. How far off was that bird?”
Steve said, “Oh, not far — about thirty yards.”
The second said, “Well, that is astonishing shooting. How often can he do that?”
Steve said languidly, “Oh, about four times out of five.”
I knew the little rascal was lying, but I didn’t say anything. The second said, “Why, that is amazing shooting; I supposed he couldn’t hit a church.”
He was supposing very sagaciously, but I didn’t say anything. Well, they said good morning. The second took Mr. Laird home, a little tottery on his legs, and Laird sent back a note in his own hand declining to fight a duel with me on any terms whatever.
Well, my life was saved — saved by that accident. I don’t know what the bird thought about that interposition of Providence, but I felt very, very comfortable over it — satisfied and content. Now, we found out, later, that Laird had hit his mark four times out of six, right along. If the duel had come off, he would have so filled my skin with bullet-holes that it wouldn’t have held my principles.
By breakfast-time the news was all over town that I had sent a challenge and Steve Gillis had carried it. Now that would entitle us to two years apiece in the penitentiary, according to the brand-new law. Judge North sent us no message as coming from himself, but a message came from a close friend of his. He said it would be a good idea for us to leave
