. The next day my side partner
Frank Noel, and I went into the shooting gallery to try our luck, and
were standing there enjoying ourselves, when Luke came in and took a
hand. He was dressed in the height of fashion, and while we three were
standing there, Jim Cartwright, three sheets in the wind, appeared in
the doorway pistol in hand. He looked at Luke and said, with an oath,

"Look here, Luke Ravel, your time has come. I'm going to kill you."

My hair arose, my heart seemed to stop beating, but there was no way
out, so Noel and I edged our way over as far as possible, and held our
breath. Luke never turned a hair, nor changed color. He was as cool as
an iceberg, and squarely facing Cartwright said,

"You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man would you, Jim?"

"Ain't you got no gun?"

"No," replied Luke, "I'm unarmed. See," and with that he threw up the
tails of his long coat.

Jim hesitated a minute, and then shoving his gun into his pocket he
said,

"No, by heavens, I won't kill an unarmed man. I'll give you a chance
for your life, but I warn you to fix yourself, because the next time I
see you I'm going to let daylight through your carcass," and with
another oath he turned to walk away. Hardly had he taken two steps, when
there was a blinding flash followed by a loud report, and Jim Cartwright
lay dead, shot through the heart, while Luke Ravel stood over him; a
smoking .38 pocket pistol in his hand. Where he pulled his gun from no
one ever knew; it was all over in a flash. It seems a cowardly thing to
shoot a man in the back, but it was a case of 'dog eat dog.'

Luke was arrested next day, and Noel and I gave our testimony before the
coroner's jury, and he was bound over for trial before the next term of
the circuit court to sit six months hence. There is an old and very
trite saying in Texas that, "a dead witness is better than a live one."
This was gently whispered into our ears, and accordingly one night about
a month after this, Noel and I "folded our tents, and like the Arabs,
silently stole away."

Luke was acquitted on the plea of self defence.

Spring time having come, and with it the good hot weather, I continued
to move northwards and finally brought up in a good office in Nebraska,
where I was to copy the night report from Chicago. We had two wires
running to Chicago, one a quad for the regular business, and the other a
single string for "C. N. D." and report work. My stay in this office
was, short,