The Duelist Who Missed Himself
A scorned man attempts an eccentric form of vengeance after a deadly quarrel with a local shopkeeper.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Two men were proprietors of stores and had a deadly quarrel; they decided that blood only would wash out the insults that passed between them. Both men were eccentric to a degree, and they agreed that lots should be drawn, and that the loser should at once proceed to some retired spot and shoot himself. Next morning the opponents and their seconds met at a small cliff side of the town. Lots were drawn; the store proprietor drew the winner. The second took his bad fortune calmly. He wrote a few lines on a piece of paper, which he handed to his second, took an affectionate farewell of all, and forgave his more fortunate adversary, as a man of his union ought to do. He then, accepting the loaded pistol, moved steadily into a nearby room and closed the door. The others remained breathless, awaiting the detonation which was to convey to them the finale of the tragedy. At last it came; eagerly they ran to the door of the fatal chamber, when it was thrust open, and the supposed defunct stood on the threshold grasping the smoking weapon. "It is a miss, gentlemen," exclaimed he, with a bland smile, "is it not unfortunate? I have missed myself!"
“It is a miss, gentlemen. Is it not unfortunate? I have missed myself!”
While this tale of 'eccentric' dueling in the West reads like a tall story designed for column-filling, it speaks to the high-stakes personal honor culture of the 1880s frontier, where even a routine business dispute could be framed as a matter of life and death.
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