A Shootout on the Border
A prospector and a frontier rival face off in an armed dispute at the mouth of the Pend Oreille River, only to be stopped by a local storekeeper.
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.
An exciting little fracas occurred at Waneta landing, at the mouth of the Pend Oreille river on the British Columbia border, between C. D. Proctor, better known as 'Death-on-the-Trail,' and Al Bartlett, or 'Texas.' 'Death' was down near the water washing gold from the sand, when he was confronted by Bartlett with a rifle. Proctor took cover behind a rock as four shots were fired at him. Mrs. Beebe, a storekeeper at the landing, hearing the firing, rushed upon Bartlett and disarmed him before he could continue the assault. The affair grew out of Proctor accusing Bartlett of the theft of an overcoat, leading to a public feud. Bartlett has been arrested and sent to Nelson to face charges.
“Being a large, powerful woman, she fearlessly rushed upon Texas and disarmed him.”
The rugged, lawless history of the borderlands often manifested in colorful, high-stakes personal disputes. This event captures the 'frontier' mythology of the era, where disputes were settled with iron, yet intervened upon by members of the community.
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