He said mentally, Phelps was a very bad, but a very brave man. He defied the city of Vicksburg, defied the law, and the State of Mississippi.
He thought of the generations before him, and family pride filled his veins with warm blood. Don Carlo was ready to face Brindle Bill, or the Brindle Devil, in defence of his rights, and he started for headquarters.
Cool, calculating woman—Simon's wife, the patient watcher for her absent husband, saw Don Carlo wending his way through the stillness of the night, to headquarters. Her keen, woman's wit, told her there was trouble ahead.
Silently, and unseen, with fire brand in hand, (this was before friction matches were thought of,) she left the Simon cabin.
When Don Carlo arrived at headquarters, the door and window was fastened on the inside, a faint light from a tallow candle, that glimmered through the cracks of the cabin, whispered the deep laid scheme of the inmates—S. S. Simon, Sundown Hill and Brindle Bill were banded together to swindle Dan Carlo. Don Carlo went there to enter that cabin. Quick as thought he clambered up the corner of the jutting logs, and passed down the chimney. In front of him, around a square table, sat four men. On the center of the table a large pile of shining silver dollars, enlivened the light of the tallow candle.
The players looked up in amazement; had an angel from heaven dropped among them, they would not have been more astonished. While the men sat, between doubt and fear, Don Carlo raked the money from the table, and put it in his pocket.
Brindle Bill was the first to rise from the table, he held up four cards, claimed the money, said he was personally insulted by Don Carlo, and by G—d he should fight it out. He chose S. S. Simon for his second, and boastingly prepared for the contest.
Don Carlo used no words, nor did he choose any second; Sundown Hill and Dan Carlo looked at each other, and at S. S. Simon, with a look that said, we stand by Don Carlo.
S. S. Simon hallooed fair play, and Brindle Bill pitched in. Brindle Bill was the stoutest man, Don Carlo the most active, the contest was sharp, and very doubtful, notwithstanding the boasting character of Brindle Bill, true pluck was upon the side of Don Carlo. At this critical moment, Simon's wife appeared upon the scene of action, the door of the cabin was fast, Simon was on the inside. She could hear the blows and smell the blood, for a lucky lick from Don had started the blood from Brindle Bill's nose, but could not see or know the combatants. Quick as thought, she applied the fire-brand to the cane pile, on the west end of the cabin. A strong breeze from the west soon enveloped the roof of the cabin in flames. The men rushed out into the open air much frightened. Simon's wife grabbed her husband and dragged him toward their home, with loud and eloquent cries of shame. The contest was ended, and Don Carlo had the money. Brindle Bill appealed to the men of his party to see that he should have fair play. His appeals were all in vain, the fear of him was broken, and he had no great desire to renew the contest. Seeing no hope in the future, Brindle Bill left the new settlement. And Don Carlo was justly entitled to the appellation of the Hero of Shirt-Tail Bend.
Society was started upon the up-grade. Some planters commenced to settle in the Bend, little towns were now springing up on the Mississippi, and Dan Carlo out of his element, made it convenient to visit the towns. A new era had dawned upon the criminal code in Arkansas—the pistol and the bowie knife, of which writers of fiction have portrayed in startling colors. Shortly after these events, Dan Carlo was found dead in a saloon.