“On the instant Pete drew a bowie knife, with a motion so quick that I could not tell where the knife came from, and drove it square through the stranger’s hand into the table underneath, nailing it fast to the wood.
“If the stranger had even flinched, he would have been dead in another moment, for Jack’s pistol was leveled at him, but with a motion as quick as Pete’s he reached over with his left hand, seized his revolver, and shot Jack through the pistol arm, shattering his elbow, just as he was pulling his trigger. And the next instant he had shot Pete through the heart, and turning to the Major, he shouted, ‘Drop that gun!’
“The old fellow dropped it, and threw up his hands. The other man had gone under the table like a flash, being only anxious to get out of the trouble. And Jack, with a howl of pain and terror, had turned and run. The fight was over before it was fairly begun, and the stranger had not moved from his chair.
“With his left hand he pulled out the knife and wrapped up his right in a handkerchief, and, stepping to the bar, said to the bartender:
“‘You want to have a doctor here damned quick to dress my hand. And while you are about it, you’d better notify the Coroner, if there’s one around. I propose to have this inquest held before the witnesses get away.’
“The Coroner was around; in fact, he was playing cards only four or five doors away, and in half an hour he was holding his inquest. The stranger had shown his good sense in demanding immediate action, for though he was a stranger, the facts were too plain for a dispute, and even one or two of Pete’s friends on the jury were forced to admit that the stranger had killed his man in self-defense.
“He was accordingly informed by the Coroner that he could go on his own recognizance to appear before the Grand Jury, and after treating the crowd at the dead man’s bar, and paying for the treat with the chips he had on the card table, he went over to the levee and boarded a boat that had stopped on her way up river.
“He had given his name to the Coroner as Dick Davis of Tuscumbia, Ala., and I afterward heard that he was really a cross-roads gambler, as traveling card sharps used to be called, and was a famous pistol shot. Why he did not kill Jack as well as Pete I never really understood, for if the stories of his marksmanship were one-half true, he could have done it easily enough. I never knew what the Grand Jury did about it.”