Jesse, however, was innocent. He did not know where Carter could be found. Further inquiry developed that he was in Glass’ store. Rube knocked loudly on the door, and stepping aside, covered Jesse with his pistol, and in a stern whisper said:
“Tell him the express people have come, and McDuffie wants him at the jail quick.”
A clerk answered the call to the door, and to him Jesse repeated the order in a voice loud enough to be heard by Carter, who was in the rear part of the store. Carter’s footsteps could be distinctly heard as he came across the floor. Just as he appeared in the doorway Rube threw himself in front of him, and placing his pistol within a few inches of Carter’s breast, commanded:
“Give me my rifle and my money, or I will shoot your head off.”
Carter, instantly taking in the situation, replied, “All right,” and placing his hand in his hip pocket, pulled a thirty-two caliber Smith & Wesson pistol.
The hour was just at dawn of day. The two men stood face to face, the one gleaming with rage and thirsting for revenge, the other cool, fearless and determined, with law and justice on his side, not to accede to the outlaw’s demand.
When the sheen of Carter’s pistol flashed upon Rube’s vision the outlaw fired, and Carter, anticipating the shot, threw his body to the right. The ball pierced the left shoulder, just above the collar bone, making a painful wound. Carter’s intrepid courage was not dashed by his wound, and he instantly returned the fire.
Rube, for the first time in all his career of crime, was called to stand and fight. He had “held the drop” on many a field of rencontre, but here was an even gauge of battle, with the qui vive as the vantage ground for him.
Carter boldly advanced upon the outlaw, and, with steady nerve, pressed the trigger of his faithful revolver, but Rube backed away after the first shot from Carter’s pistol, and continued backing and firing until he had retreated some thirty paces, and until he himself had fired five shots. Just as Carter fired his fourth round, Rube turned, and running some ten paces, leaped a few feet in the air and fell prostrate upon the earth, stone dead.
After falling upon his knees, from loss of blood, Carter managed to fire a fifth shot. The fourth shot from Carter’s pistol, however, had entered the upper abdomen, and cutting the portal artery, caused instant death. This was the only shot that hit Rube.