THE DEATH OF JIM CARTWRIGHT—CHASED OFF A WIRE BY A WOMAN
I didn't stay at San Antonio very long after this but started northwards. You see it was getting to be warm weather. The first place I struck was a night job in a smashing good town up near the south line of the pan handle. I quit working at midnight, and to get to my boarding house had to walk a mile through a portion of the town called "Hell's half-acre."
The most prominent place of any description in the city was a saloon and gambling house known as the "Blue Goose," owned by John Waring and Luke Ravel. Both men were as nervy as they make 'em and several nicks in the butts of their revolvers testified mutely as to their prowess. Their place was like all other dens, and consisted of the usual bar and lunch counter in one room, while in the adjoining one was the hall of gaming. Faro, roulette, hazard, monte, and the great national game, poker, held high carnival there nightly. Next to the "Goose" was a long narrow room used as a shooting gallery. The place was only a few doors around the corner from my office, and many a night on my way home I would stop at the lunch counter and have a sandwich and a cup of coffee. I remembered my promise to bluff old Bill Bradley, and was never tempted to go in the gambling hall. I generally used to rise about noon each day and go up town and loaf until four o'clock, when it was time to go to work. I picked up a speaking acquaintance with Luke Ravel, and sometimes we would go into the shooting gallery together and have a friendly bout with the Flobert rifles.
At this time there was one of those tough characters in the town named Jim Cartwright. In days gone by he had been a deputy United States Marshal, and one time took advantage of his official position to provoke a quarrel with an enemy and killed him in cold blood. Public indignation ran high and Jim had to skip to Mexico. He stayed away two years and getting in trouble over there, came back to his old stamping grounds in hopes the people had forgotten his former scrape. They hadn't exactly forgotten it, but Jim was a pretty tough character and no one seemed to care to tackle him.
One night Luke Ravel and Jim had some words over a game of cards, and bad blood was engendered between them. The next day my side partner Frank Noel, and I went into the shooting gallery to try our luck, and were standing there enjoying ourselves, when Luke came in and took a hand. He was dressed in the height of fashion, and while we three were standing there, Jim Cartwright, three sheets in the wind, appeared in the doorway pistol in hand. He looked at Luke and said, with an oath,
"Look here, Luke Ravel, your time has come. I'm going to kill you."
My hair arose, my heart seemed to stop beating, but there was no way out, so Noel and I edged our way over as far as possible, and held our breath. Luke never turned a hair, nor changed color. He was as cool as an iceberg, and squarely facing Cartwright said,
"You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man would you, Jim?"
"Ain't you got no gun?"
"No," replied Luke, "I'm unarmed. See," and with that he threw up the tails of his long coat.