Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1903 — LOST HIS NERVE. [ARTICLE]

LOST HIS NERVE.

:: • r—; - ■ , ■ - J Whr It Wm That Blit Pete Failed to Hit the Sheriff. There were thirty men in the White Wolf saloon when the sheriff of Silver county sauntered in to arrest big Pete Thompson fifif murder. Pete was playing a baud In a frame of poker, and after nodding to him the sheriff stood up at the bar and cnlled for a drink. His back was scarcely turned when Pete laid down his cards, pulled his gun and fired six /hots as fast as his finger could pull the trigger. The sheriff never- moved. ' When the smoke had rolled out of the open door and we could see, the sheriff stood in the same position anfß wort* the same smile. One j bullet had burned his cheek; a second ! had grazed his ear; a third had cut I through his shirt collar under the left ear. Big Pete was a dead shot, and yet he had missed his man at fifteen feet. v “Got through, Pete?” asked the sheriff, breaking a silence that was positively painful. “And you—you are not heeled!” gasped Pete as his arm sunk slowly down. “No; come on.” “You didn't bring your guns?” “No: if you are" "through shooting, we’ll go.” Pete laid his two guns down on the table before him and walked to the door and out into the street. Hiahorse was. tied to a post a block away. He ! reached the, .horsey-mounted and then j headed down the long street after the i sheriff, who was giving him not the \ slightest attention. In five minutes the pair were out of sight. “What ailed Pete?” was asked of the barkeeper, who had come, to the door of the saloon. “Lost his nerve,” he brusquely re l plied. i “How do you mean?” “Why, the sheriff coming without a gun and standing there to be idiot lit took ail his sand away and made a wm' man of him.” “Suppose the sheriff-had had a ami?" The man jerked his head toward the field wherein fifteen or twenty victims had been buried and said: “He'd ’a’ bin over thar.” “And will big Pete get clear?” “Likely:.but he’ll have to leave here. The boys have already put him down as N. G.”