TWO MEN KILLED IN A FIGHT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10407, 3 April 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

TWO MEN KILLED IN A FIGHT.

TRAGIIC AFFAIR IN ARKANSAS. A man who has seen much of the rough life in American frontier settlements writes :— " The first time I ever saw a man killed was in a knife fight. I was standing on the upper deck of a Mississippi steamboat, about thirty year? ago, on my first trip South. The boat had stopped at Helena, Ark., to take on freight, and I was watching the roustaboiits bringing it aborad. It was a tremendously hot day in tho late summer, and I, standing in the shade of an awning on the upper deck, looked down over the gangway and the lower deck in anmeraent to see how the poor devils could work as they did, for they ran to and fro liko ants, while the mate of the boat stood shouting hie orders and cursing them for their laziness. They didn't seem to me to be Inzy, but it ie the fashion to call a roustabout so and to curse at him pretty steadily while he works, just as a mule driver curses at his train on general principles. " Most of the ' roasters' were black, or part negro, though there were a few who looked liko white men, and probably were, and thorn was one fellow that I thought had both Indian and negro blood in hi? veins. He was a strapping big man, and I noticed that while ho carried as heavy a load each rime as any of the others, he carriod it without any perceptible effort unci without the strain of muscle that the others showed. They were all stripped to the waist for the work, as ' roasters generally are, or were then, in the hottest weather, and I noticed his physique with admiration. He looked the most powerful roan in the gang. " Suddenly ha b'loiped against another man who was going ofl the boat for a fresh load is he was coming on with his. I could not see whoso fault it was, or whether it was a pure accident, but in an instant he had thrown hi< load to the deck and struck at the other with his fist. The other man was a very black negro, and considerably smaller than the hnlf-breod, but he was as quick as a cat, and jumping baekwnrd he avoided the blow and stood on the defensive.

" He was very much on the defensive, too, for as he juncped he put his hand to his belt, and as he struck hN attitude he held out a murderous knife with a blade almost if not quite ten inches long. It wns a peculiar shaped knife, too, for a weapon, for it was straight and narrow, with a ,tapering point and only one edge, but the back was almost half an inch thick, and, of course, very heavy. It was almost like a chopping-knife. I noticed, too, that he held it with the blade out from tho thumb, as a man holds a sword. It is not the way a knife fighter usually holds his weapon, and I understood, when I had time to think it over, why he wanted so heavy a knife, for some of his blows were delivered broadsword fashion, while others were thrusts. "As I say, it was afterwards that 1 understood this. I hadn't time to reason it out until the affair was all over, for the half-breed whipped out his knife as quickly as the other, and jumped forward, like a cat, in attack, His knife was a regular bowie, shorter, of course, than the other man's, and much lighter, and ho held it in the approved style, with the blade at the little finger side of the band, They were together on the instant, and there was an instantaneous babel around them, for the other men yelled savagely as they crowded around, and the mate roared like a bull at ho jumped toward them with the ovidont intention of separating them, or perhaps of knocking them down, lower deck fashion. Whatever his intention was, he abandoned it boforo getting between the two men, and I thought very wisely. From where I stood, just above them, I could seo every motion, and I would as soon have jumped into a railroad collision as to have tried to interfere in that fight. It was very short, but while it lasted it was about the most exciting thing I ever saw. " It was impossible for me, and I think it would have been for anyone, to follow all the motions of the owo men, though 1 watched closely, for they wore both skilful fighters, and their thrusts and parries were as quick as the finger of a prestidigitateur. It must have been lees than a minute before it was all over, though it seemed a quarter of an hour as I watched. The half-breed made a faint at the other's neck, as ho jumped forward, but changed the direction of the blow as he delivered ib, so that the thrust was really at his right side. The negro, however, parried it so well that the sparks flew as the two knives clashed. He parried with a downward stroke, and, swinging his arm around in a quick return, twisted his wrist over, so as to bring his edge forward in a back-handed awkwardlooking slash at the other's jugular. "Awkward as it looked, it was the wickedest blow I ever saw struck, and must) have been either an inspiration or the result of long study and practice. His elbow was raised in bringing the. knifo back as he did, and the half-breed, unable to get his knife back quickly enough to parry after it had been struck downward, ducked just in time to save bis neck, bub got a glancing blow across the scalp that laid it open. Closing in, after this frightful beginning, they broke each other's guard and stabbed and slashed till they both tell. The half-breed's knife was driven squarely into the negro's heart, and his victim nerer moved after he fell. 'Twae a victory, however, for the negro, a< be got his death blow, avenged himself with a terrific slash across I the throat that "half beheaded his enemy, and after a few seconds and one or two con- , Tuliive Bb.udie.re, he,, too, vr»d«d,"