ANOTHER UNFORTUNATE INCIDENT

Later when he was seventeen years old, they were rounding up horses in Falls County. Willis, a Negro, didn’t ride or rope the horse. Mr. Williams wanted him too, and walked off at breakfast time. He got on a horse and followed him, but did not think of him sassing him. He had left his rifle and pistol at camp, his real arms, and he only had a derringer in each pocket.

He pulled one of them, cocked it, but decided as he came up with it not to shoot him. Instead he just threw it, and it went off, and knocked the Negro down and bleeding. He went back to camp and told the boys he had killed the Negro. One of them wanted to tie rocks to him and throw him in Plum Creek. Mr. Williams said he wouldn’t do that. Mr. Powers was with them. So they brought him straight on through to Hamilton County and kept him there for a time. That the Negro liked it fine.

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