True stories of old Houston and Houstonians: historical and personal sketches / by S. O. Young. Page: 138
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138 TRUE STORIES OF OLD
of him and tried to quiet and pacify him. When he reached
the box he tore down the curtains and ordered three girls to
bring him three bottles of champagne, which they did in a hurry.
The show had been forced to come to a standstill by now and
everybody was watching the cowboy.
"While he was drinking his wine a fellow on the stage began
to sing. The cowboy promptly ordered him to stop. The fellow
paid no attention, but went on singing. The cowboy hammered
on the box with a bottle and made a terrible racket. Finally the
singer got mad and, advancing to the front of the stage, asked
if there was not an officer in the house to take that drunken
nuisance out and lock him up. There was no response, for the
policeman, if there was one there, was hidden out. The singer
repeated his request for an officer and finally the cowboy said
to him that if he wanted him put out so bad he had better
undertake the job himself.
"The singer was game and accepted the challenge and announced
that he would do so.. He advanced 'to the side of the
stage and began climbing up to the box. It was about ten feet,
being on the second tier. The cowboy sat right still until the
fellow got nearly to the top, then he reached out and caught him
by the collar of his eoat and dragged him into the box. They
dropped to the floor in a clinch, but as they fell I saw the cowboy
had his knife in his hand. The girls fled. The table was
knocked over and there was a terrible racket for a few minutes.
Then I saw them rise, the cowboy holding the singer by the
back of the neck. He rammed him face foremost against the
wall and rammed that big knife through him twice and then,
slamming it plumb through him between the shoulders, her left
it sticking in his body and, picking him up, hurled him out of
the box to the stage below.
"It was all over in a minute and there was the biggest stampede
you ever saw. The whole audience made for the door in
one solid mass, and I was working well in the lead, in spite of
having only one good leg to work with. When I struck the sidewalk
I lit out in good style and ran two blocks before I stopped.
I saw a policeman and I rushed to him: 'You better go down
yonder,' I said; 'a cowboy just murdered a man in the theatre
down there.' He looked at me and grinned. 'That's all right,'
he said. 'They have been killing that same man for two nights
now. It's part of the show.' Then I realized that I had been
sold and I took the policeman into the Buckhorn Saloon and
threw a couple of scoops into him to keep quiet."
"Hold on," said "Peg," as we started to leave, "that story is
not finished. The best part is to come. The next night I went
back to enjoy the fun of seeing the stampede, now that I knew
it was all a part of the show. I got a seat near the end of a
row near the middle of the house, and there is where I was a
fool. The cbwboy came in and went through the same performance.
There was the same stampede, too, but it started sooner
than I calculated. There was a big Dutchman near me and he
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Young, Samuel Oliver. True stories of old Houston and Houstonians: historical and personal sketches / by S. O. Young., book, 1913; Galveston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth24646/m1/138/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .