Joe Palmer's Good Fight

1895

The Latter Part of It Was Without Thumbs, but He Won.

"In those days," said the man with the broad white hat, "Creede was a booming camp. You can make books on that. And it was a camp that it pleased an old timer to set foot in. Tenderfeet were not stacking up against the fellows then. It was a reminder of Deadwood and Leadville. It was a reminiscence of forty-nine.

"But, as I was saying, that fight that Joe Palmer made against the 'Orleans Kid' was as good and game a fight as a man ever saw. Palmer is in Denver now. What does he do? Well, everything, for Joe is an all round gambler. Down in Creede he ran a house for Jeff Smith. The Kid came in there one night and got noisy and abusive. The fact that he had killed four men didn't cut any figure with Joe, and he politely but firmly told him to get out. The Kid left sulkily, and we fellows at the tables, watching the play between turns of the cards, just took a flier, in our inner consciousness, that there'd be trouble before morning.

"Joe stepped out of the place a little afterward. He was gone but a moment or two when we heard a shot. We sprang up from our chips, leaving our bets on the layout, and rushed outside. And there we saw a fight!

"Palmer was standing in the middle of the street, right under the electric light. In the bright glare he Was the fairest of targets. The Kid was by the corner in the shadow of the stores. Both of them were blazing away at less than 30 paces. The Kid's second bullet struck Joe in the thumb of his pistol hand, and the gun fell to the ground. Joe picked it up with his left hand and went on shooting. Another bullet from the Kid struck Joe's left thumb, and the six shooter dropped again. We all thought Joe would run then sure, because we couldn't see how he could ever cock his gun to keep up the fight. He stooped over, as cool as you please, grabbed his gun in his right hand and cocked it by rubbing it downward against his leg.

"When the two men had used up all their cartridges and the fight was over, the Kid staggered away. He had lost. Four of Joe's six bullets had hit him. He won out, though, in his lingering six weeks' game with death and got well enough to kill a man up in Duluth and go to the Minnesota pen." — Louisville Courier-Journal.