Submitted by
Loyd Bishop

Street Duel with Pistols

Jake Bixler and Del Christie Exchange Shots
With Fatal Results to a Bystander.

Friday evening about seven o’clock those happening to be on or near Main Street were started to hear five pistol shots in rapid succession in front of Geo. Nichols’ saloon. The shooting was done by Jake Bixler the barber and Del Christie and was the result of a bitter grudge of long standing between the two men. When the excitement of the shooting had subsided it was learned that Lyndell Foster, who happened to be standing in front of Anderson’s drug store, was the victim of one of the bullets aimed at Christie, the ball, a 38-caliber, having struck him in the breast at the right of the center and passing through his lung lodged in the vertebra of the spine. He was carried in to Anderson’s drug store and medical aid summoned and everything possible done to save his life and relieve his suffering. The wound was probed and dressed and the young man then removed to his home in the east part of town. The wound though not necessarily fatal is so serious as to make his recovery doubtful. His father is at Mt. Ayr, Iowa and his mother at Hennessey. Both have been telegraphed for and are expected as soon as they can get here.
The men who are responsible for this awful accident were placed under arrest almost before their pistols had quit smoking, Marshal Stephenson happening to be near when the duel commenced and grabbed them and stopped the shooting or the tragedy might not have ended there. Both were taken to Newkirk and lodged in jail.
The shooting was commenced, and over with almost before anyone realized that a tragedy was being enacted. The men, who had had trouble before, met, a few words were passed, each flashed pistols and the shooting was done with the above result, before bystanders could interfere. Both men will be held pending the result of young Foster’s wound.