The “Old Tex” mentioned in this part of the history must not be confounded with Boone Helm’s brother, who is mentioned under the same cognomen in its earlier pages. “Old Tex” was a common _sobriquet_ in the mountains for noted men who had spent a portion of their lives in Texas. Almost every Territory has its respective “Buffalo Bill,” “Whiskey Bill,” “Bed Rock Joe,” “Sour Dough Tom,” and “Old Tex.”
Plummer soon saw that Crawford understood him, and that the only safe method of executing his design was to provoke him into a quarrel. Plummer was reputed to excel any man in the mountains in the use of a pistol,—an accomplishment in which Crawford had no skill. Several little incidents growing out of Crawford’s efforts to reimburse himself for the expenses he had incurred in the care and burial of Cleveland, and in the trial of Moore and Reeves, in which Plummer voluntarily intermingled, discovered the deadly purpose of the latter. On one of these occasions, believing that a quarrel could not be avoided, he was unexpectedly confronted by five or six of Crawford’s friends with their hands on their revolvers. His temper and courage cooled at once, and he sent Crawford an apology, desiring to meet him as a friend. They shook hands a few days after, and parted, seemingly on the best of terms.
Anxious as Crawford was to be at peace, he was not deceived by this offer of friendship. It was but a new move in the deadly game which Plummer was playing for his life, and he knew it. A few days afterwards, while conversing in a saloon, a rough-looking individual asked him, in an impudent manner, what he was talking about.
“None of your business,” replied Crawford.
“I dare you,” replied the man, with an insulting epithet, “to fight me with pistols.”
Looking around, Crawford discovered Plummer among the listeners standing near, and comprehended the situation in an instant.
“You have the odds of me with a pistol,” said he. “Why should I fight you?”
“Well, then,” said the man, in a furious passion, “try it with your fists. That will tell which is the best man.”
Discovering that the man had no belt, Crawford unbuckled his own, and laid his pistol on the bar. Following his challenger into a dark corner of the room, he slapped him in the face. The man instantly drew from his coat a revolver, but before he could aim it, Crawford seized him by the throat and disarmed him. At this moment, Plummer joined the man in the attack on Crawford, and the two wrested the pistol from him, and, but for the timely interference of Harry Phleger, who came to Crawford’s assistance and recovered possession of the pistol, Crawford would probably have been shot. Crawford and Phleger then left the saloon. It did not surprise Crawford, when told afterwards by the saloon-keeper, that the design was to entrap him into an outdoor fight with pistols, when Plummer was ready, with his friends, to shoot him as soon as the battle commenced.