prison. Finally two or three of my friends rescued me and business was
allowed to proceed. It was the last day of a very long session and those
who were not drunk were worn out.

When I returned home there was a celebration in honor of the bet Wake
Holman had won at my expense. Wake was the most attractive and lovable of
men, by nature a hero, by profession a "filibuster" and soldier of fortune.
At two and twenty he was a private in Col. Humphrey Marshall's Regiment
of Kentucky Riflemen, which reached the scene of hostilities upon the Rio
Grande in the midsummer of 1846. He had enlisted from Owen county--"Sweet
Owen," as it used to be called--and came of good stock, his father, Col.
Harry Holman, in the days of aboriginal fighting and journalism, a frontier
celebrity. Wake's company, out on a scout, was picked off by the Mexicans,
and the distinction between United States soldiers and Texan rebels not
being yet clearly established, a drumhead court-martial ordered "the
decimation."

This was a decree that one of every ten of the Yankee captives should be
shot. There being a hundred of Marshall's men, one hundred beans--ninety
white and ten black--were put in a hat. Then the company was mustered as on
dress parade. Whoso drew a white bean was to be held prisoner of war; whoso
drew a black bean was to die.

In the early part of the drawing Wake drew a white bean. Toward the close
the turn of a neighbor and comrade from Owen county who had left a wife and
baby at home was called. He and Wake were standing together, Holman brushed
him aside, walked out in his place and drew his bean. It turned out to be a
white one. Twice within the half hour death had looked him in the eye and
found no blinking there.