“I went because there was no escape from it and with the shadow of God’s wrath in my soul,” Samson writes.  “The sun rose as we halted our horses.  We paced the field.  The two men took their places twenty yards apart.  Harry was a little pale but he stood up as straight and steady as a hitching post.  The pistols rang out at the command to fire and both men fell.  Davis had been hit in the left shoulder.  My handsome boy lay on his face.  The bullet had bored through his right lung.  Before I could reach him he had risen to his feet ready to go on with the battle.  Davis lay like one paralyzed by the shock of the bullet.  His seconds declared they were satisfied.  The surgeons began their work.  I saw them take the bullet out of Harry’s back where it had lodged under his skin.  I helped them put the wounded men into the wagon and rode to the house of one of the doctors near the city wherein were rooms for the accommodation of critical cases, leading Harry’s horse and praying for God’s help and forgiveness.  I took care of the boy until Steve Nuckles came to help me.  Bim arrived when Harry was out of his head and didn’t know her.  She was determined to stay and do the nursing but I wouldn’t let her.  She did not look strong.  I loaned her the money to pay the debt to Davis and persuaded her to go back to her work in Dixon.  She went and was rather heart-broken about it.

“As she was leaving she looked into my face and said:  ’Don’t tell him or any one what has happened to me.  I want to tell him.’

“I promised to keep her secret and did it.  Soon I learned that she was down sick of her worries.  I sent her mother to her and kept the small boy with me.

“The surgeon said that Harry would live if lung fever didn’t set in.  It set in but he pulled through.  He mended slowly.  I had some fear of arrest but the conspiracy of silence kept the facts under cover.  It was partly due, I guess, to the friendship of John Wentworth for me and Honest Abe.  He kept it out of the papers.  There were no complaints and the rumors soon fell into silence.  I spent about six weeks at Harry’s bedside and in the store which has begun to prosper.

“The boy, ‘Mr. Nimble,’ is a cunning little man.  When he began to get better, Harry loved to play with him and listen to his talk about fairies.  The young man was able to leave his bed, by and by, but he didn’t get over his weakness and pallor.  He had no appetite.  I sent him with Nuckles into the Wisconsin woods to live in the open.  Then I took the small boy to Dixon with me in the saddle.  Bim had just got back to her work.  She was distressed by the news of Harry’s condition.

“‘I fear he has got his death-blow,’ she said with a sad look in her face.  ’I had hoped that we could be married this autumn.  But something comes between us always.  First it was my folly and now it is his folly.  It seems as if we hadn’t sense enough to get married when there’s nothing in the way of it.’