“Now I have thought it out. There is no chance for me to get the first shot. Dickinson can shoot quicker than you and with more chance of success. All you can do is to wait till he shoots and take your chance. If he wounds you or misses you take your time and kill him. If you try to shoot first, you will miss him and he will kill you. It’s hard, but it’s all we can do.” Jackson agreed and went to the field, a six foot three inch target at twenty-four feet, for a man who could put four balls in four shots into a space not half the size of Jackson’s heart! It took a heart of steel to know that, as he traveled wearily along the rough road, and when the landlord pointed to a sparrow’s head Dickinson had shot off, he smiled grimly and said: “Never mind, my dear sir, he will come this way day after to-morrow in a box. Be sure of that.” [Illustration: The Spring and Dairy at the Hermitage, where Jackson used to indulge in cool buttermilk. (Photo March, 1906, by E. E. Sweetland.)] Jackson never would talk in after years of the fight. In fact he never talked of any of them could he help it. Only twice did he ever mention it. Once when he was President and he was fighting for his political life and they were using Dickinson’s death, among other things, to defeat him. “As for Dickinson,” he said, “I would have killed him if he had shot me through the brain.” In his later years he regretted it more and more, and once said: “I never would have killed him if he had missed me. When I killed him I was as sure as I lived that he had mortally wounded me.” A little tavern kept by David Miller stood on the banks of the Red River in those days, one hundred years ago. Other friends joined Jackson en route, and they reached the tavern, a small party of horsemen, about sunset Thursday afternoon, May 29, and obtained lodgings for the night. Dickinson’s party went to a house two miles lower down the river, kept by William Harrison. Jackson ate heartily and sat out under the stars after supper smoking his pipe as usual, and chatting with his friends. Jacob Smith, the landlord, soon fell under the magnetic charm of the man and used to love to state how he talked with his guest and how, as he bade him good night, he wished him good luck on the morrow. Early the next morning an overseer who worked Jacob Smith’s negroes on a near-by farm, saw a cavalcade of horsemen ride to the river’s banks. He knew what was up, and he wished greatly to see it. There was no ferryman at the river, and after waiting and calling, Jackson spurred his horse into the stream and dashed across into the forest beyond followed by his friends. It was a level beautiful spot in the shade of large towering poplars. The trees rose tall and stately, already showering upon the grass beneath their wax-like, blood-flecked blossoms, emblems of the flecks of deeper carmine so soon to crimson the earth.