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hotel clerk

Hotel clerk at the La Mesa Hotel in La Mesa, New Mexico Territory, in 1876.[1] (April 12, 1815 – December 7, 1890)[2]

A cool-headed and decisive man, respected by the residents and guests of the La Mesa Hotel.[1]

In May of 1876, the hotel clerk responded to the sound of gunfire and screams coming from Bart Maverick and Daisy Haskell's room. As he urgently pounded on the door, he was joined in the hallway by Mr. and Mrs. Fred Adams, who lived across the hall. When Daisy opened the door, feigning screams and sobs, she fell in to clerk's arms, crying that a man had shot her husband and went through the window. As others rushed to the scene, the clerk ordered one to get the doctor who lived upstairs, another to find the sheriff and round up a posse, and asked Mrs. Adams to take care of Daisy. He then entered the room to discover Bart, still alive with powder burns on his shirt. Knowing Daisy was out of the room, Bart quickly told the clerk that Daisy had shot him with the intent to kill. Realizing Daisy was lying about a man entering their room, he kept the doctor out of the room by telling him to help the Adamses across the hall with Daisy. When the sheriff arrived, he called him into the room where he and Bart explained what had happened. The clerk cooperated with Bart and the sheriff to help them unravel the story behind Daisy and Henrique Fillipe's plan to kill Bart.[1]

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See: The Jeweled Gun