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 The Story of the Outlaw 
 
From a painting by John W. Norton 
 
 plummer's men holding up the bannack stage 
 
 (See page iig) 
 
THE 
 
 STORY OF THE OUTLAW 
 
 A STUDY OF THE WESTERN DESPERADO 
 
 WITH HISTORICAL NARRATIVES OF FAMOUS OUT- 
 LAWS; THE STORIES OF NOTED BORDER WARS; 
 VIGILANTE MOVEMENTS AND ARMED 
 CONFLICTS ON THE FRONTIER 
 
 BY 
 
 EMERSON HOUGH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1907 
 
H^i- 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESS I 
 Two Cootes Received 
 
 JAN 80 1907 
 
 ^opyrieht Entry m 
 '0L<^. A XXc.iNof 
 
 fUh.^>- 
 
 •mm-mmmau 
 
 Copyright, 1905, by 
 
 THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, 1907, by 
 
 EMERSON HOUGH 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England 
 
 A II Rights Reserved 
 
 THE OUTING PRESS 
 DEPOSIT, N. Y. 
 
Preface v 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IN offering this study of the American des- 
 perado, the author constitutes himself no 
 apologist for the acts of any desperado; 
 yet neither does he feel that apology is needed 
 for the theme Itself. The outlaw, the despe- 
 rado — that somewhat distinct and easily recog- 
 nizable figure generally known In the West as 
 the "bad man" — is a character unique In our 
 national history, and one whose like scarcely has 
 been produced in any land other than this. It 
 is not necessary to promote absurd and melo- 
 dramatic Impressions regarding a type properly 
 to be called historic, and properly to be handled 
 as such. The truth itself is thrilling enough, 
 and difficult as that frequently has been of dis- 
 covery, it is the truth which has been sought 
 herein. 
 
 A thesis on the text of disregard for law 
 might well be put to better use than to serve 
 merely as exciting reading, fit to pass away an 
 
vi Preface 
 
 idle hour. It might, and indeed it may — if 
 the reader so shall choose — offer a foundation 
 for wider arguments than those suggested in 
 these pages, which deal rather with premises 
 than conclusions. The lesson of our dealings 
 with our bad men of the past can teach us, if 
 we like, the best method of dealing with our 
 bad men to-day. 
 
 There are other lessons which we might take 
 from an acquaintance with frontier methods of 
 enforcing respect for the law; and the first of 
 these is a practical method of handling criminals 
 in the initial executive acts of the law. Never 
 were American laws so strong as to-day, and 
 never were our executive officers so weak. Our 
 cities frequently are ridden with criminals or 
 rioters. We set hundreds of policemen to restore 
 order, but order is not restored. What is the 
 average policeman as a criminal-taker? Cloddy 
 and coarse of fiber, rarely with personal heredity 
 of mental or bodily vigor, with no training at 
 arms, with no sharp, incisive quality of nerve ac- 
 tion, fat, unwieldy, unable to run a hundred 
 yards and keep his breath, not skilled enough to 
 kill his man even when he has him cornered, he 
 is the archtype of all unseemliness as the agent 
 of a law which to-day needs a sterner unholding 
 
Preface vii 
 
 than ever was the case in all our national life. 
 We use this sort of tools in handling criminals, 
 when each of us knows, or ought to know, that 
 the city which would select twenty Western 
 peace officers of the old type and set them to 
 work without restrictions as to the size of their 
 imminent graveyards, would free itself of 
 criminals in three months' time, and would re- 
 main free so long as its methods remained in 
 force. 
 
 As for the subject-matter of the following 
 work, it may be stated that, while attention has 
 been paid to the great and well-known instances 
 and epochs of outlawry, many of the facts 
 given have not previously found their way into 
 print. The story of the Lincoln County War 
 of the Southwest is given truthfully for the first 
 time, and after full acquaintance with sources 
 of information now inaccessible or passing away. 
 The Stevens County War of Kansas, which took 
 place, as it were, but yesterday and directly at 
 our doors, has had no history but a garbled one ; 
 and as much might be said of many border 
 encounters whose chief use heretofore has been 
 to curdle the blood in penny-dreadfuls. Accu- 
 racy has been sought among the confusing 
 statements purporting to constitute the record 
 
viii Preface 
 
 in such historic movements as those of the "vigi- 
 lantes" of California and Montana mining days, 
 and of the later cattle days when "wars" were 
 common between thieves and outlaws, and the 
 representatives of law and order, — themselves 
 not always duly authenticated officers of the 
 law. 
 
 No one man can have lived through the en- 
 tire time of the American frontier; and any 
 work of this kind must be in part a matter of 
 compilation in so far as it refers to matters of 
 the past. In all cases where practicable, how- 
 ever, the author has made up the records from 
 stories of actual participants, survivors and eye- 
 witnesses; and he is able in some measure to 
 write of things and men personally known dur- 
 ing twenty-five years of Western life. Captain 
 Patrick F. Garrett, of New Mexico, central fig- 
 ure of the border fighting In that district In the 
 early railroad days, has been of much service In 
 extending the author's Information on that re- 
 gion and time. Mr. Herbert M. Tonney, now 
 of Illinois, tells his own story as a survivor of 
 the typical county-seat war of Kansas, In which 
 he was shot and left for dead. Many other men 
 have offered valuable narratives. 
 
 In dealing with any subject of early American 
 
Preface ix 
 
 history, there is no authority more incontestable 
 than Mr. Alexander Hynds, of Dandridge, 
 Tennessee, whose acquaintance with singular 
 and forgotten bits of early frontier history bor- 
 ders upon the unique in its way. Neither does 
 better authority exist than Hon. N. P. Lang- 
 ford, of Minnesota, upon all matters having 
 to do with life in the Rocky Mountain region 
 in the decade of 1 860-1 870. He was an argo- 
 naut of the Rockies and a citizen of Montana 
 and of other Western territories before the com- 
 ing of the days of law. Free quotations are made 
 from his graphic work, " Vigilante Days and 
 Ways," which is both interesting of itself and 
 valuable as a historical record. 
 
 The stories of modern train-robbing bandits 
 and outlaw gangs are taken partly from per- 
 sonal narratives, partly from judicial records, 
 and partly from works frequently more sensa- 
 tional than accurate, and requiring much sift- 
 ing and verifying In detail. Naturally, very 
 many volumes of Western history and adventure 
 have been consulted. Much of this labor has 
 been one of love for the days and places con- 
 cerned, which exist no longer as they once did. 
 The total result, It Is hoped, will aid In telling 
 at least a portion of the story of the vivid and 
 
X Preface 
 
 significant life of the West, and of that frontier 
 whose van, if ever marked by human lawless- 
 ness, has, none the less, ever been led by the 
 banner of human liberty. May that banner still 
 wave to-day, and though blood be again the 
 price, may it never permanently be replaced by 
 that of license and injustice in our America. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I The Desperado . . . . i 
 
 II The Imitation Desperado . .14 
 
 III The Land of the Desperado . . 22 
 
 IV The Early Outlaw . . .35 
 V The Vigilantes of California . 74 
 
 VI The Outlaw of the Mountains . 98 
 
 VII Henry Plummer .... 105 
 
 VIII Boone Helm 127 
 
 IX Death Scenes of Desperadoes . 137 
 
 X Joseph A. Slade . . . .145 
 
 XI The Desperado of the Plains . .154 
 
 XII Wild Bill Hickok . . . .167 
 
 XIII Frontier Wars . . . .187 
 
 XIV The Lincoln County War . .196 
 XV The Stevens County War . . 227 
 
 XVI Biographies of Bad Men . . . 256 
 
 XVII The Fight of Buckshot Roberts . 284 
 
 xi 
 
xii Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 XVIII The Man Hunt . . . .292 
 
 XIX Bad Men of Texas . . . -313 
 
 XX Modern Bad Men . . . . 340 
 
 XXI Bad Men of the Indian Nations . 371 
 
 XXII Desperadoes of the Cities . . 393 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Plummer's Men Holding Up the Bannack Stage 
 — {Frontispiece) 
 
 The Scene of Many Little Wars 
 
 Types of Border Barricades 
 
 The Scene of Many Hangings . . 
 
 How the Rustler Worked 
 
 — ^ Wild Bin HIckok's Desperate Fight . 
 
 John Simpson Chlsum .... 
 
 Men Prominent In the Lincoln County War 
 
 The " Women In the Case "... 
 
 The McSween Store and Bank 
 
 Billy the Kid 
 
 " The Next Instant He Fired and Shot Olllnger 
 
 Dead " 272 / 
 
 Pat F. Garrett 294 -^ 
 
 xiii 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 . 12 
 
 
 . 36 
 
 / 
 
 . 138 
 
 i 
 
 . 164 
 
 -• 
 
 • 172 
 
 y 
 
 . 198 
 
 •• 
 
 . 218 
 
 / 
 
 . 222 
 
 / 
 
 . 240 
 
 
 . 258 
 
 
xiv 
 
 Illustrations 
 
 A Typical Western Man-Hunt . 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 .302 
 
 The Old Chisum Ranch . 
 
 . 330 / 
 
 The Old Fritz Ranch 
 
 . . . 358 
 
 A Border Fortress 
 
 . . . 358 
 
 "Afterward" . , . . 
 
 . 398 
 
The Story of The Outlaw 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 The Desperado — Analysis of His Make-up — 
 How the Desperado Got to Be Bad and fVhy 
 — Some Men Naturally Skillful with Weapons 
 — Typical Desperadoes. ::::::: 
 
 ENERGY and action may be of two sorts, 
 good or bad; this being as well as we 
 can phrase it in human affairs. The 
 live wires that net our streets are more danger- 
 ous than all the bad men the country ever knew, 
 but we call electricity on the whole good in its 
 action. We lay it under law, but sometimes It 
 breaks out and has Its own way. These out- 
 breaks will occur until the end of time, in live 
 wires and vital men. Each land in the world 
 produces its own men Individually bad — and, in 
 time, other bad men who kill them for the gen- 
 eral good. 
 
 There are bad Chinamen, bad Filipinos, bad 
 Mexicans, and Indians, and negroes, and bad 
 
2 The Sto?y of 
 
 white men. The white bad man is the worst 
 bad man of the world, and the prize-taking bad 
 man of the lot is the Western white bad man. 
 Turn the white man loose in a land free of 
 restraint — such as was always that Golden 
 Fleece land, vague, shifting and transitory, 
 known as the American West — and he simply 
 reverts to the ways of Teutonic and Gothic for- 
 ests. The civilized empire of the West has 
 grown in spite of this, because of that other 
 strange germ, the love of law, anciently im- 
 planted in the soul of the Anglo-Saxon. That 
 there was little difference between the bad man 
 and the good man who went out after him 
 was frequently demonstrated in the early roar- 
 ing days of the West. The religion of progress 
 and civilization meant very little to the Western 
 town marshal, who sometimes, or often, was 
 a peace officer chiefly because he was a good 
 fighting man. 
 
 We band together and "elect" political rep- 
 resentatives who do not represent us at all. We 
 "elect" executive officers who execute nothing 
 but their own wishes. We pay innumerable 
 policemen to take from our shoulders the bur- 
 den of self-protection ; and the policemen do not 
 do this thing. Back of all the law is the undele- 
 
The Outlaw 3 
 
 gated personal right, that vague thing which, 
 none the less, is recognized in all the laws and 
 charters of the world; as England and France 
 of old, and Russia to-day, may show. This 
 undelegated personal right is in each of us, or 
 ought to be. If there is in you no hot blood 
 to break into flame and set you arbiter for your- 
 self in some sharp, crucial moment, then God 
 pity you, for no woman ever loved you if she 
 could find anything else to love, and you are fit 
 neither as man nor citizen. 
 
 As the individual retains an undelegated 
 right, so does the body social. We employ poli- 
 ticians, but at heart most of us despise politicians 
 and love fighting men. Society and law are not 
 absolutely wise nor absolutely right, but only 
 as a compromise relatively wise and right. The 
 bad man, so called, may have been in large part 
 relatively bad. This much we may say scientific- 
 ally, and without the slightest cheapness. It 
 does not mean that we shall waste any maudlin 
 sentiment over a desperado ; and certainly it does 
 not mean that we shall have anything but con- 
 tempt for the pretender at desperadoism. 
 
 Who and what was the bad man ? Scientific- 
 ally and historically he was even as you and I. 
 Whence did he come ? From any and all places. 
 
4 The Story of 
 
 What did he look like? He came In all sorts 
 and shapes, all colors and sizes — just as cow- 
 ards do. As to knowing him, the only way was 
 by trying him. His reputation, true or false, 
 just or unjust, became, of course, the herald of 
 the bad man in due time. The "killer" of a 
 Western town might be known throughout the 
 state or in several states. His reputation might 
 long outlast that of able statesmen and public 
 benefactors. 
 
 What distinguished the bad man in peculiarity 
 from his fellowman? Why was he better with 
 weapons? What is courage, in the last analysis? 
 We ought to be able to answer these questions 
 in a purely scientific way. We have machines 
 for photographing relative quickness of thought 
 and muscular action. We are able to record the 
 varying speeds of Impulse transmission in the 
 nerves of different individuals. If you were 
 picking out a bad man, would you select one 
 who, on the machine, showed a dilatory nerve 
 response? Hardly. The relative fitness for a 
 man to be "bad," to become extraordinarily 
 quick and skillful with weapons, could, without 
 doubt, be predetermined largely by these scien- 
 tific measurements. Of course, having no 
 thought-machines In the early West, they got at 
 
Th*" Outlaw 
 
 the matter by experimenting, and so, very often, 
 by a graveyard route. You could not always 
 stop to feel the pulse of a suspected killer. 
 
 The use of firearms with swiftness and accu- 
 racy was necessary in the calling of the des- 
 perado, after fate had marked him and set him 
 apart for the inevitable, though possibly long- 
 deferred, end. This skill with weapons was a 
 natural gift in the case of nearly every man 
 who attained great reputation whether as killer 
 of victims or as killer of killers. Practice assisted 
 in proficiency, but a Wild Bill or a Slade or a 
 Billy the Kid was born and not made. 
 
 Quickness in nerve action is usually backed 
 with good digestion, and hard life in the open 
 Is good medicine for the latter. This, however, 
 does not wholly cover the case. A slow man 
 also might be a brave man. Sooner or later. If 
 he went into the desperado business on either 
 side of the game, he would fall before the man 
 who was brave as himself and a fraction faster 
 with the gun. 
 
 There were unknown numbers of potential bad 
 men who died mute and Inglorious after a life 
 spent at a desk or a plow. They might have 
 been bad If matters had shaped right for that. 
 Each war brings out its own heroes from un- 
 
6 The Story of 
 
 suspected places; each sudden emergency sum- 
 mons its own fit man. Say that a man took 
 to the use of weapons, and found himself arbi- 
 ter of life and death with lesser animals, and 
 able to grant them either at a distance. He 
 went on, pleased with his growing skill with 
 firearms. He discovered that as the sword 
 had in one age of the world lengthened 
 the human arm, so did the six-shooter — that 
 epochal instrument, invented at precisely that 
 time of the American life when the human 
 arm needed lengthening — extend and strengthen 
 his arm, and make him and all men equal. The 
 user of weapons felt his powers increased. So 
 now, in time, there came to him a moment of 
 danger. There was his enemy. There was the 
 affront, the challenge. Perhaps it was male 
 against male, a matter of sex, prolific always in 
 bloodshed. It might be a matter of property, 
 or perhaps it was some taunt as to his own per- 
 sonal courage. Perhaps alcohol came into the 
 question, as was often the case. For one reason 
 or the other, it came to the ordeal of combat. 
 It was the undelegated right of one individual 
 against that of another. The law was not in- 
 voked — the law would not serve. Even as the 
 quicker set of nerves flashed into action, the 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 arm shot forward, and there smote the point 
 of flame as did once the point of steel. The 
 victim fell, his own weapon clutched in his hand, 
 a fraction too late. The law cleared the killer. 
 It was "self-defense." "It was an even break,'^ 
 his fellowmen said; although thereafter they 
 were more reticent with him and sought him out 
 less frequently. 
 
 "It was an even break," said the killer to him- 
 self — "an even break, him or me." But, per- 
 haps, the repetition of this did not serve to blot 
 out a certain mental picture. I have had a bad 
 man tell me that he killed his second man to 
 get rid of the mental image of his first victim. 
 
 But this exigency might arise again; indeed, 
 most frequently did arise. Again the embryo 
 bad man was the quicker. His self-approbation 
 now, perhaps, began to grow. This was the 
 crucial time of his life. He might go on now 
 and become a bad man, or he might cheapen 
 and become an imitation desperado. In either 
 event, his third man left him still more confi- 
 dent. His courage and his skill In weapons 
 gave him assuredness and ease at the time of an 
 encounter. He was now becoming a specialist. 
 Time did the rest, until at length they buried 
 him. 
 
8 The Story of 
 
 The bad man of genuine sort rarely looked the 
 part assigned to him In the popular Imagination. 
 The long-haired blusterer, adorned with a dia- 
 lect that never was spoken, serves very well in 
 fiction about the West, but that is not the real 
 thing. The most dangerous man was apt to be 
 quiet and smooth-spoken. When an antagonist 
 blustered and threatened, the most dangerous 
 man only felt rising in his own soul, keen and 
 stern, that strange exultation which often comes 
 with combat for the man naturally brave. A 
 Western officer of established reputation once 
 said to me, while speaking of a recent personal 
 difficulty into which he had been forced: "I 
 hadn't been in anything of that sort for years, 
 and I wished I was out of it. Then I said to 
 myself, *Is it true that you are getting old — 
 <3 have you lost your nerve ?' Then all at once the 
 ^ old feeling came over me, and I was just like I 
 V- used to be. I felt calm and happy, and I 
 \ laughed after that. I jerked my gun and shoved 
 \it Into his stomach. He put up his hands and 
 apologized. 'I will give you a hundred dollars 
 now,' he said, *lf you will tell me where you got 
 that gun.' I suppose I was a trifle quick for 
 him." 
 
 The virtue of the "drop" was eminently re- 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 spected among bad men. Sometimes, however, 
 men were killed in the last desperate convic- 
 tion that no man on earth was as quick as they. 
 What came near being an incident of that kind 
 was related by a noted Western sheriff. 
 
 "Down on the edge of the Pecos valley," 
 said he, "a dozen miles below old Fort Sumner, 
 there used to be a little saloon, and I once cap- 
 tured a man there. He came in from some- 
 where east of our territory, and was wanted 
 for murder. The reward offered for him was 
 twelve hundred dollars. Since he was a 
 stranger, none of us knew him, but the sheriff's 
 descriptions sent in said he had a freckled face, 
 small hands, and a red spot in one eye. I heard 
 that there was a new saloon-keeper in there, 
 and thought he might be the man, so I took a 
 deputy and went down one day to see about it. 
 
 ''I told my deputy not to shoot until he saw 
 me go after my gun. I didn't want to hold 
 the man up unless he was the right one, and I 
 wanted to be sure about that identification mark 
 in the eye. Now, when a bartender is waiting 
 on you, he will never look you in the face until 
 just as you raise your glass to drink. I told 
 my deputy that we would order a couple of 
 drinks, and so get a chance to look this fellow 
 
lo The Story of 
 
 in the eye. When he looked up, I did look him 
 in the eye, and there was the red spot ! 
 
 *'I dropped my glass and jerked my gun and 
 covered him, but he just wouldn't put up his 
 hands for a while. I didn't want to kill him, 
 but I thought I surely would have to. He kept 
 both of his hands resting on the bar, and I 
 knew he had a gun within three feet of him 
 somewhere. At last slowly he gave in. I 
 treated him well, as I always did a prisoner, 
 told him we would square it if we had made any 
 mistake. We put irons on him and started for 
 Las Vegas with him in a wagon. The next 
 morning, out on the trail, he confessed every- 
 thing to me. We turned him over, and later 
 he was tried and hung. I always considered him 
 to be a pretty bad man. So far as the result 
 was concerned, he might about as well have 
 gone after his gun. I certainly thought that 
 was what he was going to do. He had sand. 
 I could just see him stand there and balance the 
 chances in his mind." 
 
 "Another of the nerviest men I ever ran 
 up against," the same officer went on, reflec- 
 tively, "I met when I was sheriff of Dona Aiia 
 county. New Mexico. I was in Las Cruces, 
 when there came in a sheriff from over in the 
 
The Outlaw 1 1 
 
 Indian Nations looking for a fugitive who had 
 broken out of a penitentiary after killing a 
 guard and another man or so. This sheriff told 
 me that the criminal in question was the most 
 desperate man he had ever known, and that no 
 matter how we came on him, he would put up a 
 fight and we would have to kill him before we 
 could take him. We located our man, who was 
 cooking on a ranch six or eight miles out of 
 town. I told the sheriff to stay in town, be- 
 cause the man would know him and would not 
 know us. I had a Mexican deputy along 
 with me. 
 
 *'I put out my deputy on one side of the 
 house and went in. I found my man just wiping 
 his hands on a towel after washing his dishes. 
 I threw down on him, and he answered by 
 smashing me in the face, and then jumping 
 through the window like a squirrel. I caught 
 at him and tore the shirt off his back, but I 
 didn't stop him. Then I ran out of the door 
 and caught him on the porch. I did not want to 
 kill him, so I struck him over the head with the 
 handcuffs I had ready for him. He dropped, 
 but came up like a flash, and struck me so hard 
 with his fist that I was badly jarred. We fought 
 hammer and tongs for a while, but at length 
 
12 The Story of 
 
 he broke away, sprang through tKe door, and 
 ran down the hall. He was going to his room 
 after his gun. At that momfit my M xican 
 came in, and having no sentiment about it, just 
 whaled away and shot him a the back, killing 
 him on the spot. The doctOx ^hen they 
 
 examined this man's body that he as the most 
 perfect physical specimen they had ever seen. 
 I can testify that he was a fighter. The sheriff 
 offered me the reward, but I wouldn't take any 
 of it. I told him that I would be over in his 
 country some time, and that I was sure he 
 would do as much for me if I needed his help. 
 I hope that if I do have to go after his par- 
 ticular sort of bad people, I'll be lucky in get- 
 ting the first start on my man. That man was 
 as desperate a fighter as I ever saw or expect to 
 see. Give a man of that stripe any kind of a 
 show and he's going to kill you, that's all. He 
 knows that he has no chance under the law. 
 "Sometimes they got away with desperate 
 chances, too, as many a peace officer has learned 
 to his cost. The only way to go after such a 
 man is to go prepared, and then to give him 
 no earthly show to get the best of you. I don't 
 mean that an officer ought to shoot down a man 
 if he has a show to take his prisoner alive; but 
 I do mean that he ouQ:ht to remember that he 
 
The Outlaw 13 
 
 may be pitted against a man who is just as 
 brave as he is, and just as good with a gun, and 
 who is fighting for his life." 
 
 Of course, such a man as this, whether con- 
 fronted by an officer of the law or by another 
 man against whom he has a personal grudge, 
 or who has in any way challenged him to the 
 ordeal of weapons, was steadfast in his own 
 belief that he was as brave as any, and as quick 
 with weapons. Thus, until at length he met 
 his master in the law of human progress and 
 civilization, he simply added to his own list of 
 victims, or was added to the list of another of 
 his own sort. For a very long time, moreover, 
 there existed a great region on the frontier 
 where the law could not protect. There was 
 good reason, therefore, for a man's learning to 
 depend upon his own courage and strength and 
 skill. He had nothing else to protect him, 
 whether he was good or bad. In the typical 
 days of the Western bad man, life was the prop- 
 erty of the Individual, and not of society, and 
 one man placed his life against another's as the 
 only way of solving hard personal problems. 
 Those days and those conditions brought out 
 some of the boldest and most reckless men the 
 earth ever saw. Before we freely criticize them, 
 we ought fully to understand them. 
 
14 The Story of 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 The Imitation Desperado — The Cheap ^^Long 
 Hai/^ — A Desperado in Appearance, a Coward 
 at Heart — Some Desperadoes Who Did Not 
 ^'Stand the Acid-'^ ::::::: 
 
 THE counterfeit bad man, In so far as 
 he has a place In literature, was largely 
 produced by Western consumptives for 
 Eastern consumption. Sometimes he was In per- 
 son manufactured In the East and sent West. 
 It Is easy to see the philosophical difference be- 
 tween the actual bad man of the West and the 
 Imitation article. The bad man was an evolu- 
 tion; the Imitation bad man was an Instanta- 
 neous creation, a supply arising full panoplied 
 to fill a popular demand. Silently there arose, 
 partly In the West and partly In the East, men 
 who gravely and calmly proceeded to look the 
 part. After looking the part for a time, to their 
 own satisfaction at least, and after taking them- 
 
The Outlaw 1 5 
 
 selves seriously as befitted the situation, they, in 
 very many instances, faded away and disap- 
 peared in that Nowhere whence they came. 
 Some of them took themselves too seriously for 
 their own good. Of course, there existed for 
 some years certain possibilities that any one of 
 these bad men might run against the real thing. 
 There always existed in the real, sober, level- 
 headed West a contempt for the West-struck 
 man who was not really bad, but who wanted to 
 seem "bad." Singularly enough, men of this 
 type were not so frequently local products as 
 immigrants. The "bootblack bad man" was a 
 character recognized on the frontier — the city 
 tough gone West with ambitions to achieve a 
 bad eminence. Some of these men were par- 
 tially bad for a while. Some of them, no doubt, 
 even left behind them, after their sudden fu- 
 nerals, the impression that they had been 
 wholly bad. You cannot detect all the counter- 
 feit currency in the world, severe as the test for 
 counterfeits was In the old West. There Is, of 
 course, no great amount of difference between 
 the West and the East. All America, as well 
 as the West, demanded of Its citizens nothing 
 so much as genuineness. Yet the Western 
 phrase, to "stand the acid," was not surpassed 
 
1 6 The Story of 
 
 in graphic descriptlveness. When an Imitation 
 bad man came into a town of the old frontier, 
 he had to "stand the acid" or get out. His 
 hand would be called by some one. "My 
 friend," said old Bob Bobo, the famous Mis- 
 sissippi bear hunter, to a man who was doing 
 some pretty loud talking, "I have always 
 noticed that when a man goes out hunting for 
 trouble in these bottoms, he almost always finds 
 it." Two weeks later, this same loud talker 
 threatened a calm man in simple jeans pants, 
 who took a shotgun and slew him impulsively. 
 Now, the West got its hot blood largely from 
 the South, and the dogma of the Southern town 
 was the same in the Western mining town or 
 cow camp — the bad man or the would-be bad 
 man had to declare himself before long, and 
 the acid bottle was always close at hand. 
 
 That there were grades in counterfeit bad 
 men was accepted as a truth on the frontier. A 
 man might be known as dangerous, as a mur- 
 derer at heart, and yet be despised. The imita- 
 tion bad man discovered that it is comparatively 
 easy to terrify a good part of the population of 
 a community. Sometimes a base imitation of a 
 desperado is exalted in the public eye as the real 
 article. A- few years ago four misled hoodlums 
 
The Outlaw 1 7 
 
 of Chicago held up a street-car barn, killed two 
 men, stole a sum of money, killed a police- 
 man and another man, and took refuge in 
 a dugout in the sand hills below the city, com- 
 porting themselves according to the most ac- 
 cepted dime-novel standards. Clumsily arrested 
 by one hundred men or so, instead of being tidily 
 killed by three or four, as would have been the 
 case on the frontier, they were put in jail, given 
 columns of newspaper notice, and worshiped 
 by large crowds of maudlin individuals. These 
 men probably died In the belief that they were 
 "bad." They were not bad men, but Imita- 
 tions, counterfeit, and, indeed, nothing more 
 than cheap and dirty little murderers. 
 
 Of course, we all feel able to detect the mere 
 notoriety hunter, who poses about In cheap pre- 
 tentiousness; but now and then in the West there 
 turned up something more difficult to under- 
 stand. Perhaps the most typical case of Imita- 
 tion bad man ever known, at least In the South- 
 west, was Bob Ollinger, who was killed by Billy 
 the Kid In 188 1, when the latter escaped from 
 jail at Lincoln, New Mexico. That Ollinger 
 was a killer had been proved beyond the possi- 
 bility of a doubt. He had no respect for human 
 life, and those who knew him best knew that he 
 
1 8 The Story of 
 
 was a murderer at heart. His reputation was 
 gained otherwise than through the severe test 
 of an "even break." Some say that he killed 
 Chavez, a Mexican, as he offered his own hand 
 in greeting. He killed another man. Hill, in a 
 similarly treacherous way. Later, when, as a 
 peace officer, he was with a deputy. Pierce, serv- 
 ing a warrant on one Jones, he pulled his gun 
 and, without need or provocation, shot Jones 
 through. The same bullet, passing through 
 Jones's body, struck Pierce in the leg and left 
 him a cripple for life. Again, Ollinger was out 
 as a deputy with a noted sheriff in pursuit of a 
 Mexican criminal, who had taken refuge in a 
 ditch. Ollinger wanted only to get into a posi- 
 tion where he could shoot the man, but his 
 superior officer crawled alone up the ditch, and, 
 rising suddenly, covered his man and ordered 
 him to surrender. The Mexican threw down 
 his gun and said that he would surrender to the 
 sheriff, but that he was sure Ollinger would kill 
 him. This fear was justified. "When I 
 brought out the man," said the sheriff, "Ollin- 
 ger came up on the run, with his cocked six- 
 shooter in his hand. His long hair was flying 
 behind him as he ran, and I never in my life 
 saw so devilish a look on any human being's 
 
The Outlaw 1 9 
 
 face. He simply wanted to shoot that Mexican, 
 and he chased him around me until I had to tell 
 him I would kill him if he did not stop." "Ollin- 
 ger was a born murderer at heart," the sheriff 
 added later. "I never slept out with him that 
 I did not watch him. After I had more of a 
 reputation, I think Ollinger would have been 
 glad to kill me for the notoriety of it. I never 
 gave him a chance to shoot me in the back or 
 when I was asleep. Of course, you will under- 
 stand that we had to use for deputies such ma- 
 terial as we could get." 
 
 Ollinger was the sort of imitation desperado 
 that looks the part. He wore his hair long 
 and affected the ultra-Western dress, which to- 
 day is despised in the West. He was one of 
 the very few men at that time — twenty-five 
 years ago — who carried a knife at his belt. 
 When he was in such a town as Las Vegas or 
 Sante Fe, he delighted to put on a buckskin 
 shirt, spread his hair out on his shoulders, and 
 to walk through the streets, picking his teeth 
 with his knife, or once in a while throwing it 
 in such a way that it would stick up in a tree 
 or a board. He presented an eye-filling spec- 
 tacle, and was indeed the ideal imitation bad 
 man. This being the case, there may be in- 
 
20 The Story of 
 
 terest in following out his life to its close, and 
 in noting how the bearing of the bad man's 
 title sometimes exacted a very high price of 
 the claimant. 
 
 Ollinger, who had made many threats against 
 Billy the Kid, was very cordially hated by the 
 latter. Together with Deputy Bell, of White 
 Oaks, Ollinger had been appointed to guard the 
 Kid for two weeks previous to the execution of 
 the death sentence which had been imposed upon 
 the latter. The Kid did not want to harm Bell, 
 but he dearly hated Ollinger, who never had 
 lost an opportunity to taunt him. Watching his 
 chance, the Kid at length killed both Bell and 
 Ollinger, shooting the latter with Ollinger's 
 own shotgun, with which Ollinger had often 
 menaced his prisoner. 
 
 Other than these two men, the Kid and Ollin- 
 ger, I know of no better types each of his own 
 class. One was a genuine bad man, and the 
 other was the genuine Imitation of a bad man. 
 They were really as far apart as the poles, and 
 they are so held In the tradition of that bloody 
 country to-day. Throughout the West there 
 are two sorts of wolves — the coyote and the 
 gray wolf. Either will kill, and both are lovers 
 of blood. One is yellow at heart, and the other 
 
The Outlaw 2 1 
 
 is game all the way through. In outward ap- 
 pearance both are wolves, and In appearance 
 they sometimes grade toward each other so 
 closely that It Is hard to determine the species. 
 The gray wolf Is a warrior and Is respected. 
 The coyote Is a sneak and a murderer, and his 
 name Is a term of reproach throughout the 
 West. 
 
22 The Story of 
 
 Chapter III 
 
 The Land of the Desperado — The Frontier of 
 the Old West — The Great Unsettled Regions 
 — The Desperado of the Mountains — His 
 Brother of the Plains — The Desperado of the 
 Early Railroad Towns, ::::::: 
 
 THERE was once a vast empire, almost 
 unknown, west of the Missouri river. 
 The white civilization of this conti- 
 nent was three hundred years in reaching it. 
 We had won our independence and taken our 
 place among the nations of the world before 
 our hardiest men had learned anything whatever 
 of this Western empire. We had bought this 
 vast region and were paying for it before we 
 knew what we had purchased. The wise men 
 of the East, leading men in Congress, said that 
 it would be criminal to add this territory to our 
 already huge domain, because it could never be 
 settled. It was not dreamed that civilization 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 23 
 
 would ever really subdue It. Even much later, 
 men as able as Daniel Webster deplored the 
 attempt to extend our lines farther to the West, 
 saying that these territories could not be States, 
 that the East would suffer If we widened our 
 West, and that the latter could never be of value 
 to the union ! So far as this great West was 
 concerned. It was spurned and held In contempt, 
 and It had full right to take Itself as an outcast. 
 Decreed to the wilderness forever, It could have 
 been forgiven for running wild. Denominated 
 as unfit for the occupation of the Eastern popu- 
 lation, It might have been expected that It would 
 gather to Itself a population all Its own. 
 
 It did gather such a population, and In part 
 that population was a lawless one. The fron- 
 tier, clear across to the Pacific, has at one time 
 or another been lawless ; but this was not always 
 the fault of the men who occupied the frontier. 
 The latter swept Westward with such unex- 
 ampled swiftness that the machinery of the law 
 could not always keep up with them. Where 
 there are no courts, where each man is judge 
 and jury for himself, protecting himself and his 
 property by his own arm alone, there always 
 have gathered also the lawless, those who do 
 not wish the day of law to come, men who want 
 
24 The Story of 
 
 license and not liberty, who wish crime and not 
 lawfulness, who want to take what is not theirs 
 and to enforce their own will in their own 
 fashion. 
 
 "There are two states of society perhaps 
 equally bad for the promotion of good morals 
 and virtue — the densely populated city and the 
 wilderness. In the former, a single individual 
 loses his identity in the mass, and, being un- 
 noticed, is without the view of the public, and 
 can, to a certain extent, commit crimes with 
 impunity. In the latter, the population is sparse 
 and, the strong arm of the law not being ex- 
 tended, his crimes are in a measure unobserved, 
 or, if so, frequently power is wanting to bring 
 him to justice. Hence, both are the resort of 
 desperadoes. In the early settlement of the 
 West, the borders were Infested with despe- 
 radoes flying from justice, suspected or con- 
 victed felons escaped from the grasp of the law, 
 who sought safety. The counterfeiter and the 
 robber there found a secure retreat or a new 
 theater for crime. *' 
 
 The foregoing words were written In 1855 
 by a historian to whom the West of the trans- 
 Missouri remained still a sealed book; but they 
 cover very fitly the appeal of a wild and un- 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 25 
 
 known land to a bold, a criminal, or an ad- 
 venturous population. Of the trans-Missouri 
 as we of to-day think of it, no one can write 
 more accurately and understandingly than 
 Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United 
 States, who thus describes the land he knew and 
 loved.* 
 
 "Some distance beyond the Mississippi, 
 stretching from Texas to North Dakota, and 
 westward to the Rocky mountains, lies the 
 plains country. This is a region of light rain- 
 fall, where the ground is clad with short grass, 
 while Cottonwood trees fringe the courses of 
 the winding plains streams; streams that are 
 alternately turbid torrents and mere dwindling 
 threads of water. The great stretches of natu- 
 ral pasture are broken by gray sage-brush plains, 
 and tracts of strangely shaped and colored Bad 
 Lands; sun-scorched wastes In summer, and in 
 winter arctic in their iron desolation. Beyond 
 the plains rise the Rocky mountains, their flanks 
 covered with coniferous woods; but the trees 
 are small, and do not ordinarily grow very 
 close together. Toward the north the forest 
 becomes denser, and the peaks higher; and gla- 
 
 * " The Wilderness Hunters." G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and 
 London. 
 
26 The Story of 
 
 ciers creep down toward the valleys from the 
 fields of everlasting snow. The brooks are 
 brawling, trout-filled torrents; the swift rivers 
 roam over rapid and cataract, on their way to 
 one or other of the two great oceans. 
 
 "Southwest of the Rockies evil and terrible 
 deserts stretch for leagues and leagues, mere 
 waterless wastes of sandy plain and barren 
 mountain, broken here and there by narrow 
 strips of fertile ground. Rain rarely falls, and 
 there are no clouds to dim the brazen sun. 
 The rivers run in deep canyons, or are swal- 
 lowed by the burning sand; the smaller water- 
 courses are dry throughout the greater part of 
 the year. 
 
 "Beyond this desert region rise the sunny 
 Sierras of California, with their flower-clad 
 slopes and groves of giant trees; and north of 
 them, along the coast, the rain-shrouded moun- 
 tain chains of Oregon and Washington, matted 
 with the towering growth of the mighty ever- 
 green forest." 
 
 Such, then, was this Western land, so long 
 the home of the out-dweller who foreran civili- 
 zation, and who sometimes took matters of the 
 law into his own hands. For purposes of con- 
 venience, we may classify him as the bad man 
 
The Outlaw 27 
 
 of the mountains and the bad man of the plains; 
 because he was usually found In and around the 
 crude localities where raw resources in property 
 were being developed; and because, previous to 
 the advent of agriculture, the two vast wilder- 
 ness resources were minerals and cattle. The 
 mines of California and the Rockies; the cattle 
 of the great plains — write the story of these 
 and you have much of the story of Western 
 desperadolsm. For, In spite of the fact that 
 the Ideal desperado was one who did not rob or 
 kill for gain, the most usual form of early des- 
 peradolsm had to do with attempts at unlaw- 
 fully acquiring another man's property. 
 
 The discovery of gold In California caused a 
 flood of bold men, good and bad, to pour Into 
 that remote region from all corners of the earth. 
 Books could be written, and have been written, 
 on the days of terror In California, when the 
 Vigilantes took the law Into their own hands. 
 There came the time later when the rich placers 
 of Montana and other territories were pour- 
 ing out a stream of gold rivaling that of the 
 days of '49; and when a tide of restless and 
 reckless characters, resigning or escaping from 
 both armies In the Civil War, mingled with 
 many others who heard also the imperious call 
 
28 The Story of 
 
 of a land of gold, and rolled westward across 
 the plains by every means of conveyance or 
 locomotion then possible to man. 
 
 The next great days of the wild West were 
 the cattle days, which also reached their height 
 soon after the end of the great war, when the 
 North was seeking new lands for its young men, 
 and the Southwest was hunting an outlet for the 
 cattle herds, which had enormously multiplied 
 while their owners were off at the wars. The 
 cattle country had been passed over unnoticed 
 by the mining men for many years, and dis- 
 missed as the Great American Desert, as it had 
 been named by the first explorers, who were 
 almost as ignorant about the West as Daniel 
 Webster himself. Into this once barren land, 
 a vast region unsettled and without law, there 
 now came pouring up the great herds of cattle 
 from the South, in charge of men wild as the 
 horned kine they drove. Here was another 
 great wild land that drew, as a magnet, wild 
 men from all parts of the country. 
 
 This last home of the bad man, the old cattle 
 range, is covered by a passage from an earlier 
 work :* 
 
 ***The Story of the Cowboy," by E. Hough. D. Appleton & Co., 
 New York. 
 
The Outlaw 29 
 
 "The braiding of a hundred minor pathways, 
 the Long Trail lay like a vast rope connecting 
 the cattle country of the South with that of the 
 North. Lying loose or coiling, it ran for more 
 than two thousand miles along the eastern ridge 
 of the Rocky mountains, sometimes close in at 
 their feet, again hundreds of miles away across 
 the hard table-lands or the well-flowered prai- 
 ries. It traversed in a fair line the vast land 
 of Texas, curled over the Indian Nations, over 
 Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and 
 Montana, and bent in wide overlapping cir- 
 cles as far west as Utah and Nevada; as far 
 east as Missouri, Iowa, Illinois; and as far 
 north as the British possessions. Even to-day 
 you may trace plainly its former course, from 
 its faint beginnings in the lazy land of Mexico, 
 the Ararat of the cattle range. It is distinct 
 across Texas, and multifold still in the Indian 
 lands. Its many intermingling paths still scar 
 the iron surface of the Neutral Strip, and the 
 plows have not buried all the old furrows in the 
 plains of Kansas. Parts of the path still remain 
 visible In the mountain lands of the far North. 
 You may see the ribbons banding the hillsides 
 to-day along the valley of the Stillwater, and 
 along the Yellowstone and toward the source 
 
30 The Story of 
 
 of the Missouri. The hoof marks are beyond 
 the Musselshell, over the Bad Lands and the 
 coulees and the flat prairies ; and far up into the 
 land of the long cold you may see, even to-day 
 if you like, the shadow of that unparalleled path- 
 way, the Long Trail of the cattle range. His- 
 tory has no other like it. 
 
 "This was really the dawning of the Ameri- 
 can cattle industry. The Long Trail now re- 
 ceived a gradual but unmistakable extension, 
 always to the north, and along the line of the 
 intermingling of the products of the Spanish 
 and the Anglo-Saxon civilizations. The thrust 
 was always to the north. Chips and flakes of 
 the great Southwestern herd began to be seen 
 in the northern states. Meantime the Anglo- 
 Saxon civilization was rolling swiftly toward 
 the upper West. The Indians were being driven 
 from the plains. A solid army was pressing be- 
 hind the vanguard of soldier, scout and plains- 
 man. The railroads were pushing out into a 
 new and untracked empire. In 1871 over six 
 hundred thousand cattle crossed the Red river 
 for the Northern markets. Abilene, Newton, 
 Wichita, Ellsworth, Great Bend, "Dodge," 
 flared out into a swift and sometime evil blos- 
 soming. The Long Trail, which long ago had 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 31 
 
 found the black corn lands of Illinois and Mis- 
 souri, now crowded to the West, until it had 
 reached Utah and Nevada, and penetrated every 
 open park and mesa and valley of Colorado, 
 and found all the high plains of Wyoming. 
 Cheyenne and Laramie became common words 
 now, and drovers spoke wisely of the dangers 
 of the Platte as a year before they had men- 
 tioned those of the Red river or the Arkansas. 
 Nor did the Trail pause in its irresistible push 
 to the north until it had found the last of the 
 five great trans-continental lines, far in the Brit- 
 ish provinces. The Long Trail of the cattle 
 range was done. By magic the cattle industry 
 had spread over the entire West.'* 
 
 By magic, also, the cattle industry called to 
 itself a population unique and peculiar. Here 
 were great values to be handled and guarded. 
 The cowboy appeared, summoned out of the 
 shadows by the demand of evolution. With 
 him appeared also the cattle thief, making his 
 living on free beef, as he had once on the free 
 buffalo of the plains. The immense domain 
 of the West was filled with property held under 
 no better or more obvious mark than the imprint 
 of a hot Iron on the hide. There were no fences. 
 The owner might be a thousand miles away. 
 
32 The Story of 
 
 The temptation to theft was continual and ur- 
 gent. It seemed easy and natural to take a 
 living from these great herds which no one 
 seemed to own or to care for. The "rustler" 
 of the range made his appearance, bold, hardy, 
 unprincipled; and the story of his undoing by 
 the law is precisely that of the finish of the 
 robbers of the mines by the Vigilantes. 
 
 Now, too, came the days of transition, which 
 have utterly changed all the West. The rail- 
 road sprang across this great middle country of 
 the plains. The Intent was to connect the two 
 sides of this continent; but, incidentally, and 
 more swiftly than was planned, there was 
 bullded a great midway empire on the plains, 
 now one of the grandest portions of America. 
 
 This building of the trans-continental lines 
 was a rude and dangerous work. It took out 
 into the West mobs of hard characters, not 
 afraid of hard work and hard living. These 
 men would have a certain amount of money as 
 wages, and would assuredly spend these wages 
 as they made them ; hence, the gambler followed 
 the rough settlements at the "head of the rails." 
 The murderer, the thief, the prostitute, the 
 social outcast and the fleeing criminal went 
 with the gamblers and the toughs. Those were 
 
The Outlaw 3 3 
 
 the days when It was not polite to ask a man 
 what his name had been back in the States. A 
 very large percentage of this population was 
 wild and lawless, and it impressed those who 
 joined it instead of being altered and im- 
 proved by them. There were no wilder days 
 in the West than those of the early railroad 
 building. Such towns as Newton, Kansas, 
 where eleven men were killed in one night; 
 Fort Dodge, where armed encounters among 
 cowboys and gamblers, deputies and despera- 
 does, were too frequent to attract attention; 
 Caldwell, on the Indian border; Hays City, 
 Abilene, Ellsworth — any of a dozen cow camps, 
 where the head of the rails caught the great 
 northern cattle drives, furnished chapters lurid 
 enough to take volumes in telling — Indeed, per- 
 haps, gave that stamp to the West which has 
 been apparently so ineradicable. 
 
 These were flourishing times for the Western 
 desperado, and he became famous, and, as It 
 were, typical, at about this era. Perhaps this 
 was due In part to the fact that the railroads 
 carried with them the telegraph and the news- 
 paper, so that records and reports were made 
 of what had for many years gone unreported. 
 Now, too, began the influx of transients, who 
 
34 The Story of 
 
 saw the wild West hurriedly and wrote of it as a 
 strange and dangerous country. The wild citi- 
 zens of California and Montana in mining days 
 passed almost unnoticed except in fiction. The 
 wild men of the middle plains now began to 
 have a record in facts, or partial facts, as 
 brought to the notice of the reading public 
 which was seeking news of the new lands. A 
 strange and turbulent day now drew swiftly on. 
 
The Outlaw 3 5 
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 The Early Outlaw — The Frontier of the Past 
 Century — The Bad Man East of the Missis- 
 sippi River — The Great Western Land-Pirate, 
 John A. Murrell — The Greatest Slave Insur- 
 rection Ever Planned. :::::: 
 
 BEFORE passing to the review of the 
 more modern days of wild life on the 
 Western frontier, we shall find it inter- 
 esting to note a period less known, but quite 
 as wild and desperate as any of later times. 
 Indeed, we might also say that our own despe- 
 radoes could take lessons from their ancestors 
 of the past generation who lived In the forests 
 of the Mississippi valley. 
 
 Those were the days when the South was 
 breaking over the Appalachians and exploring 
 the middle and lower West. Adventurers were 
 dropping down the old river roads and "traces" 
 across Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, 
 
36 The Story of 
 
 into Louisiana and Texas. The flatboat and 
 keel-boat days of the great rivers were at their 
 height, and the population was in large part 
 transient, migratory, and bold; perhaps holding 
 a larger per cent, of criminals than any Western 
 population since could claim. There were no 
 organized systems of common carriers, no ac- 
 cepted roads and highways. The great National 
 Road, from Wheeling west across Ohio, paused 
 midway of Indiana. Stretching for hundreds 
 of miles in each direction was the wilderness, 
 wherein man had always been obliged to fend 
 for himself. And, as ever, the wilderness had 
 its own wild deeds. Flatboats were halted and 
 robbed; caravans of travelers were attacked; 
 lonely wayfarers plodding on horseback were 
 waylaid and murdered. In short, the story of 
 that early day shows our first frontiersman 
 no novice in crime. 
 
 About twenty miles below the mouth of the 
 Wabash river, there was a resort of robbers 
 such as might belong to the most lurid dime- 
 novel list — the famous Cave-in-the-Rock, in the 
 bank of the Ohio river. This cavern was about 
 twenty-five feet in height at its visible opening, 
 and it ran back into the bluff two hundred feet, 
 with a width of eighty feet. The floor of this 
 
W 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 D 
 w 
 
 ?:< 
 
 5« 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 37 
 
 natural cavern was fairly flat, so that it could 
 be used as a habitation. From this lower cave 
 a sort of aperture led up to a second one, imme- 
 diately above it in the bluff wall, and these two 
 natural retreats of wild animals offered attrac- 
 tions to wild men which were not unaccepted. 
 It was here that there dwelt for some time the 
 famous robber Meason, or Mason, who terror- 
 ized the flatboat trade of the Ohio at about 
 1800. Meason was a robber king, a giant in 
 stature, and a man of no ordinary brains. He 
 had associated with him his two sons and a 
 few other hard characters, who together made a 
 band sufficiently strong to attack any party of 
 the size usually making up the boat companies 
 of that time, or the average family traveling, 
 mounted or on foot, through the forest-covered 
 country of the Ohio valley. Meason killed and 
 pillaged pretty much as he liked for a term of 
 years, but as travel became too general along 
 the Ohio, he removed to the wilder country 
 south of that stream, and began to operate on 
 the old "Natchez and Nashville Trace," one of 
 the roadways of the South at that time, when 
 the Indian lands were just opening to the early 
 settlers. Lower Tennessee and pretty much all 
 of Mississippi made his stamping-grounds, and 
 
38 The Story of 
 
 his name became a terror there, as it had been 
 along the Ohio. The governor of the State of 
 Mississippi offered a reward for his capture, 
 dead or ahve ; but for a long time he escaped all 
 efforts at apprehension. Treachery did the 
 work, as it has usually in bringing such bold and 
 dangerous men to book. Two members of his 
 gang proved traitors to their chief. Seizing 
 an opportunity they crept behind him and 
 drove a tomahawk into his brain. They cut 
 off the head and took it along as proof; but 
 as they were displaying this at the seat of 
 government, the town of Washington, they 
 themselves were recognized and arrested, and 
 were later tried and executed; which ended the 
 Meason gang, one of the early and once famous 
 desperado bands. 
 
 From the earliest days there have been border 
 counterfeiters of coin. One of the first and 
 most remarkable was the noted Sturdevant, who 
 lived in lower Illinois, near the Ohio river, in 
 the first quarter of the last century. Sturdevant 
 was also something of a robber king, for he 
 could at any time wind his horn and summon 
 to his side a hundred armed men. He was 
 ostensibly a steady farmer, and lived comfort- 
 ably, with a good corps of servants and tenants 
 
The Outlaw 39 
 
 about him ; but his ablest assistants did not dwell 
 so close to him. He had an army of confeder- 
 ates all over the middle West and South, and 
 issued more counterfeit money than any man 
 before, and probably than any man since. He 
 always exacted a regular price for his money — 
 sixteen dollars for a hundred in counterfeit — 
 and such was the looseness of currency matters 
 at that time that he found many willing to take 
 a chance in his trade. He never allowed any 
 confederate to pass a counterfeit bill in his own 
 state, or in any other way to bring himself 
 under the surveillance of local law; and they 
 were all obliged to be especially circumspect 
 in the county where they lived. He was a 
 very smug sort of villain, in the trade strictly 
 for revenue, and he was so careful that he was 
 never caught by the law, in spite of the fact 
 that It was known that his farm was the source 
 of a flood of spurious money. He was finally 
 "regulated" by the citizens, who arose and made 
 him leave the country. This was one of the 
 early applications of lynch law in the West. Its 
 results were, as usual, salutary. There was no 
 more counterfeiting in that region. 
 
 A very noted desperado of these early days 
 was Harpe, or Big Harpe, as he was called, to 
 
40 The Story of 
 
 distinguish him from his brother and associate, 
 Little Harpe. Big Harpe made a wide region 
 of the Ohio valley dangerous to travelers. The 
 events connected with his vicious life are thus 
 given by that always interesting old-time chroni- 
 cler, Henry Howe: 
 
 "In the fall of the year 1801 or 1802, a com- 
 pany consisting of two men and three women 
 arrived in Lincoln county, Ky., and encamped 
 about a mile from the present town of Stan- 
 ford. The appearance of the individuals com- 
 posing this party was wild and rude in the 
 extreme. The one who seemed to be the leader 
 of the band was above the ordinary stature of 
 men. His frame was bony and muscular, his 
 breast broad, his limbs gigantic. His clothing 
 was uncouth and shabby, his exterior weather- 
 beaten and dirty, indicating continual exposure 
 to the elements, and designating him as one 
 who dwelt far from the habitations of men, 
 and mingled not in the courtesies of civilized 
 life. His countenance was bold and ferocious, 
 and exceedingly repulsive, from its strongly 
 marked expression of villainy. His face, which 
 was larger than ordinary, exhibited the lines 
 of ungovernable passion, and the complexion 
 announced that the ordinary feelings of the 
 
The Outlaw 4 1 
 
 human breast were In him extinguished. In- 
 stead of the healthy hue which indicates the 
 social emotions, there was a livid, unnatural 
 redness, resembling that of a dried and lifeless 
 skin. His eye was fearless and steady, but 
 it was also artful and audacious, glaring upon 
 the beholder with an unpleasant fixedness and 
 brilliancy, like that of a ravenous animal gloat- 
 ing on its prey. He wore no covering on his 
 head, and the natural protection of thick, coarse 
 hair, of a fiery redness, uncombed and matted, 
 gave evidence of long exposure to the rudest 
 visitations of the sunbeam and the tempest. He 
 was armed with a rifle, and a broad leathern 
 belt, drawn closely around his waist, supported 
 a knife and a tomahawk. He seemed, in short, 
 an outlaw, destitute of all the nobler sympathies 
 of human nature, and prepared at all points of 
 assault or defense. The other man was smaller 
 in size than him who lead the party, but simi- 
 larly armed, having the same suspicious ex- 
 terior, and a countenance equally fierce and 
 sinister. The females were coarse and wretch- 
 edly attired, 
 
 "These men stated in answer to the Inquiry 
 of the inhabitants, that their name was Harpe, 
 and that they were emigrants from North Caro- 
 
42 The Story of 
 
 Una. They remained at their encampment the 
 greater part of two days and a night, spending 
 the time In rioting, drunkenness and debauchery. 
 When they left, they took the road leading to 
 Green river. The day succeeding their depar- 
 / ture, a report reached the neighborhood that 
 a young gentleman of wealth from Virginia, 
 named Lankford, had been robbed and mur- 
 dered on what was then called and Is still known 
 as the "Wilderness Road," which runs through 
 the Rock-castle hills. Suspicion Immediately 
 fixed upon the Harpes as the perpetrators, and 
 Captain Ballenger at the head of a few bold and 
 resolute men, started In pursuit. They experi- 
 enced great difficulty In following their trail, 
 owing to a heavy fall of snow, which obliterated 
 most of their tracks, but finally came upon them 
 while encamped in a bottom on Green river, 
 near the spot where the town of Liberty now 
 stands. At first they made a show of resistance, 
 but upon being Informed that if they did not 
 Immediately surrender, they would be shot 
 down, they yielded themselves prisoners. They 
 f were brought back to Stanford, and there ex- 
 amined. Among their effects were found some 
 I fine linen shirts, marked with the initials of 
 ^ Lankford. One had been pierced by a bullet 
 
The Outlaw 43 
 
 and was stained with blood. They had also a 
 considerable sum of money In gold. It was 
 afterward ascertained that this was the kind of 
 money Lankford had with him. The evidence 
 against them being thus conclusive, they were 
 confined In the Stanford jail, but were after- 
 ward sent for trial to Danville, where the dis- 
 trict court was In session. Here they broke 
 jail, and succeeded In making their escape. 
 
 "They were next heard of In Adair county, 
 near Columbia. In passing through the coun- 
 try, they met a small boy, the son of Colonel 
 Trabue, with a pillow-case of meal or flour, an 
 article they probably needed. This boy. It Is 
 supposed they robbed and then murdered, as 
 he was never afterward heard of. Many years 
 afterward human bones answering the size of 
 Colonel Trabue's son at the time of his dis- 
 appearance, were found In a sink hole near the 
 place where he was said to have been murdered. 
 
 "The Harpes still shaped their course toward 
 the mouth of Green river, marking their path by 
 murders and robberies of the most horrible and 
 brutal character. The district of country 
 through which they passed was at that time very 
 thinly settled, and from this reason, their out- 
 rages went unpunished. They seemed Inspired 
 
44 The Story of 
 
 with the deadliest hatred against the whole 
 human race, and such was their implacable mis- 
 anthropy, that they were known to kill where 
 there was no temptation to rob. One of their 
 victims was a little girl, found at some distance 
 from her home, whose tender age and helpless- 
 ness would have been protection against any but 
 incarnate fiends. The last dreadful act of bar- 
 barity, which led to their punishment and ex- 
 pulsion from the country, exceeded in atrocity 
 all the others. 
 
 "Assuming the guise of Methodist preachers, 
 they obtained lodgings one night at a solitary 
 house on the road. Mr. Stagall, the master 
 of the house, was absent, but they found his 
 wife and children, and a stranger, who, like 
 themselves, had stopped for the night. Here 
 they conversed and made inquiries about the 
 two noted Harpes who were represented as 
 prowling about the country. When they retired 
 to rest, they contrived to secure an axe, which 
 they carried with them into their chamber. In 
 the dead of night, they crept softly down stairs, 
 and assassinated the whole family, together with 
 the stranger, in their sleep, and then setting fire 
 to the house, made their escape. When Stagall 
 returned, he found no wife to welcome him; 
 
The Outlaw 45 
 
 no home to receive him. Distracted with grief 
 and rage, he turned his horse's head from the 
 smoldering ruins, and repaired to the house of 
 Captain John Leeper. Leeper was one of the 
 most powerful men in his day, and fearless as 
 powerful. Collecting four or five men well 
 armed, they mounted and started in pursuit of 
 vengeance. It was agreed that Leeper should 
 attack 'Big Harpe,' leaving 'Little Harpe' to 
 be disposed of by Stagall. The others were 
 to hold themselves in readiness to assist Leeper 
 and Stagall, as circumstances might require. 
 
 "This party found the women belonging to 
 the Harpes, attending to their little camp by the 
 roadside; the men having gone aside into the 
 woods to shoot an unfortunate traveler, of the 
 name of Smith, who had fallen into their hands, 
 and whom the women had begged might not be 
 dispatched before their eyes. It was this halt 
 that enabled the pursuers to overtake them. 
 The women Immediately gave the alarm, and 
 the miscreants mounting their horses, which 
 were large, fleet and powerful, fled In separate 
 directions. Leeper singled out the 'Big Harpe,' 
 and being better mounted than his companions, 
 soon left them far behind. 'Little Harpe' 
 succeeded in escaping from Stagall, and he, 
 
46 The Story of 
 
 with the rest of his companions, turned and fol- 
 lowed on the track of Leeper and the 'Big 
 Harpe.' After a chase of about nine miles, 
 Leeper came within gun-shot of the latter and 
 fired. The ball entering his thigh, passed 
 through it and penetrated his horse and both 
 fell. Harpe's gun escaped from his hand and 
 rolled some eight or ten feet down the bank. 
 Reloading his rifle, Leeper ran to where the 
 wounded outlaw lay weltering in his blood, and 
 found him with one thigh broken, and the other 
 crushed beneath his horse. Leeper rolled the 
 horse away, and set Harpe In an easier position. 
 The robber begged that he might not be killed. 
 Leeper told him that he had nothing to fear 
 from him, but that Stagall was coming up, and 
 could not probably be restrained. Harpe ap- 
 peared very much frightened at hearing this, 
 and Implored Leeper to protect him. In a few 
 moments, Stagall appeared, and without utter- 
 ing a word, raised his rifle and shot Harpe 
 through the head. They then severed the head 
 from the body, and stuck it upon a pole where 
 the road crosses the creek, from which the place 
 was then named and Is yet called Harpe's Head. 
 Thus perished one of the boldest and most noted 
 freebooters that has ever appeared in America. 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 M 
 
 Save courage, he was without one redeeming 
 quality, and his death freed the country from a 
 terror which had long paralyzed its boldest 
 spirits. 
 
 "The 'Little Harpe' afterward joined the 
 band of Meason, and became one of his most 
 valuable assistants in the dreadful trade of rob- 
 bery and murder. He was one of the two ban- 
 dits that, tempted by the reward for their 
 leader's head, murdered him, and eventually 
 themselves suffered the penalty of the law as 
 previously related." 
 
 Thus it would seem that the first quarter of 
 the last century on the frontier was not without 
 Its own interest. The next decade, or that end- 
 ing about 1840, however, offered a still greater 
 instance of outlawry, one of the most famous 
 ones indeed of American history, although lit- 
 tle known to-day. This had to do with that 
 genius in crime, John A. Murrell, long known 
 as the great Western land-pirate; and surely 
 no pirate of the seas was ever more enterprising 
 or more dangerous. 
 
 Murrell was another man who, in a decent 
 walk of life, would have been called great. He 
 had more than ordinary energy and intellect. 
 He was not a mere brute, but a shrewd, cunning, 
 
48 The Story of 
 
 scheming man, hesitating at no crime on earth, 
 yet animated by a mind so bold that mere per- 
 sonal crime was not enough for him. When it 
 Is added that he had a gang of robbers and 
 murderers associated with him who were said to 
 number nearly two thousand men, and who were 
 scattered over the entire South below the Ohio 
 river, It may be seen how bold were his plans; 
 and his ability may further be shown In the 
 fact that for years these men lived among and 
 mingled with their fellows In civil life, unknown 
 and unsuspected. Some of them were said to 
 have been of the best families of the land; and 
 even yet there come to light strange and roman- 
 tic tales, perhaps not wholly true, of death-bed 
 confessions of men prominent in the South who 
 admitted that once they belonged to Murrell's 
 gang, but had later repented and reformed. A 
 prominent Kentucky lawyer was one of these. 
 Murrell and his confederates would steal 
 horses and mules, or at least the common class, 
 or division, known as the "strikers," would do 
 so, although the members of the Grand Coun- 
 cil would hardly stoop to so petty a crime. For 
 them was reserved the murdering of travelers 
 or settlers who were supposed to have money, 
 and the larger operations of negro stealing. 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 49 
 
 The theft of slaves, the claiming of the run- | 
 away rewards, the later re-stealing and re-selling \ 
 and final killing of the negro in order to destroy i 
 the evidence, are matters which Murrell reduced \ 
 to a system that has no parallel in the criminal 
 records of the country. But not even here did 
 this daring outlaw pause. It was not enough 
 to steal a negro here and there, and to make a 
 few thousand dollars out of each negro so han- 
 dled. The whole state of organized society 
 was to be overthrown by means of this same 
 black population. So at least goes one story 
 of his life. We know of several so-called black 
 insurrections that were planned at one time or 
 another in the South — as, for instance, the Tur- 
 ner insurrection in Virginia; but this Murrell 
 enterprise was the biggest of them all. 
 
 The plan was to have the uprising occur all 
 over the South on the same day, Christmas of 
 1835. The blacks were to band together and 
 march on the settlements, after killing all the 
 whites on the farms where they worked. There 
 they were to fall under the leadership of Mur- 
 rell's lieutenants, who were to show them how 
 to sack the stores, to kill the white merchants, 
 and take the white women. The banks of all 
 the Southern towns were to become the property 
 
50 The Story of 
 
 of Murrell and his associates. In short, at one 
 stroke, the entire system of government, which 
 had been established after such hard effort In 
 that fierce wilderness along the old Southern 
 "traces," was to be wiped out absolutely. The 
 land was indeed to be left without law. The 
 entire fruits of organized society were to be- 
 long to a band of outlaws. This was proba- 
 bly the best and boldest Instance ever seen of 
 the narrowness of the line dividing society and 
 savagery. 
 
 Murrell was finally brought to book by his 
 supposed confederate, Virgil A. Stewart, the 
 spy, who went under the name of Hues, whose 
 evidence, after many difiicultles, no doubt re- 
 sulted In the breaking up of this, the largest 
 and most dangerous band of outlaws this coun- 
 try ever saw; although Stewart himself was a 
 vain and ambitious notoriety seeker. Suppos- 
 ing himself safe, Murrell gave Stewart a de- 
 tailed story of his life. This was later used 
 in evidence against him ; and although Stewart's 
 account needs qualification, it Is the best and 
 fullest record obtainable to-day.* 
 
 "I was born In Middle Tennessee," Murrell 
 
 * "Life and Adventures of Virgil A. Stewart." Harper and Brothers, 
 New York. 1836. 
 
The Outlaw 5 1 
 
 personally stated. "My parents had not much 
 property, but they were intelligent people; and 
 my father was an honest man I expect, and tried 
 to raise me honest, but I think none the better 
 of him for that. My mother was of the pure 
 grit; she learned me and all her children to 
 steal as soon as we could walk and would hide 
 for us whenever she could. At ten years old 
 I was not a bad hand. The first good haul I 
 made was from a pedler who lodged at my 
 father's house one night. 
 
 "I began to look after larger spoils and ran 
 several fine horses. By the time I was twenty I 
 began to acquire considerable character, and 
 concluded to go off and do my speculation where 
 I was not known, and go on a larger scale; so 
 I began to see the value of having friends in 
 this business. I made several associates; I had 
 been acquainted with some old hands for a long 
 time, who had given me the names of some royal 
 fellows between Nashville and Tuscaloosa, and 
 between Nashville and Savannah in the state 
 of Georgia and many other places. Myself 
 and a fellow by the name of Crenshaw gathered 
 four good horses and started for Georgia. We 
 got in company with a young South Carolinian 
 just before we reached Cumberland Mountain, 
 
52 The Story of 
 
 and Crenshaw soon knew all about his business. 
 He had been to Tennessee to buy a drove of 
 hogs, but when he got there pork was dearer 
 than he calculated, and he declined purchasing. 
 We concluded he was a prize. Crenshaw 
 winked at me; I understood his Idea. Cren- 
 shaw had traveled the road before, but I never 
 had; we had traveled several miles on the 
 mountain, when we passed near a great preci- 
 pice; just before we passed It, Crenshaw asked 
 me for my whip, which had a pound of lead 
 In the butt; I handed It to him, and he rode up 
 by the side of the South Carolinian, and gave 
 him a blow on the side of the head, and tum- 
 bled him from his horse ; we lit from our horses 
 and fingered his pockets; we got twelve hundred 
 and sixty-two dollars. Crenshaw said he knew 
 of a place to hide him, and gathered him under 
 the arms, and I by his feet, and conveyed him 
 to a deep crevice In the brow of the precipice, 
 and tumbled him Into it; he went out of sight. 
 We then tumbled in his saddle, and took his 
 horse with us, which was worth two hundred 
 dollars. We turned our course for South Ala- 
 bama, and sold our horse for a good price. 
 We frolicked for a week or more and were the 
 highest larks you ever saw. We commenced 
 
The Outlaw 5 3 
 
 sporting and gambling, and lost every cent of 
 our money. 
 
 "We were forced to resort to our profession 
 for a second raise. We stole a negro man, and 
 pushed for Mississippi. We had promised him 
 that we would conduct him to a free state if he 
 would let us sell him once as we went on our 
 way; we also agreed to give him part of the 
 money. We sold him for six hundred dollars; 
 but, when we went to start, the negro seemed 
 to be very uneasy, and appeared to doubt our 
 coming back for him as we had promised. We 
 lay In a creek bottom, not far from the place 
 where we had sold the negro, all the next day, 
 and after dark we went to the china-tree In the 
 lane where we were to meet Tom; he had been 
 waiting for some time. He mounted his horse, 
 and we pushed with him a second time. We 
 rode twenty miles that night to the house of a 
 friendly speculator. I had seen him In Ten- 
 nessee, and had given him several lifts. He 
 gave me his place of residence, that I might find 
 him when I was passing. He Is quite rich, and 
 one of the best kind of fellows. Our horses 
 were fed as much as they would eat, and two 
 of them were foundered the next morning. We 
 were detained a few days, and during that time 
 
54 The Story of 
 
 our friend went to a little village in the neigh- 
 borhood, and saw the negro advertised, with 
 a description of the two men of whom he had 
 been purchased, and with mention of them as 
 suspicious personages. It was rather squally 
 times, but any port in a storm; we took the 
 negro that night to the bank of a creek which 
 runs by the farm of our friend, and Crenshaw 
 shot him through the head. We took out his 
 entrails and sunk him in the creek; our friend 
 furnished us with one fine horse, and we left 
 him our foundered horses. We made our way 
 through the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, 
 and then to Williamson county, in this state. 
 We should have made a fine trip if we had 
 taken care of all we got. 
 
 "I had become a considerable libertine, and 
 when I returned home I spent a few months 
 rioting in all the luxuries of forbidden pleas- 
 ures with the girls of my acquaintance. My 
 stock of cash was soon gone, and I put to my 
 shift for more. I commenced with horses, and 
 fan several from the adjoining counties. I had 
 got associated with a young man who had pro- 
 fessed to be a preacher among the Methodists, 
 and a sharper he was; he was as slick on the 
 tongue as goose-grease. I took my first lessons 
 
The Outlaw 5 5 
 
 In divinity from this young preacher. He was 
 highly respected by all who knew him, and well 
 calculated to please ; he first put me In the notion 
 of preaching, to aid me In my speculations. 
 
 "I got Into difficulty about a mare that I had 
 taken, and was Imprisoned for near three years. 
 I shifted It from court to court, but was at last 
 found guilty, and whipped. During my con- 
 finement I read the scriptures, and became a 
 good judge of theology. I had not neglected 
 the criminal laws for many years before that 
 time. When they turned me loose I was pre- 
 pared for anything; I wanted to kill all but 
 those of my own grit ; and I will die by the side 
 of one of them before I will desert. 
 
 "My next speculation was in the Choctaw 
 region ; myself and brother stole two fine horses, 
 and made our way into this country. We got 
 in with an old negro man and his wife, and 
 three sons, to go off with us to Texas, and 
 promised them that, if they would work for us 
 one year after we got there, we would let them 
 go free, and told them many fine stories. The 
 old negro became suspicious that we were going 
 to sell him, and grew quite contrary; so we 
 landed one day by the side of an island, and I 
 requested him to go with me round the point 
 
56 The Story of 
 
 of the island to hunt a good place to catch some 
 fish. After we were hidden from our company 
 I shot him through the head, and then ripped 
 open his belly and tumbled him into the river. 
 I returned to my company, and told them that 
 the negro had fallen into the river, and that he 
 never came up after he went under. We landed 
 fifty miles above New Orleans, and went into 
 the country and sold our negroes to a French- 
 man for nineteen hundred dollars. 
 
 "We went from where we sold the negroes 
 to New Orleans, and dressed ourselves like 
 young lords. I mixed with the loose characters 
 at the swamp every night. One night, as I was 
 returning to the tavern where I boarded, I was 
 stopped by two armed men, who demanded my 
 money. I handed them my pocketbook, and 
 observed that I was very happy to meet with 
 them, as we were all of the same profession. 
 One of them observed, 'D — d if I ever rob a 
 brother chip. We have had our eyes on you 
 and the man that has generally come with you 
 for several nights; we saw so much rigging and 
 glittering jewelry, that we concluded you must 
 be some wealthy dandy, with a surplus of cash; 
 and had determined to rid you of the trouble 
 of some of it; but, if you are a robber, here is 
 
The Outlaw 57 
 
 your pocketbook, and you must go with us to- 
 night, and we will give you an introduction to 
 several fine fellows of the block; but stop, do 
 you understand this motion?' I answered it, 
 and thanked them for their kindness, and turned 
 with them. We went to old Mother Surgick's, 
 and had a real frolic with her girls. That night 
 was the commencement of my greatness in what 
 the world calls villainy. The two fellows who 
 robbed me were named Haines and Phelps; 
 they made me known to all the speculators that 
 visited New Orleans, and gave me the name 
 of every fellow who would speculate that lived 
 on the Mississippi river, and many of its tribu- 
 tary streams, from New Orleans up to all the 
 large Western cities. 
 
 "I had become acquainted with a Kentuckian, 
 who boarded at the same tavern I did, and I 
 suspected he had a large sum of money; I felt 
 an inclination to count it for him before I left 
 the city; so I made my notions known to Phelps 
 and my other new comrades, and concerted our 
 plan. I was to get him off to the swamp with 
 me on a spree, and when we were returning to 
 our lodgings, my friends were to meet us and 
 rob us both. I had got very intimate with the 
 Kentuckian, and he thought me one of the best 
 
58 The Story of 
 
 fellows in the world. He was very fond of 
 wine ; and I had him well fumed with good wine 
 before I made the proposition for a frolic. 
 When I invited him to walk with me he readily 
 accepted the invitation. We cut a few shines 
 with the girls, and started to the tavern. We 
 were met by a band of robbers, and robbed of 
 all our money. The Kentuckian was so mad 
 that he cursed the whole city, and wished that 
 it would all be deluged in a flood of water so 
 soon as he left the place. I went to my friends 
 the next morning, and got my share of the spoil 
 money, and my pocketbook that I had been 
 robbed of. We got seven hundred and fifty 
 dollars of the bold Kentuckian, which was 
 divided among thirteen of us. 
 
 "I commenced traveling and making all the 
 acquaintances among the speculators that I 
 could. I went from New Orleans to Cincinnati, 
 and from there I visited Lexington, in Ken- 
 tucky. I found a speculator about four miles 
 from Newport, who furnished me with a fine 
 horse the second night after I arrived at his 
 house. I went from Lexington to Richmond, 
 in Virginia, and from there I visited Charles- 
 ton, in the State of South Carolina; and from 
 thence to Milledgeville, by the way of Savan- 
 
The Outlaw 59 
 
 nah and Augusta, in the State of Georgia. I 
 made my way from Milledgeville to William- 
 son county, the old stamping-ground. In all 
 the route I only robbed eleven men but I 
 preached some fine sermons, and scattered some 
 counterfeit United States paper among my 
 brethren. 
 
 "After I returned home from the first grand 
 circuit I made among my speculators, I re- 
 mained there but a short time, as I could not 
 rest when my mind was not actively engaged 
 in some speculation. I commenced the founda- 
 tion of this mystic clan on that tour, and sug- 
 gested the plan of exciting a rebellion among 
 the negroes, as the sure road to an inexhaustible 
 fortune to all who would engage in the expedi- 
 tion. The first mystic sign which is used by 
 this clan was in use among robbers before I 
 was born; and the second had its origin from 
 myself, Phelps, Haines, Cooper, Doris, Bolton, 
 Harris, Doddridge, Celly, Morris, Walton, 
 Depont, and one of my brothers, on the sec- 
 ond night after my acquaintance with them in 
 New Orleans. We needed a higher order to 
 carry on our designs, and we adopted our sign, 
 and called it the sign of the Grand Council of 
 
6o The Story of 
 
 the Mystic Clan ; and practised ourselves to give 
 and receive the new sign to a fraction before 
 we parted; and, in addition to this improve- 
 ment, we invented and formed a mode of cor- 
 responding, by means of ten characters, mixed 
 with other matter, which has been very con- 
 venient on many occasions, and especially when 
 any of us get into difficulties. I was encouraged 
 in my new undertaking, and my heart began to 
 beat high with the hope of being able one day 
 to visit the pomp of the Southern and Western 
 people in my vengeance; and of seeing their 
 cities and towns one common scene of devasta- 
 tion, smoked walls and fragments. 
 
 "I decoyed a negro man from his master in 
 Middle Tennessee, and sent him to Mill's 
 Point by a young man, and I waited to see the 
 movements of the owner. He thought his 
 negro had run off. So I started to take pos- 
 session of my prize. I got another friend at 
 Mill's Point to take my negro in a skiff, and 
 convey him to the mouth of Red river, while 
 I took passage on a steamboat. I then went 
 through the country by land, and sold my negro 
 for nine hundred dollars, and the second night 
 after I sold him I stole him again, and my 
 friend ran him to the Irish bayou in Texas; I 
 
The Outlaw 6 1 
 
 followed on after him, and sold my negro in 
 Texas for five hundred dollars. I then re- 
 solved to visit South America, and see if there 
 was an opening in that country for a specula- 
 tion ; I had also concluded that I could get some 
 strong friends in that quarter to aid me in my 
 designs relative to a negro rebellion; but of all 
 people in the world, the Spaniards are the most 
 treacherous and cowardly; I never want them 
 concerned in any matter with me; I had rather 
 take the negroes in this country to fight than 
 a Spaniard. I stopped in a village, and passed 
 as a doctor, and commenced practising medi- 
 cine. I could ape the doctor first-rate, having 
 read Ewel, and several other works on primi- 
 tive medicine. I became a great favorite of an 
 old Catholic; he adopted me as his son in the 
 faith, and introduced me to all the best families 
 as a young doctor from North America. I had 
 been with the old Catholic but a very short 
 time before I was a great Roman Catholic, and 
 bowed to the cross, and attended regularly to 
 all the ceremonies of that persuasion; and, to 
 tell you the fact. Hues, all the Catholic religion 
 needs to be universally received, is to be cor- 
 rectly represented; but you know I care noth- 
 ing for religion. I had been with the old 
 
62 The Story of 
 
 Catholic about three months, and was getting 
 a heavy practice, when an opportunity offered 
 for me to rob the good man's secretary of nine 
 hundred and sixty dollars in gold, and I could 
 have got as much more in silver if I could have 
 carried it. I was soon on the road for home 
 again; I stopped three weeks In New Orleans 
 as I came home, and had some high fun with 
 old Mother Surgick's girls. 
 
 "I collected all my associates in New Orleans 
 at one of my friend's houses in that plare, and 
 we sat in council three days before we^Dt all 
 our plans to our notion; we then determined to 
 undertake the rebellion at every hazard, and 
 make as many friends as we could for that 
 purpose. Every man's business being assigned 
 him, I started for Natchez on foot. Having 
 sold my horse in New Orleans with the Inten- 
 tion of stealing another after I started, I 
 walked four days, and no opportunity offered 
 for me to get a horse. The fifth day, about 
 twelve o'clock, I had become very tired, and 
 stopped at a creek to get some water and rest 
 a little. While I was sitting on a log, looking 
 down the road I had come, a man came In sight 
 riding a good-looking horse. The very mo- 
 ment I saw him I determined to have his horse 
 
The Outlaw 63 
 
 if he was In the garb of a traveler. He rode 
 up, and I saw from his equipage that he was 
 a traveler. I arose from my seat and drew an 
 elegant rifle pistol on him, and ordered him to 
 dismount. He did so, and I took his horse by 
 the bridle, and pointed down the creek, and 
 ordered him to walk before me. We went a 
 few hundred yards and stopped. I hitched his 
 horse, then made him undress himself, all to his 
 shirt and drawers, and ordered him to turn 
 his back to me. He asked me if I was going 
 to shoot him. I ordered him the second time 
 to turn his back to me. He said, 'If you are de- 
 termined to kill me, let me have time to pray 
 before I die.' I told him I had no time to hear 
 him pray. He turned round and dropped on 
 his knees, and I shot him through the back of 
 the head. I ripped open his belly, and took out 
 his entrails, and sunk him in the creek. I then 
 searched his pockets, and found four hundred 
 and one dollars and thirty-seven cents, and a 
 number of papers that I did not take time to 
 examine. I sunk the pocketbook and papers 
 and his hat in the creek. His boots were brand 
 new, and fitted me very genteelly, and I put 
 them on, and sunk my old shoes in the creek 
 to atone for them. I rolled up his clothes and 
 
64 . The Story of 
 
 put them Into his portmanteau, as they were 
 quite new cloth of the best quality. I mounted 
 as fine a horse as ever I straddled, and directed 
 my course to Natchez In much better style than 
 I had been for the last five days. 
 
 "I reached Natchez, and spent two days with 
 my friends at that place and the girls under the 
 Hill together. I then left Natchez for the 
 Choctaw nation, with the Intention of giving 
 some of them a chance for their property. As 
 I was riding along between Benton and Ran- 
 kin, planning for my designs, I was overtaken 
 by a tall and good-looking young man, riding 
 an elegant horse, which was splendidly rigged 
 off; and the young gentleman's apparel was of 
 the gayest that could be had, and his watch- 
 chain and other jewelry were of the richest and 
 best. I was anxious to know If he Intended to 
 travel through the Choctaw nation, and soon 
 managed to learn. He said he had been to the 
 lower country with a drove of negroes, and 
 was returning home to Kentucky. We rode on, 
 and soon got very Intimate for strangers, and 
 agreed to be company through the Indian na- 
 tion. We were two fine-looking men, and, to 
 hear us talk, we were very rich. I felt him on 
 the subject of speculation, but he cursed the 
 
The Outlaw 65 
 
 speculators, and said he was in a bad condi- 
 tion to fall into the hands of such villains, as 
 he had the cash with him that twenty negroes 
 had sold for; and that he was very happy that 
 he happened to get in company with me through 
 the nation. I concluded he was a noble prize, 
 and longed to be counting his cash. At length 
 we came into one of those long stretches in the 
 Nation, where there was no house for twenty 
 miles, on the third day after we had been in 
 company with each other. The country was 
 high, hilly, and broken, and no water; just 
 about the time I reached the place where I in- 
 tended to count my companion's cash, I became 
 very thirsty, and insisted on turning down a 
 deep hollow, or dale, that headed near the road, 
 to hunt some water. We had followed down 
 the dale for near four hundred yards, when I 
 drew my pistol and shot him through. He fell 
 dead; I commenced hunting for his cash, and 
 opened his large pocketbook, which was stuffed 
 very full ; and when I began to open it I thought 
 it was a treasure indeed; but oh! the contents 
 of that book ! it was richly filled with the copies 
 of love-songs, the forms of love-letters, and 
 some of his own composition, — but no cash. 
 I began to cut off his clothes with my knife, 
 
66 The Story of 
 
 and examine them for his money. I found four 
 dollars and a half in change in his pockets, and 
 no more. And is this the amount for which 
 twenty negroes sold? thought I. I recollected 
 his watch and jewelry, and I gathered them in; 
 his chain was rich and good, but it was swung 
 to an old brass watch. He was a puff for true, 
 and I thought all such fools ought to die as 
 soon as possible. I took his horse, and swapped 
 him to an Indian native for four ponies, and 
 sold them on the way home. I reached home, 
 and spent a few weeks among the girls of my 
 acquaintance, in all the enjoyments that money 
 could afford. 
 
 "My next trip was through Georgia, South 
 Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Mary- 
 land, and then back to South Carolina, and 
 from there round by Florida and Alabama. I 
 began to conduct the progress of my opera- 
 tions, and establish my emissaries over the 
 country in every direction. 
 
 "I have been going ever since from one place 
 to another, directing and managing; but I have 
 others now as good as myself to manage. This 
 fellow, Phelps, that I was telling you of before, 
 he is a noble chap among the negroes, and he 
 wants them all free; he knows how to excite 
 
The Outlaw 67 
 
 them as well as any person; but he will not do 
 for a robber, as he cannot kill a man unless he 
 has received an injury from him first. He is 
 now in jail at Vicksburg, and I fear will hang. 
 I went to see him not long since, but he is so 
 strictly watched that nothing can be done. He 
 has been in the habit of stopping men on the 
 highway, and robbing them, and letting them 
 go on; but that will never do for a robber; 
 after I rob a man he will never give evidence 
 against me, and there is but one safe plan in the 
 business, and that is to kill — if I could not 
 afford to kill a man, I would not rob. 
 
 "The great object that we have in contem- 
 plation is to excite a rebellion among the negroes 
 throughout the slave-holding states. Our plan 
 is to manage so as to have it commence every- 
 where at the same hour. We have set on the 
 25th of December, 1835, for the time to com- 
 mence our operations. We design having our 
 companies so stationed over the country, in the 
 vicinity of the banks and large cities, that 
 when the negroes commence their carnage and 
 slaughter, we will have detachments to fire the 
 towns and rob the banks while all is confusion 
 and dismay. The rebellion taking place every- 
 where at the same time, every part of the coun- 
 
68 The Story of 
 
 try will be engaged In its own defence ; and one 
 part of the country can afford no relief to an- 
 other, until many places will be entirely over- 
 run by the negroes, and our pockets replenished 
 from the banks and the desks of rich mer- 
 chants' houses. It is true that In many places 
 in the slave states the negro population is not 
 strong, and would be easily overpowered; but, 
 back them with a few resolute leaders from our 
 clan, they will murder thousands, and huddle 
 the remainder into large bodies of stationary 
 defence for their own preservation; and then, 
 in many other places, the black population is 
 much the strongest, and under a leader would 
 overrun the country before any steps could be 
 taken to suppress them. 
 
 *'We do not go to every negro we see and tell 
 him that the negroes Intend to rebel on the 
 night of the 25th of December, 1835. We 
 find the most vicious and wickedly disposed on 
 large farms, and poison their minds by telling 
 them how they are mistreated. When we are 
 convinced that we have found a blood-thirsty 
 devil, we swear him to secrecy and disclose to 
 him the secret, and convince him that every 
 other state and section of country where there 
 are any negroes Intend to rebel and slay all the 
 
The Outlaw 69 
 
 whites they can on the night of the 25th of De- 
 cember, 1835, and assure him that there are 
 thousands of white men engaged In trying to 
 free them, who will die by their sides In battle. 
 We have a long ceremony for the oath, which 
 Is administered In the presence of a terrific pic- 
 ture painted for that purpose, representing the 
 monster who Is to deal with him should he prove 
 unfaithful In the engagements he has entered 
 Into. This picture Is highly calculated to make 
 a negro true to his trust, for he Is disposed to be 
 superstitious at best. 
 
 "Our black emissaries have the promise of a 
 share In the spoils we may gain, and we prom- 
 ise to conduct them to Texas should we be de- 
 feated, where they will be free; but we never 
 talk of being defeated. We always talk of vic- 
 tory and wealth to them. There Is no danger 
 in any man. If you can ever get him once Impli- 
 cated or engaged In a matter. That Is the way 
 we employ our strikers In all things; we have 
 them Implicated before we trust them from our 
 sight. 
 
 "This may seem too bold, but that is what I 
 glory in. All the crimes I have ever committed 
 have been of the most daring; and I have been 
 successful In all my attempts as yet; and I am 
 
JO The Story of 
 
 confident that I will be victorious in this matter, 
 as in the robberies which I have in contempla- 
 tion; and I will have the pleasure and honor of 
 seeing and knowing that by my management I 
 have glutted the earth with more human gore, 
 and destroyed more property, than any other 
 robber who has ever lived in America, or the 
 known world. I look on the American people 
 as my common enemy. My clan is strong, 
 brave, and experienced, and rapidly increasing 
 in strength every day. I should not be sur- 
 prised if we were to be two thousand strong by 
 the 25th of December, 1835; and, in addition 
 to this, I have the advantage of any other leader 
 of banditti that has ever preceded me, for at 
 least one-half of my Grand Council are men of 
 high standing, and many of them in honorable 
 and lucrative offices." 
 
 The number of men, more or less prominent, 
 in the different states included: sixty-one from 
 Tennessee, forty-seven from Mississippi, forty- 
 six from Arkansas, twenty-five from Kentucky, 
 twenty-seven from Missouri, twenty-eight from 
 Alabama, thirty-three from Georgia, thirty-five 
 from South Carolina, thirty-two from North 
 Carolina, twenty-one from Virginia, twenty- 
 seven from Maryland, sixteen from Florida, 
 
The Outlaw 7 1 
 
 thirty-two from Louisiana. The transient mem- 
 bers who made a habit of travehng from place 
 to place numbered twenty-two ; Murrell said that 
 there was a total list of two thousand men in 
 his band, including all classes. 
 
 To the foregoing sketch of Murrell's life 
 Mr. Alexander Hynds, historian of Tennessee, 
 adds some facts and comments which will en- 
 able the reader more fully to make his own 
 estimate as to this singular man: 
 
 "The central meeting place of Murrell's 
 band was near an enormous cottonwood tree 
 in Mississippi county, Arkansas. It was stand- 
 ing in 1890, and is perhaps still standing in the 
 wilderness shortly above Memphis. His widely 
 scattered bands had a system of signs and pass- 
 words. Murrell himself was married to the 
 sister of one of his gang. He bought a good 
 farm near Denmark, Madison county, Tennes- 
 see, where he lived as a plain farmer, while he 
 conducted the most fearful schemes of rapine 
 and murder from New Orleans up to Memphis, 
 St. Louis and Cincinnati. 
 
 "Nature had done much for Murrell. He 
 had a quick mind, a fine natural address and 
 great adaptability; and he was as much at ease 
 amonof the refined and cultured as with his own 
 
72 2^ he Story of 
 
 gang. He made a special study of criminal law, 
 and knew something of medicine. He often 
 palmed himself off as a preacher, and preached 
 in large camp-meetings — and some were con- 
 verted under his ministry! He often used his 
 clerical garb in passing counterfeit money. 
 With a clear head, cool, fine judgment, and a 
 nature utterly without fear, moral or physical, 
 his power over his men never waned. To them 
 he was just, fair and amiable. He was a kind 
 husband and brother, and a faithful friend. 
 He took great pride in his position and in the 
 operations of his gang. This conceit was the 
 only weak spot in his nature, and led to his 
 downfall. 
 
 "Stewart, who purports to be Murrell's 
 biographer, made Murrell's acquaintance, pre- 
 tended to join his gang, and playing on his 
 vanity, attended a meeting of the gang at the 
 rendezvous at the Big Cottonwood, and saw 
 the meeting of the Grand Council. He had 
 Murrell arrested, and he was tried, convicted 
 and sent to the Tennessee penitentiary in 1834 
 for ten years. There he worked in the black- 
 smith shops, but by the time he got out, was 
 broken down in mind and body, emerging an 
 imbecile and an Invalid, to live less than a year. 
 
The Outlaw 73 
 
 "Stewart's account holds Inconsistencies and 
 Inaccuracies, such as that many men high in 
 social and official life belonged to MurrelPs 
 gang, which his published lists do not show. 
 He had perhaps 440 to 450 men, scattered from 
 New Orleans to Cincinnati, but his downfall 
 spread fear and distrust among them. 
 
 "At VIcksburg, on July 4, 1835, a drunken 
 member of the gang threatened to attack the 
 authorities, and was tarred and feathered. 
 Others of the gang, or at least several well- 
 known gamblers, collected and defied the citi- 
 zens, and killed the good and brave Dr. Bodley. 
 Five men were hung, Hullams, Dutch BUI, 
 North, Smith and McCall. The news swept 
 like wildfire through the Mississippi Valley and 
 gave heart to the lovers of law and order. At 
 one or two other places some were shot, some 
 were hanged, and now and then one or two were 
 sent to prison, and thus an end was put to or- 
 ganized crime in the Southwest forever; and 
 this closed out the reign of the river cut- 
 throats, pirates and gamblers as well." 
 
 Thus, as in the case of Sturdevant, lynch law 
 put an effectual end to outlawry that the law it- 
 self could not control. 
 
74 The Story of 
 
 Chapter V 
 
 The Vigilantes of California — The Greatest 
 Vigilante Movement of the fVorld — History of 
 the California *'Str anglers'' and Their Methods. 
 
 THE world will never see another Cali- 
 fornia. Great gold stampedes there 
 may be, but under conditions far dif- 
 ferent from those of 1849. Transportation has 
 been so developed, travel has become so swift 
 and easy, that no section can now long remain 
 segregated from the rest of the world. There 
 is no corner of the earth which may not now be 
 reached with a celerity impossible in the days 
 of the great rush to the Pacific Coast. The 
 whole structure of civilization, itself based upon 
 transportation, goes swiftly forward with that 
 transportation, and the tent of the miner or 
 adventurer finds immediately erected by Its side 
 the temple of the law. 
 
 It was not thus in those early days of our 
 
The Outlaw 75 
 
 Western history. The law was left far behind 
 by reason of the exigencies of geography and of 
 wilderness travel. Thousands of honest men 
 pressed on across the plains and mountains in- 
 flamed, it is true, by the madness of the lust 
 for gold, but carrying at the outset no wish to 
 escape from the watch-care of the law. With 
 them went equal numbers of those eager to es- 
 cape all restraints of society and law, men intend- 
 ing never to aid in the uprearing of the social 
 system in new wild lands. Both these elements, 
 the law-loving and the law-hating, as they ad- 
 vanced pari-passii farther and farther from the 
 staid world which they had known, noticed the 
 development of a strange phenomenon: that 
 law, which they had left behind them, waned in 
 importance with each passing day. The stand- 
 ards of the old home changed, even as customs 
 changed. A week's journey from the settle- 
 ments showed the argonaut a new world. A 
 month hedged it about to itself, alone, apart, 
 with ideas and values of its own and inde- 
 pendent of all others. A year sufficed to leave 
 that world as distinct as though it occupied a 
 planet all its own. For that world the divine 
 fire of the law must be re-discovered, evolved, 
 nay, evoked fresh from chaos even as the sav- 
 
76 The Story of 
 
 age calls forth fire from the dry and sapless 
 twigs of the wilderness. 
 
 In the gold country all ideas and principles 
 were based upon new conditions. Precedents 
 did not exist. Man had gone savage again, 
 and it was the beginning. Yet this savage, 
 willing to live as a savage in a land which was 
 one vast encampment, was the Anglo-Saxon 
 savage, and therefore carried with him that 
 chief trait of the American character, the prin- 
 ciple that what a man earns — not what he steals, 
 but what he earns — is his and his alone. This 
 principle sowed in ground forbidding and un- 
 promising was the seed of the law out of which 
 has sprung the growth of a mighty civilization 
 fit to be called an empire of its own. The 
 growth and development of law under such con- 
 ditions offered phenomena not recorded in the 
 history of any other land or time. 
 
 In the first place, and even while in transit, 
 men organized for the purpose of self-protec- 
 tion, and in this necessary act law-abiding and 
 criminal elements united. After arriving at 
 the scenes of the gold fields, such organization 
 was forgotten; even the parties that had banded 
 together in the Eastern states as partners rarely 
 kept together for a month after reaching the 
 
The Outlaw JJ 
 
 region where luck, hazard and opportunity, in- 
 extricably blended, appealed to each man to act 
 for himself and with small reference to others. 
 The first organizations of the mining camps | 
 were those of the criminal element. They 
 were presently met by the organization of the ; I 
 law and order men. Hard upon the miners' j \ 
 law came the regularly organized legal ma- 
 chinery of the older states, modified by local 
 conditions, and irretrievably blended with a poli- 
 tics more corrupt than any known before or 1 
 since. Men were busy in picking up raw gold 
 from the earth, and they paid small attention 
 to courts and government. The law became an 
 unbridled instrument of evil. Judges of the 
 courts openly confiscated the property of their j 
 enemies, or sentenced them with no reference to 
 the principles of justice, with as great disregard 
 for life and liberty as was ever known in the 
 Revolutionary days of France. Against this 
 manner of government presently arose the or- 
 ganizations of the law-abiding, the justice-lov- , 
 ing, and these took the law into their own stern 
 hands. The executive officers of the law, the ■ 
 sheriffs and constables, were in league to kill | 
 and confiscate ; and against these the new agency \ 
 of the actual law made war, constituting them- 
 
yS The Story of 
 
 selves Into an arm of essential government, and 
 openly called themselves Vigilantes. In turn 
 criminals used the cloak of the Vigilantes to 
 cover their own deeds of lawlessness and vio- 
 lence. The Vigilantes purged themselves of the 
 false members, and carried their own title of 
 opprobrium, the "stranglers," with unconcern 
 or pride. They grew In numbers, the love of 
 justice their lodestone, until at one time they 
 numbered more than five thousand In the city 
 of San Francisco alone, and held that com- 
 munity In a grip of lawlessness, or law, as you 
 shall choose to term It. They set at defiance the 
 chief executive of the state, erected an armed 
 castle of their own, seized upon the arms of the 
 mllltia, defied the government of the United 
 States and even the United States army ! They 
 were, as you shall choose to call them, criminals, 
 or great and noble men. Seek as you may to- 
 day, you will never know the full roster of their 
 names, although they made no concealment of 
 their Identity; and no one, to this day, has ever 
 been able to determine who took the first step 
 In their organization. They began their labors 
 In California at a time when there had been 
 more than two thousand murders — five hundred 
 In one year — and not five legal executions. 
 
The Outlaw 79 
 
 Their task included the erection of a fit struc- 
 ture of the law, and, Incidentally, the destruc- 
 tion of a corrupt and unworthy structure claim- 
 ing the title of the law. In this strange, swift 
 panorama there is all the story of the social 
 system, all the picture of the building of that 
 temple of the law which, as Americans, we now 
 revere, or, at times, still despise and desecrate. 
 At first the average gold seeker concerned 
 himself little with law, because he intended to 
 make his fortune quickly and then hasten back 
 East to his former home; yet, as early as the 
 winter of 1849, there was elected a legislature 
 which met at San Jose, a Senate of sixteen mem- 
 bers and an Assembly of thirty-six. In this 
 election the new American vote was in evidence. 
 The miners had already tired of the semi-mili- 
 tary phase of their government, and had met 
 and adopted a state constitution. The legisla- 
 ture enacted one hundred and forty new laws 
 In two months, and abolished all former laws; 
 and then, satisfied with Its labors, It left the 
 enforcement of the laws, in the good old Ameri- 
 can fashion, to whomsoever might take an In- 
 terest in the matter.* This is our custom even 
 to-day. Our great cities of the East are prac- 
 
 * Tuthill : < ' History of California. ' ' 
 
8o The Story of 
 
 tically all governed, so far as they are governed 
 at all, by civic leagues, civic federations, citi- 
 zens' leagues, business men's associations — all 
 protests at non-enforcement of the law. This 
 protest in '49 and on the Pacific coast took a 
 sterner form. 
 
 At one time the city of San Francisco had 
 three separate and distinct city councils, each 
 claiming to be the only legal one. In spite of 
 the new state organization, the law was much a 
 matter of go as you please. Under such condi- 
 tions it was no wonder that outlawry began to 
 show its head in bold and well-organized forms. 
 A party of ruffians, who called themselves the 
 *'Hounds," banded together to run all foreign- 
 ers out of the rich camps, and to take their dig- 
 gings over for themselves. A number of Chile- 
 ans were beaten or shot, and their property was 
 confiscated or destroyed. This was not in ac- 
 cordance with the saving grace of American 
 justice, which devoted to a man that which 
 he had earned. A counter organization was 
 promptly formed, and the "Hounds" found 
 themselves confronted with two hundred *'spe- 
 cial constables," each with a good rifle. A 
 mass meeting sat as a court, and twenty of the 
 "Hounds" were tried, ten of them receiving 
 
The Outlaw 8 1 
 
 sentences that never were enforced, but which 
 had the desired effect. So now, while far to 
 the eastward the Congress was hotly arguing 
 the question of the admission of California as 
 a state, she was beginning to show an interest 
 in law and justice when aroused thereto. 
 
 It was difficult material out of which to build 
 a civilized community. The hardest popula- 
 tion of the entire world was there; men savage 
 or civilized by tradition, heathen or Christian 
 once at least, but now all Californlan. Wealth 
 was the one common thing. The average daily 
 return in the work of mining ranged from 
 twenty to thirty dollars, and no man might tell 
 when his fortune might be made by a blow of 
 a pick. Some nuggets of gold weighing twenty- 
 five pounds were discovered. In certain dig- 
 gings men picked pure gold from the rock 
 crevices with a spoon or a knife point. As to 
 values, they were guessed at, the only currency 
 being gold dust or nuggets. Prodigality was 
 universal. All the gamblers of the world met 
 In vulture concourse. There was little in the 
 way of home; of women almost none. Life 
 was as cheap as gold dust. Let those who 
 liked bother about statehood and government 
 and politics; the average man was too busy dig- 
 
82 The Story of 
 
 ging and spending gold to trouble over such 
 matters. The most shameless men were those 
 found in public office. Wealth and commerce 
 waxed great, but law and civilization lan- 
 guished. The times were ripening for the 
 growth of some system of law which would 
 offer proper protection to life and property. 
 The measure of this need may be seen from the 
 figures of the production of gold. From 1848 
 to 1856 California produced between five hun- 
 dred and six hundred million dollars In virgin 
 gold. What wonder the courts were weak; 
 and what wonder the Vigilantes became strong ! 
 There were In California three distinct 
 Vigilante movements, those of 1849, i^S^i 
 and 1856, the earliest applying rather to the 
 outlying mining camps than to the city of San 
 Francisco. In 185 1, seeing that the courts 
 made no attempt to punish criminals, a com- 
 mittee was formed which did much toward 
 enforcing respect for the principles of justice. 
 If not of law. On June 11 they hanged John 
 Jenkins for robbing a store. A month later 
 they hanged James Stuart for murdering a 
 sheriff. In August of the same summer they 
 took out of jail and hanged Whittaker and 
 McKenzie, Australian ex-convicts, whom they 
 
The Outlaw 83 
 
 had tried and sentenced, but who had been 
 rescued by the officers of the law. Two weeks 
 later this committee disbanded. They paid no 
 attention to the many killings that were going 
 on over land titles and the like, but confined 
 themselves to punishing men who had com- 
 mitted intolerable crimes. Theft was as seri- 
 ous as murder, perhaps more so, in the creed 
 of the time and place. The list of murders 
 reached appalling dimensions. The times were 
 sadly out of joint. The legislature was corrupt, 
 graft was rampant — though then unknown by 
 that name — and the entire social body was rest- 
 less, discontented, and uneasy. Politics had 
 become a fine art. The judiciary, lazy and cor- 
 rupt, was held in contempt. The dockets of 
 the courts were full, and little was done to clear 
 them effectively. Criminals did as they liked 
 and went unwhipped of justice. It was truly 
 a day of violence and license. 
 
 Once more the sober and law-loving men of 
 California sent abroad word, and again the 
 Vigilantes assembled. In 1853 they hanged 
 two Mexicans for horse stealing, and also a 
 bartender who had shot a citizen near Shasta. 
 At Jackson they hanged another Mexican for 
 horse stealing, and at Volcano, in 1854, they 
 
84 The Story of 
 
 hanged a man named Macy for stabbing an 
 old and helpless man. In this instance ven- 
 geance was very swift, for the murderer was 
 executed within half an hour after his deed. 
 The haste caused certain criticism when, in the 
 same month one Johnson was hanged for stab- 
 bing a man named Montgomery, at Iowa Hill, 
 who later recovered. At Los Angeles three 
 men were sentenced to death by the local court, 
 but the Supreme Court issued a stay for two 
 of them, Brown and Lee. The people as- 
 serted that all must die together, and the mayor 
 of the city was of the same mind. The third 
 man, Alvitre, was hanged legally on January 
 12, 1855. On that day the mayor resigned 
 his office to join the Vigilantes. Brown was 
 taken out of jail and hanged in spite of the 
 decision of the Supreme Court. The people 
 were out-running the law. That same month 
 they hanged another murderer for killing the 
 treasurer of Tuolumne county. In the follow- 
 ing month they hanged three more cattle thieves 
 in Contra Costa county, and followed this by 
 hanging a horse thief in Oakland. A larger 
 affair threatened in the following summer, 
 when thirty-six Mexicans were arrested for 
 killing a party of Americans. For a time it 
 
The Outlaw 85 
 
 was proposed to hang all thirty-six, but sober 
 counsel prevailed and only three were hanged; 
 this after formal jury trial. Unknown bandits 
 waylaid and killed Isaac B. Wall and T. S. 
 Williamson of Monterey, and, that same 
 month U. S. Marshal William H. Richard- 
 son was shot by Charles Cora in the streets 
 of San Francisco. The people grumbled. 
 There was no certainty that justice would ever 
 reach these offenders. The reputation of the 
 state was ruined, not by the acts of the Vigi- 
 lantes, but by those of unscrupulous and un- 
 principled men in office and upon the bench. 
 The government was run by gamblers, ruffians, 
 and thugs. The good men of the state began 
 to prepare for a general movement of purifi- 
 cation and the installation of an actual law. 
 The great Vigilante movement of 1856 was 
 the result. 
 
 The immediate cause of this last organiza- 
 tion was the murder of James King, editor of 
 the Bulletin, by James P. Casey. Casey, 
 after shooting King, was hurried off to jail by 
 his own friends, and there was protected by a 
 display of military force. King lingered for 
 six days after he was shot, and the state of 
 public opinion was ominous. Cora, who had 
 
86 The Story of 
 
 killed Marshal Richardson, had never been 
 punished, and there seemed no likelihood that 
 Casey would be. The local press was divided. 
 The religious papers, the Pacific and the 
 Christian Advocate, both openly declared that 
 Casey ought to be hanged. The clergy 
 took up the matter sternly, and one minister 
 of the Gospel, Rev. J. A. Benton, of Sacra- 
 mento, gave utterance to this remarkable but 
 well-grounded statement : ^'A people can be jus- 
 tified in recalling delegated power and resum- 
 ing its exerciseJ' Before we hasten to criticize 
 sweepingly under the term "mob law" such 
 work as this of the Vigilantes, It will be well 
 for us to weigh that utterance, and to apply 
 it to conditions of our own times; to-day Is 
 well-nigh as dangerous to American liberties as 
 were the wilder days of California. 
 
 Now, summoned by some unknown com- 
 mand, armed men appeared in the streets of 
 San Francisco, twenty-four companies in all, 
 with perhaps fifty men in each company. The 
 Vigilantes had organized again. They brought 
 a cannon and placed it against the jail gate, 
 and demanded that Casey be surrendered to 
 them. There was no help for it, and Casey 
 went away handcuffed, to face a court where 
 
The Outlaw * 87 
 
 political influence would mean nothing. An 
 hour later the murderer Cora was taken from 
 his cell, and was hastened away to join Casey in 
 the headquarters building of the Vigilantes. A 
 company of armed and silent men marched on 
 each side of the carriage containing the pris- 
 oner. The two men were tried in formal ses- 
 sion of the Committee, each having counsel, and 
 all evidence being carefully weighed. 
 
 King died on May 20, 1856, and on May 
 22d was buried with popular honors, a long 
 procession of citizens following the body to 
 the cemetery. A popular subscription was 
 started, and In a brief time over thirty thou- 
 sand dollars was raised for the benefit of his 
 widow and children. When the long proces- 
 sion filed back Into the city, It was to witness, 
 swinging from a beam projecting from a win- 
 dow of Committee headquarters, the bodies of 
 Casey and Cora. 
 
 The Committee now arrested two more men, 
 not for a capital crime, but for one which lay 
 back of a long series of capital crimes — the 
 stuffing of ballot-boxes and other election 
 frauds. These men were Billy Mulligan and 
 the prize-fighter known as Yankee Sullivan. 
 Although advised that he would have a fair 
 
88 The Story of 
 
 trial and that the death penalty would not be 
 passed upon him, Yankee Sullivan committed 
 suicide in his cell. The entire party of lawyers 
 and judges were arrayed against the Commit- 
 tee, naturally enough. Judge Terry, of the 
 Supreme Court, issued a writ of habeas corpus 
 for Mulligan. The Committee ignored the 
 sheriff who was sent to serve the writ. They 
 cleared the streets in front of headquarters, es- 
 tablished six. cannon in front of their rooms, 
 put loaded swivels on top of the roof and 
 mounted a guard of a hundred riflemen. They 
 brought bedding and provisions to their quar- 
 ters, mounted a huge triangle on the roof for 
 a signal to their men all over the city, arranged 
 the interior of their rooms in the form of a 
 court and, in short, set themselves up as the 
 law, openly defying their own Supreme Court 
 of the state. So far from being afraid of the 
 vengeance of the law, they arrested two more 
 men for election frauds, Chas. P. Duane and 
 "Woolly" Kearney. All their prisoners were 
 guarded in cells within the headquarters build- 
 ing. 
 
 The opposition to the Committee now or- 
 ganized in turn under the name of the "Law 
 and Order Men," and held a public meeting. 
 
The Outlaw 89 
 
 This was numerously attended by members of 
 the Vigilante Committee, whose books were now 
 open for enrollment. Not even the criticism 
 of their own friends stayed these men in their 
 resolution. They went even further. Gov- 
 ernor Johnson issued a proclamation to them to 
 disband and disperse. They paid no more at- 
 tention to this than they had to Judge Terry's 
 writ of habeas corpus. The governor threat- 
 ened them with the militia, but it was not 
 enough to frighten them. General Sherman 
 resigned his command in the state militia, and 
 counseled moderation at so dangerous a time. 
 Many of the militia turned in their rifles to the 
 Committee, which got other arms from vessels 
 in the harbor, and from carelessly guarded ar- 
 mories. Halting at no responsibility, a band 
 of the Committee even boarded a schooner 
 which was carrying down a cargo of rifles from 
 the governor to General Howard at San Fran- 
 cisco, and seized the entire lot. Shortly after 
 this they confiscated a second shipment which 
 the governor was sending down from Sacra- 
 mento in the same way; thus seizing property 
 of the federal government. If there was such 
 a crime as high treason, they committed it, and 
 did so openly and without hesitation. Gov- 
 
90 The Story of 
 
 ernor Johnson contented himself with drawing 
 up a statement of the situation, which was sent 
 down to President Pierce at Washington, with 
 the request that he Instruct naval officers on 
 the Pacific station to supply arms to the State 
 of California, which had been despoiled by cer- 
 tain of Its citizens. President Pierce turned 
 over the matter to his attorney-general, Caleb 
 Cushing, who rendered an opinion saying that 
 Governor Johnson had not yet exhausted the 
 state remedies, and that the United States gov- 
 ernment could not Interfere. 
 
 Little remained for the Committee to do to 
 show its resolution to act as the State pro tern- 
 'pore. That little it now proceeded to do by 
 practically suspending the Supreme Court of 
 California. In making an arrest of a witness 
 wanted by the Committee, Sterling A. Hop- 
 kins, one of the policemen retained for work 
 by the Committee, was stabbed in the throat 
 by Judge Terry, of the Supreme Bench, who 
 was very bitter against all members of the 
 Committee. It was supposed that the wound 
 would prove fatal, and at once the Committee 
 sounded the call for general assembly. The 
 city went into two hostile camps, Terry and his 
 friend, Dr. Ashe, taking refuge In the armory 
 
The Outlaw 9 1 
 
 where the "Law and Order" faction kept their 
 arms. The members of the Vigilante Commit- 
 tee besieged this place, and presently took 
 charge of Terry and Ashe, as prisoners. Then 
 the scouts of the Committee went out after the 
 arms of all the armories belonging to the gov- 
 ernor and the "Law and Order" men who sup- 
 ported him, the lawyers and politicians who felt 
 that their functions were being usurped. Two 
 thousand rifles were taken, and the opposing 
 party was left without arms. The entire state, 
 so to speak, was now in the hands of the "Com- 
 mittee of Vigilance," a body of men, quiet, law- 
 loving, law-enforcing, but of course technically 
 traitors and criminals. The parallel of this sit- 
 uation has never existed elsewhere In American 
 history. 
 
 Had Hopkins died the probability Is that 
 Judge Terry would have been hanged by the 
 Committee, but fortunately he did not die. 
 Terry lay a prisoner In the cell assigned him 
 at the Committee's rooms for seven weeks, by 
 which time Hopkins had recovered from the 
 wound given him by Terry. The case became 
 one of national Interest, and tirades against 
 "the Stranglers" were not lacking; but the 
 Committee went on enrolling men. And it did 
 
92 The Story of 
 
 not open its doors for its prisoners, although 
 appeal was made to Congress in Terry's behalf 
 — an appeal which was referred to the Com- 
 mittee on Judiciary, and so buried. 
 
 Terry was finally released, much to the re- 
 gret of many of the Committee, who thought 
 he should have been punished. The executive 
 committee called together the board of dele- 
 gates, and issued a statement showing that 
 death and banishment were the only penalties 
 optional with them. Death they could not in- 
 flict, because Hopkins had recovered; and ban- 
 ishment they thought impractical at that time, 
 as it might prolong discussion indefinitely, and 
 enforce a longer term in service than the Com- 
 mittee cared for. It was the earnest wish of 
 all to disband at the first moment that they 
 considered their state and city fit to take care 
 of themselves, and the sacredness of the ballot- 
 box again insured. To assure this latter fact, 
 they had arrayed themselves against the fed- 
 eral government, as certainly they had against 
 the state government. 
 
 The Committee now hanged two more mur- 
 derers — Hetherington and Brace — the former 
 a gambler from St. Louis, the latter a youth 
 of New York parentage, twenty-one years of 
 
The Outlaw 9 3 
 
 age, but hardened enough to curse volubly 
 upon the scaffold. By the middle of August, 
 1856, they had no more prisoners In charge, 
 and were ready to turn the city over to Its own 
 system of government. Their report, pub- 
 lished In the following fall, showed they had 
 hanged four men and banished many others, 
 besides frightening out of the country a large 
 criminal population that did not tarry for ar- 
 rest and trial. 
 
 If opinion was divided to some extent in San 
 Francisco, where those stirring deeds occurred, 
 the sentiment of the outlying communities of 
 California was almost a unit In favor of the 
 Vigilantes, and their action received the sincere 
 flattery of Imitation, as half a score of criminals 
 learned to their sorrow on Impromptu scaffolds. 
 There was no large general organization In 
 any other community, however. After a time 
 some of the banished men came back, and many 
 damage suits were argued later In the courts; 
 but small satisfaction came to those claimants, 
 and few men who knew of the deeds of the 
 ^'Committee of Vigilance" ever cared to discuss 
 them. Indeed it was practically certain that 
 any man who ever served on a Western vigi- 
 lance committee finished his life with sealed 
 
94 The Story of 
 
 lips. Had he ventured to talk of what he knew 
 he would have met contempt or something 
 harsher. 
 
 A political capital was made out of the sit- 
 uation in San Francisco. The "Committee of 
 Vigilance" felt that it had now concluded its 
 work and was ready to go back to civil life. 
 On August 1 8, 1856, the Committee marched 
 openly in review through the streets of the city, 
 five thousand one hundred and thirty-seven men 
 in line, with three companies of artillery, eigh- 
 teen cannon, a company of dragoons, and a 
 medical staff of forty odd physicians. There 
 were in this body one hundred and fifty men 
 who had served in the old Committee in 1851. 
 After the parade the men halted, the assem- 
 blage broke up into companies, the companies 
 into groups; and thus, quietly, with no vaunt- 
 ing of themselves and no concealment of their 
 acts, there passed away one of the most singu- 
 lar and significant organizations of American 
 citizens ever known. They did this with the 
 quiet assertion that if their services were again 
 needed, they would again assemble; and they 
 printed a statement covering their actions in 
 detail, showing to any fair-minded man that 
 what they had done was indeed for the good 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 msvrmaxmfim 
 
 of the whole community, which hnd bi^vn 
 wronged by those whom it had elected to 
 power, those who had set themselves up as 
 masters where they had been chosen as servants. 
 The "Committee of Vigilance" of San Fran- 
 cisco was made up of men from all walks of 
 hfe and all political parties. It had any 
 amount of money at its command that it re- 
 quired, for its members were of the best and 
 most influential citizens. It maintained, dur- 
 ing its existence, quarters unique in their way, 
 serving as arms-room, trial court, fortress, and 
 prison. It was not a mob, but a grave and 
 orderly band of men, and its deliberations were 
 formal and exact, its labors being divided 
 among proper sub-committees and boards. The 
 quarters were kept open day and night, always 
 ready for swift action, if necessary. It had an 
 executive committee, which upon occasion con- 
 ferred with a board of delegates composed of 
 three men from each subdivision of the general 
 body. The executive committee consisted of 
 thirty-three members, and its decision was final ; 
 but it could not enforce a death penalty except 
 on a two-thirds vote of those present. It had 
 a prosecuting attorney, and it tried no prisoner 
 without assigning to him competent counsel. 
 
The Story of 
 
 1* ' ■ (iso d '00 ce force, with a chief of po- 
 lice and a sheritt with several deputies. In 
 short, it took over the government, and was 
 indeed the government, municipal and state in 
 one. Recent as was its life, its deeds to-day 
 are well-nigh forgotten. Though opinion may 
 be still divided in certain quarters, California 
 need not be ashamed of this "Committee of Vig- 
 ilance." She should be proud of it, for it was 
 largely through its unthanked and dangerous 
 safeguarding of the public interests that Cali- 
 fornia gained her social system of to-day. 
 
 In all the history of American desperadoism 
 and of the movements which have checked it, 
 there is no page more worth study than this 
 from the story of the great Golden State. The 
 moral is a sane, clean, and strong one. The 
 creed of the "Committee of Vigilance" is one 
 which we might well learn to-day; and its prac- 
 tice would leave us with more dignity of char- 
 acter than we can claim, so long as we content 
 ourselves merely with outcry and criticism, with 
 sweeping accusation of our unfaithful public 
 servants, and without seeing that they are pun- 
 ished. There is nothing but manhood and free- 
 dom and justice in the covenant of the Com- 
 mittee. That covenant all American citizens 
 
The Outlaw 97 
 
 should be ready to sign and live up to: "We 
 do bind ourselves each unto the other by a 
 solemn oath to do and perform every just and 
 lawful act for the maintenance of law and 
 order, and to sustain the laws when faithfully 
 and properly administered. But we are deter- 
 mined that no thief, burglar, incendiary, assas- 
 sin, ballot-box stuff er or other disturber of the 
 peace, shall escape punishment, either by quib- 
 bles of the law, the carelessness of the police 
 or a laxity of those who pretend to administer 
 justice." 
 
 What a man earns, that is his — such was the 
 lesson of California. Self-government is our 
 right as a people — that is what the Vigilantes 
 said. When the laws failed of execution, then 
 it was the people's right to resume the power 
 that they had delegated, or which had been 
 usurped from them — that is their statement as 
 quoted by one of the ablest of many historians 
 of this movement. The people might with- 
 draw authority when faithless servants used it 
 to thwart justice — that was what the Vigilantes 
 preached. It is good doctrine to-day. 
 
98 The Story of 
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 The Outlaw of the Mountains — The Gold 
 Stampedes of the '60V — Armed Bandits of the 
 Mountain Mining Camps. :::::: 
 
 T 
 
 "^HE greatest of American gold stam- 
 pedes, and perhaps the greatest of 
 the world, not even excepting that of 
 Australia, was that following upon the discov- 
 ery of gold In California. For twenty years 
 all the West was mad for gold. No other way 
 would serve but the digging of wealth directly 
 from the soil. Agriculture was too slow, com- 
 merce too tame, to satisfy the bold population 
 of the frontier. The history of the first strug- 
 gle for mining claims In California — one stam- 
 pede after another, as this, that and the other 
 "strike" was reported In new localities — was 
 repeated all over the vast region of the au- 
 riferous mountain lands lying between the 
 plains and California, which were swiftly pros- 
 
The Outlaw 99 
 
 pected by men who had now learned well the 
 prospector's trade. The gold-hunters lapped 
 back on their own trails, and, no longer con- 
 tent with California, began to prospect lower 
 Oregon, upper Idaho, and Western Montana. 
 Walla Walla was a supply point for a time. 
 Florence was a great mountain market, and 
 Lewiston. One district after another sprang 
 Into prominence, to fade away after a year or 
 two of feverish life. The placers near Ban- 
 nack caught a wild set of men, who surged 
 back from California. Oro Fino was a tem- 
 porary capital; then the fabulously rich placer 
 which made Alder Gulch one of the quickly 
 perished but still unforgotten diggings. 
 
 The flat valley of this latter gulch housed 
 several "towns," but was really for a dozen 
 miles a continuous string of miners' cabins. 
 The city of Helena is built on the tailings of 
 these placer washings, and Its streets are lit- 
 erally paved with gold even to-day. Here in 
 1863, while the great conflict between North 
 and South was raging, a great community of 
 wild men, not organized Into anything fit to 
 be called society, divided and fought bitterly 
 for control of the apparently exhaustless wealth 
 which came pouring from the virgin mines. 
 
 LOf a 
 
ioo The Story of 
 
 rhese clashing factions repeated, In Intensified 
 form, the history of California. They were 
 even more utterly cut off from all the world. 
 Letters and papers from the states had to reach 
 the mountains by way of California, via the 
 Horn or the Isthmus. Touch with the older 
 civilization was utterly lost; of law there was 
 none. 
 
 Upon the social horizon now appeared the 
 sinister figure of the trained desperado, the 
 professional bad man. The business of out- 
 lawry was turned Into a profession, one highly 
 organized, relatively safe and extremely lucra- 
 tive. There was wealth to be had for the ask- 
 ing or the taking. Each miner had his buck- 
 skin purse filled with native gold. This dust 
 was like all other dust. It could not be traced 
 nor Identified; and the old saying, '"Twas 
 mine, 'tis his," might here of all places In the 
 world most easily become true. Checks, drafts, 
 currency as we know It now, all the means by 
 which civilized men keep record of their prop- 
 erty transactions, were unknown. The gold- 
 scales established the only currency, and each 
 man was his own banker, obliged to be his own 
 peace officer, and the defender of his own 
 property. 
 
JOHN SIMPSON CHISUM 
 
 A famous cattle king, died December 2.3, 1884 
 
The Outlaw i o i 
 
 Now our desperado appeared, the man who 
 had killed his man, or, more likely, several 
 men, and who had not been held sternly to an 
 accounting for his acts; the man with the six- 
 shooter and the skill to use it more swiftly and 
 accurately than the average man; the man with 
 the mind which did not scruple at murder. He 
 found much to encourage him, little to oppose 
 him. "The crowd from both East and West 
 had now arrived. The town was full of gold- 
 hunters. Expectation lighted up the counte- 
 nance of every new-comer. Few had yet real- 
 ized the utter despair of failure in a mining 
 camp. In the presence of vice in all its forms, 
 men who were staid and exemplary at home laid 
 aside their morality like a useless garment, and 
 yielded to the seductive influences spread for 
 their ruin. The gambling-shops and hurdy- 
 gurdy saloons — beheld for the first time by 
 many of these fortune-seekers — lured them on 
 step by step, until many of them abandoned all 
 thought of the object they had in pursuit for 
 lives of shameful and criminal indulgence. 
 The condition of society thus produced was 
 fatal to all attempts at organization, either for 
 protection or good order." 
 
 Yet the same condition made opportunity 
 
I02 The Story of 
 
 for those who did not wish to see a society es- 
 tablished. Wherever the law-abiding did not 
 organize, the bandits did; and the strength of 
 their party, the breadth and boldness of its 
 operations, and the length of time it carried 
 on its unmolested operations, form one of the 
 most extraordinary Incidents In American his- 
 tory. They killed, robbed, and terrorized over 
 hundreds of miles of mountain country, for 
 years setting at defiance all attempts at their 
 restraint. They recognized no command ex- 
 cept that of their "chief," whose title was al- 
 ways open to contest, and who gained his own 
 position only by being more skilful, more 
 bloodthirsty, and more unscrupulous than his 
 fellows. 
 
 Henry Plummer, the most important captain 
 of these cut-throats of the mountains, had a 
 hundred or more men in his widely scattered 
 criminal confederacy. More than one hundred 
 murders were committed by these banditti in 
 the space of three years. Many others were, 
 without doubt, committed and never traced. 
 Dead bodies were common in those hills, and 
 often were unidentified. The wanderer from 
 the States usually kept his own counsel. None 
 knew who his family might be; and that fam- 
 
The Outlaw 103 
 
 ily, missing a member who disappeared into the 
 maw of the great West of that day of danger, 
 might never know the fate of the one mysteri- 
 ously vanished. 
 
 These robbers had their confederates scat- 
 tered in all ranks of life. Plummer himself 
 was sheriff of his county, and had confederates 
 In deputies or city marshals. This was a 
 strange feature of this old desperadoism In the 
 West — It paraded often in the guise of the law. 
 We shall find further instances of this same ; 
 phenomenon. Employes, friends, officials — 
 there was none that one might trust. The or- 
 ganization of the robbers even extended to the 
 stage lines, and a regular system of communi- 
 cation existed by which the allies advised each 
 other when and where such and such a pas- 
 senger was going, with such and such an \ 
 amount of gold upon him. The holding up^'^ 
 of the stage was something regularly expected, 
 and the traveler who had any money or valu- 
 ables drew a long breath when he reached a 
 region where there was really a protecting law. 
 Men were shot down in the streets on little or 
 no provocation, and the murderer boasted of 
 his crime and defied punishment. The dance- 
 halls were run day and night. The drinking 
 
I04 The Story of 
 
 of whiskey, and, moreover, bad whiskey, was 
 a thing universal. Vice was everywhere and 
 virtue was not. Those few who had an aim 
 and an ambition In Hfe were long In the minor- 
 ity and, In the welter of a general license, they 
 might not recognize each other and join hands. 
 Murder and pillage ruled, until at length the 
 spirit of law and order, born anew of neces- 
 sity, grew and gained power as it did In most 
 early communities of the West. How these 
 things In time took place may best be seen by 
 reference to the bloody biographies of some of 
 the most reckless desperadoes ever seen in any 
 land. 
 
The Outlaw 105 
 
 Chapter VII 
 
 Henry Plummer — A Northern Bad Man — 
 The Head of the Rohher Band in the Montana 
 Mining Country — A Man of Brains and Abil- 
 ity, hut a Cold-Blooded Murderer. : : : 
 
 HENRY PLUMMER was for several 
 years In the early '6o's the "chief" 
 of the widely extended band of rob- 
 bers and murderers who kept the placer-mlning 
 fields of Montana and Idaho In a state of ter- 
 ror. Posing part of the time as an officer of 
 the law, he was all the time the leader In the 
 reign of lawlessness. He was always ready for 
 combat, and he so relied upon his own skill that 
 he would even give his antagonist the advan- 
 tage — or just enough advantage to leave him- 
 self sure to kill him. His victims in duels of 
 this sort were many, and, as to his victims In 
 cold-blooded robbery, in which death wiped 
 out the record, no one will ever know the list. 
 Plummer was born in Connecticut In 1837, 
 
io6 The Story of 
 
 and, until his departure as a young man for 
 the West, he was all that might be expected 
 of one brought up under the chastening influ- 
 ences of a New England home. He received 
 a good education, and became a polished, af- 
 fable, and gentlemanly appearing man. He 
 was about five feet ten, possibly five feet eleven 
 Inches in height, and weighed about one hun- 
 dred and sixty pounds, being rather slender In 
 appearance. His face was handsome and his 
 demeanor always frank and open, although he 
 was quiet and did not often talk unless accosted. 
 His voice was low and pleasant, and he had no 
 bravado or swagger about him. His eye was 
 light In color and singularly devoid of expres- 
 sion. Two features gave him a sinister look — 
 his forehead, which was low and brutish, and 
 his eye, which was cold and fish-like. His was 
 a strong, well-keyed nervous organization. He 
 was quick as a cat when In action, though ap- 
 parently suave and easy in disposition. He was 
 a good pistol shot, perhaps the best of all the 
 desperadoes who Infested Idaho and Montana 
 at that time. Not even in his cups did he lose 
 control of voice and eye and weapon. He was 
 always ready — a cool, quiet, self-possessed, 
 well-regulated killing machine. 
 
The Outlaw 107 
 
 At the date of Plummer's arrival in the min- 
 ing country, the town of Lewiston, Idaho, was 
 the emporium of a wide region then embraced 
 under the name of Idaho Territory; the latter 
 also including Montana at that time. Where 
 his life had been spent previous to that is not 
 known, but it is thought that he came over from 
 California. Plummer set up as a gambler, and 
 this gave him the key to the brotherhood of the 
 bad. Gamblers usually stick together pretty 
 closely, and institute a sort of free-masonry 
 of their own; so that Plummer was not long 
 in finding, among men of his own profession 
 and their associates, a number of others whom 
 he considered safe to take into his confidence. 
 Every man accepted by Plummer was a mur- 
 derer. He would have no weaklings. No one 
 can tell how many victims his associates had 
 had before they went into his alliance; but it 
 Is sure that novices In man-killing were not de- 
 sired, nor any who had not been proved of 
 nerve. Plummer soon had so many men that 
 he set up a rendezvous at points on all the trails 
 leading out from Lewiston to such mines as 
 were producing any gold. One robbery fol- 
 lowed another, until the band threw ofi all 
 restraint and ran the towns as they liked, pay- 
 
io8 The Story of 
 
 ing for what they took when they felt like It, 
 and laughing at the protests of the minority 
 of the population, which was placed In the hard 
 strait of being In that country and unable to get 
 out without being robbed. It was the Inten- 
 tion to seize the property of every man who 
 was there and who was not accepted as a mem- 
 ber of the gang. 
 
 One killing after another occurred on the 
 trails, and man after man was lost and never 
 traced. Assaults were made upon many men 
 who escaped, but no criminal could be located, 
 and. Indeed, there was no law by which any of 
 them could be brought to book. The express 
 riders were fired upon and robbed and the pack 
 trains looted. No man expected to cross the 
 mountain trails without meeting some of the 
 robbers, and, when he did meet them, he ex- 
 pected to be killed If he made resistance, for 
 they outnumbered the parties they attacked in 
 nearly all Instances. The outlaws were now 
 indeed about three times as numerous as those 
 not In sympathy with them. 
 
 Rendered desperate by this state of affairs, 
 a few resolute citizens who wanted law and 
 order found each other out at last and organ- 
 ized Into a vigilance committee, remembering 
 
The Outlaw 109 
 
 the success of the Vigilantes of California, 
 whose work was still recent history. Plummer 
 himself was among the first to join this em- 
 bryonic vigilante movement, as was the case 
 in so many other similar movements In other 
 parts of the West, where the criminal joined 
 the law-loving in order to find out what the lat- 
 ter intended to do. His address was such as 
 to disarm completely all suspicion, and he had 
 full knowledge of facts which enabled him to 
 murder for vengeance as well as for gain. 
 
 After Oro Fino was worked out as a placer 
 field, the prospectors located other grounds 
 east of the Salmon River range, at Elk City 
 and Florence, and soon Lewiston was forsaken, 
 all the population trooping off over the moun- 
 tains to the new fields. This broke up the 
 vigilante movement In Its infancy, and gave 
 Plummer a longer lease of life for his plans. 
 All those who had joined the vigilante move- 
 ment were marked men. One after another 
 they were murdered, none knew by whom, or 
 why. Masked robbers were seen every day 
 along the trails leading between one remote 
 mining camp and another, but no one suspected 
 Henry Plummer, who was serving well In his 
 double role. 
 
1 1 o The Story of 
 
 Meantime, additional placer grounds had 
 been discovered a hundred and fifty miles south 
 of Florence, on the Boise river, and some val- 
 uable strikes were also made far to the north, 
 at the upper waters of the Beaverhead. All the 
 towns to the westward were now abandoned, 
 and the miners left Florence as madly as they 
 had rushed to It from Oro Fino and Elk City. 
 West Bannack and East Bannack were now all 
 the cry. To these new points, as may be sup- 
 posed, the organized band of robbers fled with 
 the others. Plummer, who had tried Elk City, 
 Deer Lodge, and other points, now appeared 
 at Bannack. 
 
 One after another reports continued to come 
 of placers discovered here and there in the 
 upper Rockies. Among all these, the strikes on 
 Gold Creek proved to be the most extensive and 
 valuable. A few Eastern men, almost by acci- 
 dent, had found fair ''pay" there, and returned 
 to that locality when they found themselves 
 unable to get across the snow-covered moun- 
 tains to Florence. These few men at the Gold 
 Creek diggings got large additions from expe- 
 ditions made up in Denver and bound for Flor- 
 ence, who also were unable to get across the 
 Salmon River mountains. Yet others came 
 
The Outlaw m 
 
 out in the summer of 1862, by way of the 
 upper plains and the Missouri river, so that 
 the accident of the season, so to speak, turned 
 aside the traffic intended to reach Florence into 
 quite another region. This fact, as events 
 proved, had much to do with the later fate of 
 Henry Plummer and his associates. 
 
 These Eastern men were different from those 
 who had been schooled in the mines of the 
 Pacific Slope. They still clung to law and 
 order; and they did not propose to be robbed. 
 The first news of the strikes brought over the 
 advance guard of the roughs who had been run- 
 ning the other camps; and, as soon as these 
 were unmasked by acts of their own, the little 
 advance guard of civilization shot one of them, 
 Arnett, and hung two others, Jernigan and 
 Spillman« This was the real beginning of a 
 permanent vigilante force in Montana. It 
 afforded perhaps the only known instance of 
 a man being buried with a six-shooter in one 
 hand and a hand of cards in the other. Arnett 
 was killed In a game of cards, and died with 
 his death grip thus fixedo 
 
 The new diggings did not at first prove 
 themselves, and the camp at Bannack, on Grass- 
 hopper Creek, was more prosperous. Henry 
 
112 The Story of 
 
 Plummer, therefore, elected Bannack as his 
 headquarters. Others of the loosely connected 
 banditti began to drop Into Bannack from other 
 districts, and Plummer was soon surrounded by 
 his clan and kin in crime. George Ives, Bill 
 Mitchell, Charlie Reeves, Cy Skinner, and 
 others began operations on the same lines which 
 had so distinguished them at the earlier dig- 
 gings, west of the range. In a few weeks Ban- 
 nack was as bad as Lewlston or Florence had 
 ever been. In fact. It became so bad that the 
 Vigilantes began to show their teeth, although 
 they confined their sentences to banishment. 
 The black sheep and the white began now to 
 be segregated. 
 
 Plummer, shrewd to see the drift of opinion, 
 saw that he must now play his hand out to the 
 finish, that he could not now reform. He ac- 
 cordingly laid his plans to kill Jack Crawford, 
 who was chosen as miners' sheriff. Plummer 
 undertook one expedient after another to draw 
 Crawford Into a quarrel, In which he knew he 
 could kill him; for Plummer's speed with the 
 pistol had been proved when he killed Jack 
 Cleveland, one of his own best gun-fighters. 
 Rumor ran that he was the best pistol shot in 
 the Rockies and as bad a man as the worst. 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 "3 
 
 Plummer thought that Crawford suspected him 
 of belonging to the bandits, and so doomed 
 him. Crawford was wary, and defeated three 
 separate attempts to waylay and kill him, be- 
 sides avoiding several quarrels that were thrust 
 upon him by Plummer or his men. Dick 
 Phleger, a friend of Crawford, was also 
 marked by Plummer, who challenged him to 
 fight with pistols, as he frequently had chal- 
 lenged Crawford. Phleger was a braver man 
 than Crawford, but he declined the duel. 
 Plummer would have killed them both. He 
 only wanted the appearance of an "even break," 
 with the later plea of "self-defence," which has 
 shielded so many bad men from punishment 
 for murder. 
 
 Plummer now tried treachery, and told 
 Crawford they would be friends. All the time 
 he was hunting a chance to kill him. At length 
 he held Crawford up In a restaurant, and stood 
 waiting for him with a rifle. A friend handed 
 Crawford a rifle, and the latter slipped up and 
 took a shot from the corner of the house at 
 Plummer, who was across the street. The ball 
 struck Plummer's right arm and tore it to 
 pieces. Crawford missed him with a second 
 shot, and Plummer walked back to his own 
 
114 '^^^ Story of 
 
 cabin. Here he had a long siege with his 
 wound, refusing to allow his arm to be ampu- 
 tated, since he knew he might as well be dead 
 as so crippled. He finally recoVered, although 
 the ball was never removed and the bone never 
 knit. The ball lodged in his wrist and was 
 found there after his death, worn smooth as 
 silver by the action of the bones. Crawford 
 escaped down the Missouri river, to which he 
 fled at Fort Benton. He never came back to 
 the country. Plummer went on practising with 
 the six-shooter with his left hand, and became 
 a very good left-hand shot. He knew that his 
 only safety lay in his skill with weapons. 
 
 Plummer's physician was Dr. Glick, who 
 operated under cover of a shotgun, and with 
 the cheerful assurance that if he killed Plum- 
 mer by accident, he himself would be killed. 
 After that Glick dressed the wounds of more 
 than one outlaw, but dared not tell of it. 
 Plummer admitted to him at last that these 
 were his men and told Glick he would kill him 
 if he ever breathed a word of this confidence. 
 So the knowledge of the existence of the ban- 
 ditti was known to one man for a long time. 
 
 As to Bannack, it was one of the wildest 
 camps ever known in any land. Pistol fire was 
 
The Outlaw 115 
 
 heard Incessantly, and one victim after another 
 was added to the list. George Ives, Johnny 
 Cooper, George Carrhart, Hayes Lyons, Cy 
 Skinner, and others of the toughs were now 
 open associates of the leading spirit, Plummer. 
 The condition of lawlessness and terror was 
 such that all the decent men would have gone 
 back to the States, but the same difficulties that 
 had kept them from getting across to Florence 
 now kept them from getting back East. The 
 winter held them prisoners. 
 
 Henry Plummer was now elected sheriff for 
 the Bannack mining district, to succeed Craw- 
 ford, whom he had run out of the country. It 
 seems very difficult to understand how this 
 could have occurred; but It will serve to show 
 the numerical strength of Plummer's party. 
 The latter, now married, professed to have re- 
 formed. In reality, he was deeper In deviltry 
 than ever In his life. 
 
 The diggings at Gold Creek and Bannack 
 were now eclipsed by the sensational discoveries 
 on the famous Alder Gulch, one of the phe- 
 nomenal placers of the world, and the most 
 productive ever known In America. The stam- 
 pede was fast and furious to these new dig- 
 gings. In ten days the gulch was staked out 
 
1 1 6 The Story of 
 
 for twelve miles, and the cabins of the miners 
 were occupied for all of that distance, and scat- 
 tered over a long, low flat, whose vegetation 
 was quickly swept away. The new camp that 
 sprung up on one end of this bar was called 
 Virginia City. It need not be said that among 
 the first settlers there were the outlaws earlier 
 mentioned, with several others: Jack Galla- 
 gher, Buck Stinson, Ned Ray, and others, these 
 three named being "deputies" of "Sheriff" 
 Plummer. A sort of court was formed for 
 trying disputed mining claims. Charley Forbes 
 was clerk of this court, and incidentally one of 
 Plummer's band! This clerk and these depu- 
 ties killed one Dillingham, whom they sus- 
 pected of Informing a friend of a robbery 
 planned to make away with him on the trail 
 from Bannack to Virginia City. They were 
 "tried" by the court and freed. Hayes Lyons 
 admitted privately that Plummer had told him 
 to kill the Informer Dillingham. The invari- 
 able plan of this bloodthirsty man was to de- 
 stroy unfavorable testimony by means of death. 
 The unceasing flood of gold from the seem- 
 ingly exhaustless gulch caused three or four 
 more little camps or towns to spring up; but 
 Virginia City now took the palm for frontier 
 
The Outlaw 117 
 
 reputation in hardness. Ten millions in "dust" 
 was washed out in one year. Every one had 
 gold, sacks and cans of it. The wild license of 
 the place was unspeakably vitiating. Fights 
 with weapons were incessant. Rude dance 
 halls and saloons were crowded with truculent, 
 armed men in search of trouble. Churches and 
 schools were unknown. Tents, log cabins, and 
 brush shanties made the residences. "Hacks 
 rattled to and fro between the several towns, 
 freighted with drunken and rowdy humanity 
 of both sexes. Citizens of acknowledged re- 
 spectability often walked, more often perhaps 
 rode side by side on horseback, with noted 
 courtesans, in open day, through the crowded 
 streets, and seemingly suffered no harm in repu- 
 tation. Pistols flashed, bowie-knives flourished, 
 oaths filled the air. This was indeed the reign 
 of unbridled license, and men who at first re- 
 garded it with disgust and terror, by constant 
 exposure soon learned to become part of It, and 
 to forget that they had ever been aught else. 
 Judges, lawyers, doctors, even clergymen, could 
 not claim exemption." 
 
 This was in 1863. At that time, the nearest 
 capitals were Olympia, on Puget Sound; Yank- 
 ton, two thousand miles away; and Lewiston, 
 
1 1 8 The Story of 
 
 seven hundred miles away. What machinery 
 of the law was there to hinder Plummer and 
 his men ? What better field than this one, liter- 
 ally overflowing with gold, could they have 
 asked for their operations? And what better 
 chief than Plummer? 
 
 His next effort was to be appointed deputy 
 United States marshal, and he received the in- 
 dorsement of the leading men of Bannack. 
 Plummer afterward tried several times to kill 
 Nathaniel P. Langford, who caused his defeat, 
 but was unsuccessful in getting the opportunity 
 he sought. 
 
 From Bannack to Salt Lake City was about 
 five hundred miles. Mails by this time came 
 in from Salt Lake City, which was the supply 
 point. If a man wanted to send out gold to 
 his people in the States, it had to go over this 
 long trail across the wild regions. There was 
 no mail service, and no express office nearer 
 than Salt Lake. Merchants sent out their 
 funds by private messenger. Every such jour- 
 ney was a risk of death. Plummer had clerks 
 in every institution that was making money, 
 and these kept him posted as to the times when 
 shipments of dust were about to be made; they 
 also told him when any well-staked miner was 
 
The Outlaw 119 
 
 going out to the States. Plummer's men were 
 posted all along these mountain trails. No one 
 will ever know how many men were killed in all 
 on the Salt Lake trail. 
 
 There was a stage also between Bannack and 
 Virginia City, and this was regarded as a legiti- 
 mate and regular booty producer by the gang. 
 Whenever a rich passenger took stage, a con- 
 federate at the place put a mark on the vehicle 
 so that it could be read at the next stop. At 
 this point there was sure to be others of the 
 gang, who attended to further details. Some- 
 times two or three thousand dollars would be 
 taken from a single passenger. A stage often 
 carried fifteen or twenty thousand dollars in 
 dust. Plummer knew when and where and how 
 each stage was robbed, but in his capacity as 
 sheriff covered up the traces of all his asso- 
 ciates. 
 
 The robbers who did the work were usually 
 masked, and although suspicions were rife and 
 mutterings began to grow louder, there was no 
 actual evidence against Plummer until one day 
 he held up a young man by name of Tilden, 
 who voiced his belief that he knew the man 
 who had held him up. Further evidence was 
 soon to follow. A pack-train, bound for Salt 
 
I20 The Story of 
 
 Lake, had no less than eighty thousand dollars 
 in dust In Its charge, and Plummer had sent out 
 Dutch John and Steve Marshland to hold up 
 the train. The freighters were too plucky, and 
 both the bandits were wounded, and so marked, 
 although for the time they escaped. George 
 Ives also was recognized by one or two victims 
 and began to be watched on account of his 
 numerous open murders. 
 
 At length, the dead body of a young man 
 named TIebalt was found In a thicket near 
 Alder Gulch, under circumstances showing a re- 
 volting murder. At last the slumbering spirit 
 of the Vigilantes began to awaken. Two dozen 
 men of the camp went out and arrested Long 
 John, George Ives, Alex Carter, Whiskey Bill, 
 Bob Zachary, and Johnny Cooper. These men 
 were surprised in their camp, and among their 
 long list of weapons were some that had been 
 taken from men who had been robbed or mur- 
 dered. These weapons were identified by 
 friends. Old Tex was another man taken In 
 charge, and George Hilderman yet another. 
 All these men wanted a "jury trial," and wanted 
 it at Virginia City, where Plummer would have 
 official influence enough to get his associates re- 
 leased! The captors, however, were men from 
 
The Outlaw 121 
 
 Nevada, the other leading camp in Alder Gulch, 
 and they took their prisoners there. 
 
 At once a Plummer man hastened out on 
 horseback to get the chief on the ground, rid- 
 ing all night across the mountains to Bannack 
 to carry the news that the citizens had at last 
 rebelled against anarchy, robbery, and murder. 
 On the following morning, two thousand men 
 had gathered at Nevada City, and had resolved 
 to try the outlaws. As there was rivalry be- 
 tween Virginia and Nevada camps, a jury was 
 made up of twenty-four men, twelve from each 
 camp. The miners' court, most dread of all 
 tribunals, was In session. 
 
 Some forms of the law were observed. Long 
 John was allowed to turn state's evidence. He 
 swore that George Ives had killed TIebalt, and 
 declared that he shot him while TIebalt was on 
 his knees praying, after he had been told that 
 he must die. Then a rope was put around his 
 neck and he was dragged to a place of conceal- 
 ment In the thicket where the body was found. 
 TIebalt was not dead while so dragged, for 
 his hands were found full of grass and twigs 
 which he had clutched. Ives was condemned to 
 death, and the law and order men were strong 
 enough to suppress the armed disturbance at 
 
122 The Story of 
 
 once started by his friends, none of whom could 
 realize that the patient citizens were at last 
 taking the law into their own hands. A scaf- 
 fold was improvised and Ives was hung, — the 
 first of the Plummer gang to meet retribution. 
 The others then in custody were allowed to go 
 under milder sentences. 
 
 The Vigilantes now organized with vigor 
 and determinationo One bit of testimony was 
 added to another, and one man now dared to 
 voice his suspicions to another. Twenty-five 
 determined men set out to secure others of the 
 gang now known to have been united in this 
 long brotherhood. Some of these men were 
 now fleeing the country, warned by the fate of 
 Ives; but the Vigilantes took Red Yager and 
 Buck Stinson and Ned Ray, two of them Plum- 
 mer's deputies, as well as another confederate 
 named Brown. The party stopped at the Lo- 
 rain Ranch, near a cottonwood grove, and tried 
 their prisoners without going into town. Red 
 Yager confessed in full before he was hung, 
 and it was on his testimony that the whole 
 secret league of robbers was exposed and event- 
 ually brought to justice. He gave the follow- 
 ing list: 
 
 Henry Plummer was chief of the gang; Bill 
 
The Outlaw 123 
 
 Bunton, stool-pigeon and second In command; 
 George Brown, secretary; Sam Bunton, road- 
 ster; Cyrus Skinner, fence, spy and roadster; 
 George Shears, horse thief and roadster; Frank 
 Parish, horse thief and roadster; Bill Hunter, 
 telegraph man and roadster; Ned Ray, council- 
 room keeper at Bannack City; George Ives, 
 Stephen Marshland, Dutch John (Wagner), 
 Alex Carter, Whiskey Bill (Graves), Johnny 
 Cooper, Buck Stinson, Mexican Frank, Bob 
 Zachary, Boone Helm, Clubfoot George 
 (Lane), Billy Terwilllger, Gad Moore, were 
 roadsters. 
 
 The noose was now tightening around the 
 neck of the outlaw, Henry Plummer, whose 
 adroitness had so long stood him In good stead. 
 The honest miners found that their sheriff was 
 the leader of the outlaws! His doom was said 
 then and there, with that of all these others. 
 
 A party of the Virginia City law and order 
 men slipped over to Bannack, Henry Plum- 
 mer's home. In a few hours the news had 
 spread of what had happened at the other 
 camps, and a branch organization of the Vigi- 
 lantes was formed for Bannack. Stinson and 
 Ray were now arrested, and then Plummer him- 
 self, the chief, the brains of all this long-secret 
 
124 ^^^ Story of 
 
 band of marauders. He was surprised with his 
 coat and arms off, and taken prisoner. A few 
 moments later, he was facing a scaffold, where, 
 as sheriff, he had lately hung a man. The law 
 had no delays. No court could quibble here. 
 Not all Plummer's wealth could save him now, 
 nor all his intellect and cool audacity. 
 
 An agony of remorse and fear now came 
 upon the outlaw' chief. He fell upon his knees, 
 called upon God to save him, begged, pleaded, 
 wept like a child, declared that he was too 
 wicked to die thus soon and unprepared. It 
 was useless. The full proof of all his many 
 crimes was laid before him. 
 
 Ray, writhing and cursing, was the first to 
 be hanged. He got his finger under the rope 
 around his neck and died hard, but died. Stin- 
 son, also cursing, went next. It was then time 
 for Plummer, and those who had this work in 
 hand felt compunction at hanging a man so 
 able, so urbane and so commanding. None the 
 less, he was told to prepare. He asked for time 
 to pray, and was told to pray from the cross- 
 beam. He said good-by to a friend or two, and 
 asked his executioners to "give him a good 
 drop." He seemed to fear suffering, he who 
 had caused so much suffering. To oblige him. 
 
The Outlaw 125 
 
 the men lifted his body high up and let it fall, 
 and he died with little struggle. 
 
 To cut short a long story of bloody justice, 
 It may be added that of the men named as 
 guilty by Yager every one was arrested, tried, 
 and hung by the Vigilantes. Plummer for some 
 time must have dreaded detection, for he tried 
 to cover up his guilt by writing back home to 
 the States that he was in danger of being 
 hanged on account of his Union sympathies. 
 His family would not believe his guilt, and 
 looked on him as a martyr. They sent out a 
 brother and sister to look into the matter, but 
 these too found proof which left them no chance 
 to doubt. The whole ghastly revelation of a 
 misspent life lay before them. Even Plummer's 
 wife, whom he loved very much and who was 
 a good woman, was at last convinced of what 
 at first she could not believe. Plummer had 
 been able to conceal from even his wife the least 
 suspicion that was not an honorable man. His 
 wife was east in the States at the time of his 
 death. 
 
 Plummer went under his true name. George 
 Ives was a Wisconsin boy from near Racine. 
 Both he and Plummer were twenty-seven years 
 of age when killed, but they had compressed 
 
126 The Story of 
 
 much evil into so short a span. Plummer him- 
 self was a master of men, a brave and cool 
 spirit, an expert with weapons, and In all not a 
 bad specimen of the bad man at his worst. He 
 was a murderer, but after all was not enough a 
 murderer. No outlaw of later years so closely 
 resembled the great outlaw, John A. Murrell, 
 as did Henry Plummer, but the latter differed 
 in one regard: — he spared victims, who later 
 arose to accuse him. 
 
 The frontier has produced few bloodier rec- 
 ords than Plummer's. He was principal or 
 accessory, as has been stated, In more than one 
 hundred murders, not to mention innumerable 
 robberies and thefts. His life was lived out 
 In scenes typical of the early Western frontier. 
 The madness of adventure in new wild fields, 
 the lust of gold and its unparalleled abundance 
 drove to crime men who might have been re- 
 spected and of note in proper ranks of life and 
 in other surroundings. 
 
The Outlaw 127 
 
 Chapter VIII 
 
 Boone Helm — A Murderer, Cannibal, and 
 Robber — A Typical Specimen of Absolute 
 Human Depravity. :::::: 
 
 HENRY PLUMMER was what might 
 be called a good instance of the gen- 
 tleman desperado, If such a thing be 
 possible; a man of at least a certain amount of 
 refinement, and certainly one who, under dif- 
 ferent surroundings, might have led a different 
 life. For the sake of contrast. If for nothing 
 else, we may take the case of Boone Helm, one 
 of Plummer's gang, who was the opposite of 
 Plummer In every way except the readiness to 
 rob and kill. Boone Helm was bad, and noth- 
 ing in the world could ever have made him 
 anything but bad. He was, by birth and breed- 
 ing, low, coarse, cruel, animal-like and utterly 
 depraved, and for him no name but ruffian can 
 fitly apply. 
 
128 The Story of 
 
 Helm was born in Kentucky, but his family 
 moved to Missouri during his early youth, so 
 that the boy was brought up on the borderland 
 between civilization and the savage frontier; 
 for this was about the time of the closing days 
 of the old Santa Fe Trail, and the towns of In- 
 dependence and Westport were still sending 
 out their wagon trains to the far mountain re- 
 gions. By the time Boone Helm was grown, 
 and soon after his marriage, the great gold 
 craze of California broke out, and he joined 
 the rush westward. Already he was a mur- 
 derer, and already he had a reputation as a 
 quarrelsome and dangerous man. He was of 
 powerful build and turbulent temper, delight- 
 ing in nothing so much as feats of strength, 
 skill, and hardihood. His community was glad 
 to be rid of him, as was, indeed, any community 
 in which he ever lived. 
 
 In the California diggings, Helm continued 
 the line of life mapped out for him from birth. 
 He met men of his own kidney there, and was 
 ever ready for a duel with weapons. In this 
 way he killed several men, no one knows how 
 many; but this sort of thing was so common 
 in the case of so many men in those days that 
 little attention was paid to it. It must have 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 129 
 
 been a very brutal murder which at length 
 caused him to flee the Coast to escape the ven- 
 geance of the miners. He headed north and 
 east, after a fashion of the times following 
 the California boom, and was bound for the 
 mountain placers in 1853, when he is recorded 
 as appearing at the Dalles, Oregon. He and 
 a half-dozen companions, whom he had picked 
 up on the way, and most of whom were 
 strangers to each other, now started out for 
 Fort Hall, Idaho, Intending to go from there 
 to a point below Salt Lake City. 
 
 The beginning of the terrible mountain win- 
 ter season caught these men somewhere west of 
 the main range In eastern Oregon, in the 
 depths of as rugged a mountain region as any 
 of the West. They were on horseback, and so 
 could carry small provisions; but In some way 
 they pushed on deeper and deeper Into the 
 mountains, until they got to the Bannack river, 
 where they were attacked by Indians and 
 chased into a country none of them knew.- At 
 last they got over east as far as the Soda 
 Springs on the Bear river, where they were on 
 well-known ground. By this time, however, 
 their horses had given out, and their food was 
 exhausted. They killed their horses, made 
 
130 The Story of 
 
 snowshoes with the hides, and sought to reach 
 Fort Hall. The party was now reduced to one 
 of those awful starving marches of the wilder- 
 ness which are now and then chronicled in West- 
 ern life. This meant that the weak must perish 
 where they fell. 
 
 The strength of Helm and one of the others, 
 Burton, enabled them to push on ahead, leaving 
 their companions behind in the mountains. 
 Almost within reach of Fort Hall, Burton gave 
 out and was left behind in an abandoned cabin. 
 Helm pushed on into the old stockade, but 
 found it also abandoned for the winter season, 
 and he could get no food there. He then went 
 back to where he had left Burton, and, accord- 
 ing to his own report, he was trying to get wood 
 for a fire when he heard a pistol-shot and re- 
 turned to find that Burton had killed himself. 
 He stayed on at this spot, and, like a hyena, 
 preyed upon the dead body of his companion. 
 He ate one leg of the body, and then, wrapping 
 up the other in a piece of old shirt, threw It 
 across his shoulder and started on further east. 
 He had, before this on the march, declared to 
 the party that he had practiced cannibalism at 
 an earlier time, and proposed to do so again if 
 it became necessary on this trip across the moun- 
 
The Outlaw 131 
 
 tains. His calm threat was now verified. Helm 
 was found at last at an Indian camp by John 
 W. Powell, who learned that he was as hard 
 a character as he had ever run across. None 
 the less, he took care of Helm, gave him food 
 and clothes, and took him to the settlements 
 around Salt Lake. Powell found that Helm 
 had a bag containing over fourteen hundred 
 dollars in coin, which he had carried across the 
 divide with him through all his hardships. He 
 would take no pay from Helm, and the latter 
 never even thanked him for his kindness, but 
 left him as soon as he reached the Mormon 
 settlements. 
 
 Here the abandoned ruffian boasted of what 
 he had done, and settled down for a brief time 
 to the customary enjoyments of the rough when 
 in town. He spent his money, hired out as a 
 Danite, killed a couple of men whom the Mor- 
 mons wanted removed, and soon got so bad 
 that he had to leave. Once more he headed 
 west to California, and once more he started 
 back north from San Francisco, for reasons 
 satisfactory to himself. While in California, 
 as was later learned, he undertook to rob and 
 kill a man at an outlying ranch, who had taken 
 him in and befriended him when he was in need 
 
132 The Story of 
 
 and in flight from vengeance. He showed no 
 understanding of the feeling of gratitude, no 
 matter what was done for him or how great was 
 his own extremity. 
 
 In Oregon Helm went back to robbery as 
 his customary means of support, and he killed 
 several men at this time of his life, how many 
 will never be known. In 1862, as the moun- 
 tain placers were now beginning to draw the 
 crowds of mining men, it was natural that 
 Boone Helm should show up at Florence. 
 Here he killed a man in cold blood, in treach- 
 ery, while his enemy was not armed, and after 
 their quarrel had been compromised. This vic- 
 tim was Dutch Fred, a man of reputation as a 
 fighter, but he had never offended Helm, who 
 killed him at the instigation of an enemy of his 
 victim, and possibly for hire. He shot Fred 
 while the latter stood looking him in the face, 
 unarmed, and, missing him with the first shot, 
 took deliberate aim with the second and mur- 
 dered his man in cold blood. 
 
 This was pretty bad even for Florence, and 
 he had to leave. That fall he turned up far 
 to the north, on the Fraser river, in British 
 Columbia. Here he was once more reduced 
 to danger on a starving foot march in the wil- 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 133 
 
 derness, and here, once more, he was guilty of 
 eating the body of his companion, whom he Is 
 supposed to have slain. He was sent back by 
 the British authorities, and for a time was held 
 at Portland, Oregon, for safe keeping. Later 
 he was tried at Florence for killing Dutch Fred, 
 but the witnesses had disappeared, and people 
 had long ago lost Interest In the crime by rea- 
 son of others more recent. Helm escaped jus- 
 tice and was supposed to have gone to Texas; 
 but he soon appeared In the several settlements 
 which have been mentioned In the foregoing 
 pages, and moved from one to the other. He 
 killed many more men, how many In all was 
 never known. 
 
 The courage and hardihood of Boone Helm 
 were In evidence to the close of his life. Three 
 men of the Vigilantes did the dangerous work 
 of arresting him, and took him by closing In 
 on him as he stood In the street talking. "If 
 I'd had a chance," said he, "or If I had guessed 
 what you all were up to, you'd never have 
 taken me." He claimed not to know what was 
 wanted of him when brought before the judges 
 of the Vigilante court, and solemnly declared 
 that he had never killed a man In all his life! 
 They made him kiss the Bible and swear to this 
 
134 ^'^^ Story of 
 
 over again just to see to what lengths his per- 
 jured and depraved soul would go. He swore 
 on the Bible with perfect calmness! His cap- 
 tors were not moved by this, and indeed Helm 
 was little expectant that they would be. He 
 called aside one of them whom he knew, de- 
 clined a clergyman, and confessed to a murder 
 or so in Missouri and in California, admitted 
 that he had been imprisoned once or twice, but 
 denied that he had been a road agent. He ac- 
 cused some of his warmest friends of the latter 
 crime. Jack Gallegher, also under arrest, heard 
 him thus incriminate himself and others of the 
 gang and called him all the names in the calen- 
 dar, telling him he ought to die. 
 
 "I have looked at death in all forms,'* said 
 Helm, coolly, "and I am not afraid to die." 
 He then asked for a glass of whiskey, as did a 
 good many of these murderers when they were 
 brought to the gallows. From that time on he 
 was cool and unconcerned, and showed a finish 
 worthy of one ambitious to be thought wholly 
 bad. 
 
 There were six thousand men assembled in 
 Virginia City to see the executions of these 
 criminals, who were fast being rounded up and 
 hung by the citizens. The place of execution 
 
The Outlaw 135 
 
 was In a half-finished log building. The ropes 
 were passed over the ridge-pole, and, as the 
 front of the building was open, a full view was 
 offered of the murderers as they stood on the 
 boxes arranged for the drops. Boone Helm 
 looked around at his friends placed for death, 
 and told Jack Gallegher to "stop making such 
 a fuss." "There's no use being afraid to die," 
 said he; and indeed there probably never lived a 
 man more actually devoid of all sense of fear. 
 He valued neither the life of others nor his own. 
 He saw that the end had come, and was care- 
 less about the rest. He had a sore finger, 
 which was tied up, and this seemed to trouble 
 him more than anything else. There was some 
 delay about the confessions and the last offices 
 of those who prayed for the condemned, and 
 this seemed to irritate Boone Helm. 
 
 "For God's sake," said he, "if you're going 
 to hang me, I want you to do it and get through 
 with it. If not, I want you to tie up my finger 
 for me." 
 
 "Give me that overcoat of yours. Jack," he 
 said to Gallegher, as the latter was stripped for 
 the noose. 
 
 "You won't need It now," replied Gallegher, 
 who was dying blasphemous. About then. 
 
136 The Story of 
 
 George Lane, one of the line of men about to 
 be hung, jumped off his box on his own ac- 
 count. "There's one gone to hell," remarked 
 Boone Helm, philosophically. Gallegher was 
 hanged next, and as he struggled his former 
 friend watched him calmly. *'Kick away, old 
 fellow," said Boone Helm. Then, as though 
 suddenly resolved to end it, he commented, 
 "My turn next. I'll be in hell with you in a 
 minute I'* 
 
 Boone Helm was a Confederate and a bitter 
 one, and this seems to have remained with him 
 to the last. "Every man for his principles!" 
 he shouted. "Hurrah for Jeff Davis I Let her 
 rip!" He sprang off the box; and so he fin- 
 ished, utterly hard and reckless to the last. 
 
The Outlaw 137 
 
 Chapter IX 
 
 Death Scenes of Desperadoes — How Bad Men 
 Died — The hast Moments of Desperadoes 
 Who Finished on the Scaffold — Utterances of 
 Terror, of Defiance, and of Cowardice, : : 
 
 THERE Is always a grim sort of curios- 
 ity regarding the way In which noto- 
 riously desperate men meet their end; 
 and perhaps this Is as natural as Is the curiosity 
 regarding the manner In which they llved- 
 "Dld he die game?" Is one of the questions 
 asked by bad men among themselves. "Did 
 he die with his boots on?" Is another. The last 
 was the test of actual or, as It were, of profes- 
 sional badness. One who admitted himself bad 
 was willing to die with his boots on. Honest 
 men were not, and more than one early West- 
 ern man fatally shot had his friends take off 
 his boots before he died, so that he might not 
 go with the stain of desperadoism attached to 
 his name. 
 
138 The Story of 
 
 Some bad men died unrepentant and defiant. 
 Others broke down and wept and begged. A 
 great oblivion enshrouds most of these utter- 
 ances, for few Vigilante movements ever reached 
 importance enough to permit those who par- 
 ticipated to make publicly known their own 
 participation in them. Indeed, no man ever 
 concerned in a law and order execution ever 
 liked to talk about it. Tradition, however, has 
 preserved the exact utterances of many bad 
 men. Report is preserved, in a general way, 
 of many of the rustlers hung by the cattle men 
 in the ''regulator" movement in Montana, 
 Wyoming, and Nebraska in the late '70's. 
 "Give me a chew of tobacco, folks," said one. 
 "Meet you in hell, fellows," remarked others 
 of these rustlers when the last moment arrived. 
 "So-long, boys," was a not infrequent remark 
 as the noose tightened. Many of these men 
 were brave, and some of them were hung for 
 what they considered no crime. 
 
 Henry Plummer, whose fate has been de- 
 scribed in a previous chapter, was one of those 
 who died in a sense of guilt and terror. His 
 was a nature of some sensitiveness, not callous 
 like that of Boone Helm. Plummer begged 
 for life on any terms, asked the Vigilantes to 
 
The Outlaw 139 
 
 cut off his ears and hands and tongue, anything 
 to mark him and leave him helpless, but to leave 
 him alive. He protested that he was too 
 wicked to die, fell on his knees, cried aloud, 
 promised, besought. On the whole, his end 
 hardly left him enshrouded with much glamor 
 of courage; although the latter term Is relative 
 In the bad man, who might be brave at one 
 time and cowardly at another, as was often 
 proved. 
 
 Ned Ray and Buck Stinson died full of pro- 
 fanity and curses, heaping upon their execu- 
 tioners all manner of abuse. They seemed to be 
 animated by no understanding of a life here- 
 after, and were concerned only In their animal 
 Instinct to hold on to this one as long as they 
 might. Yet Stinson, of a good Indiana family, 
 was a bright and studious and well-read boy, 
 of whom many good things had been predicted. 
 
 Dutch John, when faced with death, acted 
 much as his chief, Henry Plummer, had done. 
 He begged and pleaded, and asked for mutila- 
 tion, disfigurement, anything, If only he might 
 still live. But, like Plummer, at the very last 
 moment he pulled together and died calmly. 
 "How long will It take me to die?" he asked. 
 "I have never seen anyone hanged." They told 
 
140 The Story of 
 
 him It would be very short and that he would 
 not suffer much, and this seemed to please him. 
 Nearly all these desperadoes seemed to dread 
 death by hanging. The Territory of Utah 
 allowed a felon convicted under death penalty 
 to choose the manner of his death, whether by 
 hanging, beheading, or shooting; but no record 
 remains of any prisoner who did not choose 
 death by shooting. A curiosity as to the sensa- 
 tion of hanging was evinced In the words of 
 several who were hung by Vigilantes. 
 
 In the largest hanging made In this Mon- 
 tana work, there were live men executed one 
 after the other: Clubfoot George, Hayes 
 Lyons, Jack Gallegher, Boone Helm, and 
 Frank Parish, all known to be members of the 
 Plummer gang. George and Parish at first 
 declared that they were Innocent — the first word 
 of most of these men when they were appre- 
 hended. Parish died silent. George had spent 
 some hours with a clergyman, and was appar- 
 ently repentant. Just as he reached the box, 
 he saw a friend peering through a crack In the 
 wall. *'Good-by, old fellow," he called out, 
 and sprang to his own death without waiting 
 for the box to be pulled from under his feet. 
 
 Hayes Lyons asked to see his mistress to say 
 
The Outlaw 141 
 
 good-by to her before he died, but was refused. 
 He kept on pleading for his life to the very last 
 instant, after he had told the men to take his 
 body to his mistress for burial. This woman 
 was really the cause of Lyons' undoing. He 
 had been warned, and would have left the coun- 
 try but for her. A woman was very often the 
 cause of a desperado's apprehension. 
 
 Jack Gallegher In his last moments was, if 
 possible, more repulsive even than Boone Helm. 
 The latter was brave, but Gallegher was a cow- 
 ard, and spent his time In cursing his captors 
 and pitying himself. He tried to be merry. 
 "How do I look with a halter around my 
 neck?" he asked facetiously of a bystander. 
 He asked often for whiskey and this was given 
 him. A moment later he said, "I want one 
 more drink of whiskey before I die." This 
 was when the noose was tight around his neck, 
 and the men were disgusted with him for the 
 remark. One remarked, "Give him the whis- 
 key"; so the rope, which was passed over the 
 beam above him and fastened to a side log of 
 the building, was loosened to oblige him. 
 "Slack off the rope, can't you," cried Gallegher, 
 "and let a man have a parting drink." He 
 bent his head down against the rope and drank 
 
142 The Story of 
 
 a tumblerful of whiskey at a gulp. Then he 
 called down curses on the men who were about 
 him, and kept it up until they cut him short by 
 jerking away the box from under his feet. 
 
 A peculiar instance of unconscious, but grim, 
 humor was afforded at Gallegher's execution. 
 Just as he was led to the box and ordered to 
 climb up, he drew a pocketknife and declared 
 he would kill himself and not be hanged in pub- 
 lic. A Vigilante covered him with a six-shooter. 
 "Drop that. Jack," he exclaimed, "or I'll blow 
 your head off." So Gallegher, having the 
 choice of death between shooting, hanging or 
 beheading, chose hanging after all ! He was 
 a coward. 
 
 Cy Skinner, when on the way to the scaffold, 
 broke and ran, calling on his captors to shoot. 
 They declined, and hanged him. Alex Carter, 
 who was on the fatal line with Skinner in that 
 lot, was disgusted with him for running. He 
 asked for a smoke while the men were waiting, *^ 
 and died with a lie on his lips — "I am Inno- 
 cent." That Is not an Infrequent declaration 
 of criminals at the last. The lie Is only a blind 
 clinging to the last possible means of escape, 
 and is the same as the instinct for self-preserva- 
 tion, a crime swallowed up in guilt. 
 
The Outlaw 143 
 
 Johnny Cooper wanted a "good smoke" be- 
 fore he died, and was given it. Bob Zachary 
 died without fear, and praying forgiveness on 
 his executioners. Steve Marshland asked to 
 be pardoned because of his youth. "You should 
 have thought of that before," was the grim 
 reply. He was adjudged old enough to die, as 
 he had been old enough to kill. 
 
 George Shears was one of the gamest of the 
 lot. He seemed indifferent about it all after 
 his capture, and, when he was told that he was 
 to be hanged, he remarked that he ought to be 
 glad it w^as no worse. He was executed in the 
 barn at a ranch where he was caught, and, con- 
 veniences being few, a ladder was used instead of 
 a box or other drop. He was told to ascend the 
 latter, and did so without the least hesitation 
 or evidence of concern. "Gentlemen," said he, 
 "I am not used to this business, never having 
 been hung before. Shall I jump off or slide 
 off?" They told him to "jump, of course," and 
 he took this advice. "All right. Good-by!" he 
 said, and sprang off with unconcern. 
 
 Whiskey Bill was not given much chance for 
 last words. He was hung from horseback, the 
 noose being dropped down from a tree to his 
 neck as he sat on a horse behind one of the 
 
144 '^^^ Story of 
 
 Vigilantes. "Good-by, Bill," was the remark 
 of the latter, as he spurred his horse and left 
 Bill hanging. 
 
 One of the most singular phenomena of these 
 executions was that of Bill Hunter, who, while 
 hanging by the neck, went through all the 
 motions of drawing and firing his six-shooter 
 six times. Whether the action was conscious 
 or unconscious it is impossible to tell. 
 
 Bill Bunton resisted arrest and was pugna- 
 cious, of course declaring his innocence. At the 
 last he showed great gameness. He was par- 
 ticular about the manner in which the knot of 
 the rope was adjusted to his neck, seeming, as 
 did many of these men, to dread any suffering 
 while hanging. He asked if he might jump off 
 the platform himself, and was told he might if 
 he liked. "I care no more for hanging," he ex- 
 plained, "than I do for taking a drink of water, 
 but Fd like to have my neck broken. I'd like 
 to have a mountain three hundred feet high 
 to jump off from. Now, Fll give you the time : 
 One — two — three. Here goes!" 
 
The Outlaw 145 
 
 Chapter X 
 
 Joseph A. Slade — A Man with a Newspaper 
 Reputation — Bad, but Not as Bad as Painted 
 — Hero of the Overland Express Route — A 
 Product of Courage Plus Whiskey, and the 
 End of the Product, :::::: 
 
 ONE of the best-known desperadoes the 
 West ever produced was Joseph A. 
 Slade, agent of the Overland stage 
 line on the central or mountain division, about 
 i860, and hence in charge of large responsi- 
 bilities in a strip of country more than six hun- 
 dred miles in extent, which possessed all the 
 ingredients for trouble in plenty. Slade lived, 
 in the heyday of his career, just about the time 
 when men from the East were beginning to 
 write about the newly discovered life of the 
 West. Bret Harte had left his indelible stamp 
 upon the literature of the land, and Mark 
 Twain was soon to spread widely his impres- 
 sions of life as seen in "Roughing It'*; while 
 
146 The Story of 
 
 countless newspaper men and book writers 
 were edging out and getting hearsay stories of 
 things known at first hand by a very few careful 
 and conscientious writers. 
 
 The hearsay man engaged in discovering the 
 West always clung to the regular lines of travel; 
 and almost every one who passed across the 
 mountains on the Overland stage line would 
 hear stories about the desperate character of 
 Slade. These stories grew by newspaper multi- 
 plication, until at length the man was owner of 
 the reputation of a fiend, a ghoul, and a mur- 
 derer. There was a wide difference between 
 this and the truth. As a matter of fact, there 
 were many worse desperadoes on the border. 
 
 Slade was born at Carlisle, Illinois, and served 
 in the Mexican War in 1848. He appears to 
 have gone into the Overland service in 1859. 
 At once he plunged into the business of the 
 stage line, and soon became a terror to the 
 thieves and outlaws, several of whom he was 
 the means of having shot or hung, although he 
 himself was nothing of a man-hunter at the 
 time; and indeed, in all his life he killed but 
 one man — a case of a reputation beyond desert, 
 and an instance of a reputation fostered by ad- 
 miring but ignorant writers. 
 
The Outlaw 147 
 
 Slade was reported to have tied one of his 
 enemies, Jules Reni, more commonly called 
 Jules, to the stake, and to have tortured him 
 for a day, shooting him to pieces bit by bit, and 
 cutting off his ears, one of which he always 
 afterward wore in his pocket as a souvenir. 
 There was little foundation for this reputation 
 beyond the fact that he did kill Jules, and did 
 it after Jules had been captured and disarmed 
 by other men. But he had been threatened 
 time and again by Jules, and was once shot and 
 left for dead by the latter, who emptied a pistol 
 and a shotgun at Slade, and left him lying with 
 thirteen bullets and buckshot in his body. Jules 
 thought he did not need to shoot Slade any 
 more after that, and gave directions for his 
 burial as soon as he should have died. At that 
 Slade rose on his elbow and promised Jules he 
 would live and would wear one of his, Jules', 
 ears on his watch chain; a threat which no 
 doubt gave rise to a certain part of his ghastly 
 reputation. Jules was hung for a while by the 
 stage people, but was let down and released on 
 promise of leaving the country never to return. 
 He did not keep his promise, and It had been 
 better for him If he had. 
 
 Jules Reni was a big Frenchman, one of that 
 
148 The Story of 
 
 sort of early ranchers who were owners of 
 small ranches and a limited number of cattle 
 and horses — just enough to act as a shield for 
 thefts of live stock, and to offer encouragement 
 to such thefts. Before long Jules was back at 
 his old stamping-grounds, where he was looked 
 on as something of a bully; and at once he re- 
 newed his threats against Slade. 
 
 Slade went to the officers of the military post 
 at Laramie, the only kind of authority then in 
 the land, which had no sort of courts or officers, 
 and asked them what he should do. They told 
 him to have Jules captured and then to kill him, 
 else Jules would do the same for him. Slade 
 sent four men out to the ranch where Jules was 
 stopping, about twelve miles from Laramie, 
 while he followed in the stage-coach. These 
 men captured Jules at a ranch a little farther 
 down the line, and left him prisoner at the stage 
 station. Here Slade found him In the corral, a 
 prisoner, unarmed and at his mercy, and with- 
 out hesitation he shot him, the ball striking him 
 in the mouth. His victim fell and feigned 
 death, but Slade — who was always described as 
 a good pistol shot — saw that he was not killed, 
 and told him he should have time to make his 
 will if he desired. There is color In the charge 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 149 
 
 of deliberate cruelty, but perhaps rude warrant 
 for the cruelty, under the circumstances of 
 treachery In which Jules had pursued Slade. At 
 least, some time elapsed while a man was run- 
 ning back and forward from the house to the 
 corral with pen and Ink and paper. Jules never 
 signed his will. When the last penful of Ink 
 came out to the corral, Jules was dead, shot 
 through the head by Slade. This looks like 
 cruelty of an unnecessary sort, and like taunt- 
 ing a helpless victim; but here the warrant for 
 all the Slade sort of stories seems to end, and 
 there Is no evidence of his mutilating his vic- 
 tim, as was often described. 
 
 Slade went back to the officers of Fort Lara- 
 mie, and they said he had done right and did 
 not detain him. Nor did any of Jules' friends 
 ever molest him. He returned to his work on 
 the Overland. After this he grew more turbu- 
 lent, and was guilty of high-handed outrages 
 and of a general disposition to run things 
 wherever he went. The officers at Fort Hal- 
 leck arrested him and refused to turn him over 
 to the stage line unless the latter agreed to 
 discharge him. This was done, and now Slade, 
 out of work, began to be bad at heart. He 
 took to drink and drifting, and so at last turned 
 
150 The Story of 
 
 up at the Beaverhead diggings in 1863, not 
 much different from many others of the bad 
 folk to be found there. 
 
 Quiet enough when sober, Slade was a 
 maniac in drink, and this latter became his 
 habitual condition. Now and again he sobered 
 up, and he always was a business man and ani- 
 mated by an ambition to get on in the world. 
 He worked here and there in different capaci- 
 ties, and at last settled on a ranch a dozen miles 
 or so from Virginia City, where he lived with 
 his wife, a robust, fine-looking woman of great 
 courage and very considerable beauty, of whom 
 he was passionately fond; although she lived 
 almost alone in the remote cabin in the moun- 
 tains, while Slade pursued his avocations, such as 
 they were, in the settlements along Alder Gulch. 
 
 Slade now began to grow ugly and hard, and 
 to exult in terrorizing the hard men of those 
 hard towns. He would strike a man in the face 
 while drinking with him, would rob his friends 
 while playing cards, would ride into the saloons 
 and break up the furniture, and destroy prop- 
 erty with seeming exultation at his own malic- 
 iousness. He was often arrested, warned, and 
 fined; and sometimes he defied such officers as 
 went after him and refused to be arrested. His 
 
The Outlaw 151 
 
 whole conduct made him a menace to the peace 
 of this httle community, which was now en- 
 deavoring to become more decent, and he fell 
 under the fatal scrutiny of the Vigilantes, who 
 concluded that the best thing to do was to hang 
 Slade. He had never killed anyone as yet, 
 although he had abused many; but it was sure 
 that he would kill some one if allowed to run 
 on; and, moreover, it was humiliating to have 
 one man trying to run the town and doing as 
 he pleased. Slade was to learn what society 
 means, and what the social compact means, as 
 did many of these wild men who had been run- 
 ning as savages outside of and independent of 
 the law. Slade got wind of the deliberations of 
 the Committee, as well he might when six hun- 
 dred men came down from Nevada Camp to 
 Virginia City to help in the court of the miners, 
 before which Slade was now to come. It was 
 the Nevada Vigilantes who were most strongly 
 of the belief that death and not banishment was 
 the proper punishment for Slade. The leader 
 of the marching men calmly told Slade that the 
 Committee had decided to hang him; and, once 
 the news was sure, Slade broke out into lamen- 
 tations. 
 
 This was often the case with men who had 
 
152 * The Story of* 
 
 been bullies and terrors. They weakened when 
 In the hands of a stronger power. Slade crept 
 about on his hands and knees, begging like a 
 baby. "My God! My God!" he cried. 
 "Must I die? Oh, my poor wife, my poor 
 wife! My God, men, you can't mean that 
 Tm to die!" 
 
 They did mean it, and neither his importuni- 
 ties nor those of his friends had avail. His 
 life had been too rough and violent and was 
 too full of menace to others. He had had his 
 fair frontier chance and had misused it. Some 
 wept at his prayers, but none relented. In 
 broad daylight, the procession moved down the 
 street, and soon Slade was swinging from the 
 beam of a corral gate, one more example of 
 the truth that when man belongs to society he 
 owes duty to society and else must suffer at its 
 hands. This was the law. 
 
 Slade's wife was sent for and reached town 
 soon after Slade's body was cut down and laid 
 out. She loaded the Vigilantes with impreca- 
 tions, and showed the most heartbroken grief. 
 The two had been very deeply attached. She 
 was especially regretful that Slade had been 
 hanged and not shot. He was worth a better 
 death than that, she protested. 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 153 
 
 Slade^s body was preserved in alcohol and 
 kept out at the lone ranch cabin all that winter. 
 In the spring it was sent down to Salt Lake City 
 and buried there. As that was a prominent 
 point on the overland trail, the tourists did the 
 rest. The saga of Slade as a bad man was 
 widely disseminated. 
 
154 The Story of 
 
 Chapter XI 
 
 The Desperado of the Plains — Lawlessness 
 Founded on Loose Methods — The Rustlers of 
 the Cow Country — Excuses for Their Acts — 
 The Approach of the Commercial West. : : 
 
 ONE pronounced feature of early West- 
 ern life will have been remarked In the 
 story of the mountain settlements with 
 which we have been concerned, and that is the 
 transient and migratory character of the popu- 
 lation. It is astonishing what distances were 
 traveled by the bold men who followed the 
 mining stampedes all over the wilderness of 
 the upper Rockies, in spite of the unspeakable 
 hardships of a region where travel at its best 
 was rude, and travel at its worst well-nigh an 
 Impossibility. The West was first peopled by 
 wanderers, nomads, even in its mountain re- 
 gions, which usually attach their population to 
 
The Outlaw 155 
 
 themselves and cut oil the disposition to roam. 
 This nomad nature of the adventurers made 
 law almost an impossible thing. A town was 
 organized and then abandoned, on the spur of 
 necessity or rumor. Property was unstable, 
 taxes impossible, and any corps of executive 
 officers difficult of maintenance. Before there 
 can be law there must be an attached population. 
 
 The lawlessness of the real West was there- 
 fore much a matter of conditions after all, 
 rather than of morals. It proved above all 
 things that human nature is very much akin, 
 and that good men may go wrong when suffi- 
 ciently tempted by great wealth left unguarded. 
 The first and second decades after the close 
 of the civil war found the great placers of the 
 Rockies and Sierras exhausted, and quartz 
 mines taking their place. The same period, as 
 has been shown, marked the advent of the great 
 cattle herds from the South upon the upper 
 ranges of the territories beyond the Missouri 
 river. By this time, the plains began to call 
 to the adventurers as the mines recently had 
 called. 
 
 Here, then, was wealth, loose, unattached, 
 apparently almost unowned, nomad wealth, 
 and waiting for a nomad population to share 
 
156 The Story of 
 
 It In one way or another. Once more, the home 
 was lacking, the permanent abode; wherefore, 
 once more the law was also lacking, and man 
 ruled himself after the ancient savage ways. 
 By this time frontiersmen were well armed 
 with repeating weapons, which now used fixed 
 ammunition. There appeared on the plains 
 more and better armed men than were ever 
 known, unorganized, In any land at any period 
 of the earth's history; and the plains took up 
 what the mountains had begun In wild and 
 desperate deeds. 
 
 The only property on the arid plains at that 
 time was that of live stock. Agriculture had 
 not come, and It was supposed could never 
 come. The vast herds of cattle from the lower 
 ranges, Texas and Mexico, pushed north to 
 meet the railroads, now springing westward 
 across the plains; but a large proportion of 
 these cattle were used as breeding stock to fur- 
 nish the upper cow range with horned popula- 
 tion. Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, western 
 Nebraska, the Dakotas, discovered that they 
 could raise range cattle as well as the southern 
 ranges, and fatten them far better; so presently 
 thousands upon thousands of cattle were turned 
 loose, without a fence In those thousands of 
 
The Outlaw 157 
 
 miles, to exist as best they might, and guarded 
 as best might be by a class of men as nomadic 
 as their herds. These cattle were cheap at that 
 time, and they made a general source of food 
 supply much appreciated in a land but just de- 
 populated of its buffalo. For a long time it was 
 but a venial crime to kill a cow and eat it if 
 one were hungry. A man's horse was sacred, 
 but his cow was not, because there were so many 
 cows, and they were shifting and changing 
 about so much at best. 
 
 The ownership of these herds was widely 
 scattered and difficult to trace. A man might 
 live in Texas and have herds in Montana, and 
 vice versa. His property right was known only 
 by the brand upon the animal, his being but the 
 tenure of a sign. 
 
 "The respect for this sign was the whole 
 creed of the cattle trade. Without a fence, 
 without an atom of actual control, the cattle 
 man held his property absolutely. It mingled 
 with the property of others, but It was never 
 confused therewith. It wandered a hundred 
 miles from him, and he knew not where it was, 
 but It was surely his and sure to find him. To 
 touch It was crime. To appropriate it meant 
 punishment. Common necessity made common 
 
158 The Story of 
 
 custom, common custom made common law, 
 and common law made statutory law."* 
 
 The old jierro or iron mark of the Spanish 
 cattle owner, and his venta or sale-brand to an- 
 other had become common law all over the 
 Southwest when the Anglo-Saxon first struck 
 that region. The Saxon accepted these customs 
 as wise and rational, and soon they were the 
 American law all over the American plains. 
 
 The great bands of cattle ran almost free in 
 the Southwest for many years, each carrying 
 the brand of the owner, if the latter had ever 
 seen It or cared to brand It. Many cattle 
 roamed free without any brand whatever, and 
 no one could tell w^ho owned them. When the 
 northern ranges opened, this question of un- 
 branded cattle still remained, and the *'maver- 
 Ick" industry was still held matter of sanc- 
 tion, there seeming to be enough for all, and 
 the day being one of glorious freedom and 
 plenty, the baronial day of the great and once 
 unexhausted West. 
 
 Now the venta, or brand Indicating the sale 
 of an animal to another owner, began to com- 
 plicate matters to a certain extent. A pur- 
 
 **'The Story of the Cowboy," by E. Hough. D. Applcton & Co. 
 New York. 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 159 
 
 chaser could put his own perro brand on a cow, 
 and that meant that he now owned it. But 
 then some suspicious soul asked, "How shall 
 we know whence such and such cows came, and 
 how tell whether or not this man did not steal 
 them outright from his neighbor's herd and 
 put his own brand on them?" Here was the 
 origin of the bill of sale, and also of the coun- 
 ter brand or "vent brand," as it is known upon 
 the upper ranges. The owner duplicated his 
 recorded brand upon another recorded part of 
 the animal, and this meant his deed of con- 
 veyance, when taken together with the bill of 
 sale over his commercial signature. Of course, 
 several conveyances would leave the hide much 
 scarred and hard to read; and, as there were 
 "road brands" also used to protect the prop- 
 erty while in transit from the South to the 
 North or from the range to the market, the 
 reading of the brands and the determination 
 of ownership of the animal might be, and very 
 often was, a nice matter, and one not always 
 settled without argument; and argument in 
 the West often meant bloodshed in those days. 
 Some hard men started up in trade near the 
 old cattle trails, and made a business of dis- 
 puting brands with the trail drivers. Some- 
 
i6o The Story of 
 
 times they made good their claims, and some- 
 times they did not. There were graves almost 
 in line from Texas to Montana. 
 / It Is now perfectly easy to see what a wide 
 /and fertile field was here offered to men who 
 ' did not want to observe the law. Here was 
 property to be had without work, and property 
 whose title could easily be called Into question; 
 whose ownership was a matter of testimony and 
 record, to be sure, but testimony which could 
 be erased or altered by the same means which 
 once constituted It a record and sign. The 
 brand was made with an iron, and it could be 
 changed with an iron. A large and profitable 
 Industry arose In changing these brands. The 
 rustler, brand-burner or brand-blotcher now be- 
 came one of the new Western characters, and a 
 new sort of bad-manism had Its birth. 
 
 "It is very easy to see how temptation was 
 offered to the cow thief and 'brand blotter.' 
 Here were all these wild cattle running loose 
 over the country. The Imprint of a hot Iron 
 on a hide made the creature the property of 
 the brander, provided no one else had branded 
 It before. The time of priority was matter of 
 proof. With the handy ''running-iron'' or 
 straight rod, which was always attached to his 
 
The Outlaw 1 6 1 
 
 saddle when he rode out, could not the cow 
 thief erase a former brand and put over it one 
 of his own ? Could he not, for Instance, change 
 a U Into an O, or a V Into a diamond, or a 
 half-circle into a circle? Could he not, more- 
 over, kill and skin an animal and sell the beef 
 as his own? Between him and the owner was ' 
 only this little mark. Between him and chang- 
 ing this mark was nothing but his moral prin- 
 ciples. The range was very wide. Hardly a 
 figure would show on that unwinking horizon 
 all day long. And what was a heifer here and 
 there?" 
 
 Such was the temptation and opportunity 
 which led many a man to step over the line 
 between right and wrong. Their excuse lies in 
 the fact that the line was newly drawn and that 
 It was often vague and Inexact. It was easy, \ 
 from killing or rebranding an occasional cow, 
 to see the profits of larger operation. The 
 faithful cowboys who cared for these herds and 
 protected them even with their lives in the 
 interest of absent owners began in time to tire 
 of working on a salary, and settled down into 
 little ranches of their own, starting with a herd 
 of cattle lawfully purchased and branded. An 
 occasional maverick came across their range 
 
1 62 The Story of 
 
 and they branded It. A brand was faint and 
 not legible, and they put their own Iron over 
 It. They learned that pyrography with a hot 
 poker was very profitable. The rest was easy. 
 The first step was the one that counted; but 
 who could tell where that first step was taken? 
 
 At any rate, cattle owners began to take no- 
 tice of their cows as the prices went up, and 
 they had laws made to protect property rapidly 
 enhancing In value. Cow owners were re- 
 quired to have fixed or stencil-Irons, and were 
 forbidden to trace a pattern with a straight 
 iron or "running-iron." Each ranch must have 
 Its own Iron or stencil. Texas as early as the 
 '6o's and '70's passed laws forbidding the use 
 of the running-Iron altogether, so that after 
 that It was not safe to be caught riding the 
 range with a straight Iron under the saddle 
 flap. Any man so discovered had to do some 
 quick explaining. 
 
 The next step after this was the organization 
 of the cattle associations in the several terri- 
 tories and states which made the home of the 
 cattle trade. These associations banded to- 
 gether in a national association. Detectives 
 were placed at the stockyards In Chicago and 
 Kansas City, charged with the finding of cattle 
 
The Outlaw 163 
 
 stolen on the range and shipped with or with- 
 out clean brands. In short, there had now 
 grown up an armed and legal warfare between 
 the cow men themselves — in the first place very 
 large-handed thieves — and the rustlers and 
 ^'little fellows" who were accused of being too 
 liberal with their brand blotching. The prose- 
 cution of these men was undertaken with some- 
 thing of the old vigor that characterized the 
 pursuit of horse thieves, with this difference, 
 that, whereas all the world had hated a horse 
 thief as a common enemy, very much of the 
 world found excuse for the so-called rustler, 
 who was known to be doing only what his ac- 
 cusers had done before him. 
 
 There may be a certain interest attaching to 
 the methods of the range riders of this day, 
 and those who care to go into the history of 
 the cattle trade in its early days are referred 
 to the work earlier quoted, where the matter 
 is more fully covered.* Brief reference will 
 suffice here. 
 
 The rustler might brand with his own 
 straight running-iron, as it were, writing over 
 again the brand he wished to change; but 
 this was clumsy and apt to be detected, for 
 
 * *' The Story of the Cowboy." By E. Hough. D. Applcton & Co 
 
164 The Story of 
 
 the new wound would slough and look sus- 
 picious. A piece of red-hot hay wire or tele- 
 graph wire was a better tool, for this could be 
 twisted into the shape of almost any registered 
 brand, and it would so cunningly connect the 
 edges of both that the whole mark would seem 
 to be one scar of the same date. The fresh 
 burn fitted in with the older one so that it was 
 impossible to swear that it was not a part of 
 the first brand mark. Yet another way of soft- 
 ening a fresh and fraudulent brand was to 
 brand through a wet blanket with a heavy iron, 
 which thus left a wound deep enough, but not 
 apt to slough, and so betray a brand done 
 long after the round-up, and hence subject to 
 scrutiny. 
 
 As to the ways in which brands were altered 
 in their lines, these were many and most in- 
 genious. A sample page will be sufficient to 
 show the possibilities of the art by which the 
 rustler set over to his own herds on the free 
 range the cows of his far-away neighbor, 
 whom, perhaps, he did not love as himself. 
 The list on the opposite page is taken from "The 
 Story of the Cowboy.'^ 
 
 Such, then, was the burglar of the range, the 
 rustler, to whom most of the mysterious and 
 
HOW THE RUSTLER WORKED 
 
 4- 
 
 5' 
 
 \0 lOI lOI 10L f\OB 
 - X O-O OHO 
 3 JU JD -g- 
 
 V V V 9 ii ii ¥ 
 
 999 899 lo H 8 
 6 -T BD II . CH (hfi 
 
 7 70 70S - CO CO- 
 
 8 AU A\F 13 21 2b 
 
 The above plate illustrates the manner in which cow-brands were changed. The 
 original brand appears in each case to the left, and the various alterations follow. 
 It will be noted that with every change there is something added— the rule always 
 adopted by the swindler 
 
 J 
 
The Outlaw i 6 5 
 
 untraceable crimes were ascribed. Such also 
 were the excuses to be offered for some of the 
 men who did what to them did not seem wrong 
 acts. The sudden hostility of the newly-come 
 cow men embittered and inflamed them, and 
 from this it was easy and natural to the arbitra- 
 ment of arms. 
 
 The bad man of the plains dates to this era, 
 and his acts may be attributed to these causes. 
 There were to be found among these men many 
 refugees and outlaws, as well as many better 
 men gone wrong through point of view. Fierce 
 and far were the battles between the rustlers 
 and the cow barons. Commerce had its way 
 at last. The lawless man had to go, and he 
 had to go even before the law had come. 
 
 The Vigilantes of the cattle range, organiz- 
 ing first in Montana and working southward, 
 made a clean sweep in their work. In one cam- 
 paign they killed somewhere between sixty and 
 eighty men accused of cattle rustling. They 
 hung thirteen men on one railroad bridge one 
 morning in northwestern Nebraska. The state- 
 ment is believed to be correct that, in the ten 
 years from 1876 to 1886, they executed more 
 men without process of law than have been 
 executed under the law In all the United States 
 
1 66 The Story of 
 
 since then. These lynchings also were against 
 the law. In short, it may perhaps begin to 
 appear to those who study into the history of 
 our earlier civilization that the term *'law" is 
 a very wide and lax and relative one, and one 
 extremely difficult of exact application. 
 
The Outlaw 167 
 
 Chapter XII 
 
 Wild Bill HIckok— r/j^ Beau Ideal of the 
 Western Bad Man; Chivalrk, Daring, Gener- 
 ous, and Game — A Type of the Early Western 
 Frontier Officer, ::::::::: 
 
 y4 S has been shown in preceding chapters, 
 ZJk the Western plains were passed over 
 -^ -^ and left unsettled until the advent of 
 the railroads, which began to cross the plains 
 coincident with the arrival of the great cattle 
 herds which came up from the South after a 
 market. This market did not wait for the com- 
 pletion of the railroads, but met the railroads 
 more than half way; indeed, followed them 
 quite across the plains. The frontier sheriff 
 now came upon the Western stage as he had 
 never done before. The bad man also sprang 
 into sudden popular recognition, the more so 
 because he was now accessible to view and 
 within reach of the tourist and tenderfoot in- 
 
1 68 The Story of 
 
 vestigator of the Western fauna. These were 
 palmy days for the wild West. 
 
 Unless It be a placer camp in the mountains, 
 there is no harder collection of human beings 
 to be found than that which gathers In tents 
 and shanties at a temporary railway terminus 
 of the frontier. Yet such were all the capitals 
 of civilization In the earliest days. One town 
 was like another. The history of Wichita and 
 Newton and Fort Dodge was the history of 
 Abilene and Ellsworth and Hays City and all 
 the towns at the head of the advancing rails. 
 The bad men and women of one moved on to 
 the next, just as they did in the stampedes of 
 placer days. 
 
 To recount the history of one after another 
 of these wild towns would be endless and per- 
 haps wearisome. But this history has one pecu- 
 liar feature not yet noted in our investigations. 
 All these cow camps meant to be real towns 
 some day. They meant to take the social 
 compact. There came to each of these camps 
 men bent upon making homes, and these men 
 began to establish a law and order spirit and 
 to set up a government. Indeed, the regular 
 system of American government was there as 
 soon as the railroad was there, and this law 
 
The Outlaw 169 
 
 was strong on Its legislative and executive sides. 
 The frontier sheriff or town marshal was there, 
 the man for the place, as bold and hardy as the 
 bold and hardy men he was to meet and subdue, 
 as skilled with weapons, as willing to die; and 
 upheld, moreover, with that sense of duty and 
 of moral courage which Is granted even to the 
 most courageous of men when he feels that he 
 has the sentiment of the majority of good people 
 at his back. 
 
 To describe the life of one Western town 
 marshal, himself the best and most picturesque 
 of them all. Is to cover all this field sufficiently. 
 There Is but one man who can thus be chosen, 
 and that Is Wild Bill HIckok, better known for 
 a generation as "Wild Bill," and properly ac- 
 corded an honorable place In American history. 
 
 The real name of Wild BUI was James But- 
 ler HIckok, and he was born In May, 1837, In 
 La Salle county, Illinois. This brought his 
 youth Into the days of Western exploration and 
 conquest, and the boy read of Carson and Fre- 
 mont, then popular Idols, with the result that 
 he proposed a life of adventure for himself. 
 He was eighteen years of age when he first 
 saw the West as a fighting man under Jim 
 Lane, of Free Soil fame. In the guerrilla days 
 
I/O The Story of 
 
 of Kansas before the civil war. He made his 
 mark, and was elected a constable in that dan- 
 gerous country before he was twenty years of 
 age. He was then a tall, "gangling" youth, 
 six feet one in height, with yellow hair and blue 
 eyes. He later developed into as splendid look- 
 ing a man as ever trod on leather, muscular> 
 and agile as he was powerful and enduring. 
 His features were clean-cut and expressive, his 
 carriage erect and dignified, and no one ever 
 looked less the conventional part of the bad 
 man assigned in popular imagination. He was 
 not a quarrelsome man, although a dangerous 
 one, and his voice was low and even, showing 
 a nervous system like that of Daniel Boone — 
 ''not agitated." It might have been supposed 
 that he would be a natural master of weapons, 
 and such was the case. The use of rifle and 
 revolver was bom in him, and perhaps no man 
 of the frontier ever surpassed him in quick and 
 accurate use of the heavy six-shooter. The 
 religion of the frontier was not to miss, and 
 rarely ever did he shoot except he knew that 
 he would not miss. The tale of his killings in 
 single combat is the longest authentically as- 
 signed to any man in American history. 
 
 After many experiences with the pro-slavery 
 
The Outlaw 171 
 
 folk from the border, Bill, or "Shanghai Bill," 
 as he was then known — a nickname which 
 clung for years — went stage driving for the 
 Overland, and incidentally did some effective 
 Indian fighting for his employers, finally, in 
 the year 1861, settling down as station agent 
 for the Overland at Rock Creek station, about 
 fifty miles west of Topeka. He was really 
 there as guard for the horse band, for all that 
 region was full of horse thieves and cut- 
 throats, and robberies and killings were com- 
 mon enough. It was here that there occurred 
 his greatest fight, the greatest fight of one man 
 against odds at close range that is mentioned 
 in any history of ^ny part of the world. There 
 was never a battle like it known, nor is the 
 West apt again to produce one matching it. 
 
 The borderland of Kansas was at that time, 
 as may be remembered, ground debated by the 
 anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions, who still 
 waged bitter war against one another, killing, 
 burning, and pillaging without mercy. The 
 civil war was then raging, and Confederates 
 from Missouri were frequent visitors in east- 
 ern Kansas under one pretext or another, of 
 which horse lifting was the one most common, 
 it being held legitimate to prey upon the enemy 
 
172 The Story of 
 
 as opportunity offered. Two border outlaws 
 by the name of the McCandlas boys led a gang 
 of hard men In enterprises of this nature, and 
 these intended to run off the stage company's 
 horses when they found they could not seduce 
 Bill to join their number. He told them to come 
 and take the horses if they could; and on the 
 afternoon of December 16, 1861, ten of them, 
 led by the McCandlas brothers, rode up to his 
 dugout to do so. Bill was alone, his stableman 
 being away hunting. He retreated to the dark 
 interior of his dugout and got ready his 
 weapons, a rifle, two six-shooters, and a knife. 
 
 The assailants proceeded to batter in the door 
 with a log, and as it fell in, Jim McCandlas, 
 who must have been a brave man to undertake 
 so foolhardy a thing against a man already 
 known as a killer, sprang in at the opening. 
 He, of course, was killed at once. This ex- 
 hausted the rifle, and Bill picked up the six- 
 shooters from the table and in three quick shots 
 killed three more of the gang as they rushed 
 in at the door. Four men were dead in less 
 than that many seconds; but there were still 
 six others left, all inside the dugout now, and 
 all firing at him at a range of three feet. It 
 was almost a miracle that, under such sur- 
 
From a painting by John W. Norton 
 
 WILD BILL HICKOK's DESPERATE FIGHT IN THE 
 DUG-OUT ONE MAN AGAINST TEN 
 
The Outlaw 173 
 
 roundlngs, the man was not killed. Bill now 
 was crowded too much to use his firearms, and 
 took to the bowie, thrusting at one man and 
 another as best he might. It Is known among 
 knife-fighters that a man will stand up under 
 a lot of flesh-cutting and blood-letting until the 
 blade strikes a bone. Then he seems to drop 
 quickly if it be a deep and severe thrust. In 
 this chance medley, the knife wounds inflicted 
 on each other by Bill and his swarming foes 
 did not at first drop their men; so that it must 
 have been several minutes that all seven of 
 them were mixed in a mass of shooting, thrust- 
 ing, panting, and gasping humanity. Then 
 Jack McCandlas swung his rifle barrel and 
 struck Bill over the head, springing upon him 
 with his knife as well. Bill got his hand on 
 a six-shooter and killed him just as he would 
 have struck. After that no one knows what 
 happened, not even Bill himself, who got his 
 name then and there. "I just got sort of wild,'* 
 he said, describing it. "I thought my heart was 
 on fire. I went out to the pump then to get 
 a drink, and I was all cut and shot to pieces." 
 They called him Wild Bill after that, and 
 he had earned the name. There were six dead 
 men on the floor of the dugout. He had fairly 
 
174 T^h^ Story of 
 
 whipped the ten of them, and the four remain- 
 ing had enough and fled from that awful hole 
 In the ground. Two of these were badly 
 wounded. BUI followed them to the door. 
 His own weapons were exhausted or not at 
 hand by this time, but his stableman came up 
 just then with a rifle In his hands. BUI caught 
 It from him, and, cut up as he was, fired and 
 killed one of the wounded desperadoes as he 
 tried to mount his horse. The other wounded 
 man later died of his wounds. Eight men were 
 killed by the one. The two who got to their 
 horses and escaped were perhaps never In the 
 dugout at all, for It was hardly large enough 
 to hold another man had any wanted to get in. 
 There Is no record of any fighting man to 
 equal this. It took BUI a year to recover from 
 his wounds. The life of the open air and hard 
 work brought many Western men through in- 
 juries which would be fatal In the States. The 
 pure air of the plains had much to do with 
 this. BUI now took service as wagon-master 
 under General Fremont and managed to get 
 attacked by a force of Confederates while 
 on his way to Sedalla, the war being now in 
 full swing. He fled and was pursued; but, 
 shooting back with six-shooters, killed four 
 
The Outlaw 175 
 
 men. It will be seen that he had now in single 
 fight killed twelve men, and he was very young. 
 This tally did not cover Indians, of whom he 
 had slain several. Although he did not enlist, 
 he went into the army as an independent sharp- 
 shooter, just because the fighting was good, and 
 his work at this was very deadly. In four 
 hours at the Pea Ridge battle, where he lay be- 
 hind a log, on a hill commanding the flat where 
 the Confederates were formed, he is said to 
 have killed thirty-five men, one of them the 
 Confederate General McCullough. It was like 
 shooting buffalo for him. He was charged by 
 a company of the enemy, but was rescued by his 
 own men. 
 
 Not yet enlisting. Bill went in as a spy for 
 General Curtis, and took the dangerous work 
 of going into "Pap" Price's lines, among the 
 touch-and-go Missourians and i\rkansans, in 
 search of information useful to the Union 
 forces. Bill enlisted for business purposes in 
 a company of Price's mounted rangers, got the 
 knowledge desired, and fled, killing a Confeder- 
 ate sergeant by name of Lawson in his escape. 
 Curtis sent him back again, this time into the 
 forces of Kirby Smith, then in Texas, but re- 
 ported soon to move up into Arkansas. Bill 
 
176 The Story of 
 
 enlisted again, and again showed his skill in 
 the saddle, killing two men as he fled. Count 
 up all his known victims to this time, and the 
 tally would be at least sixty-two men; and Bill 
 was then but twenty-five. 
 
 A third time Curtis sent Bill back into the 
 Confederate lines, this time into another part 
 of Price's army. Here he was detected and ar- 
 rested as a spy. Bound hand and foot in his 
 death watch, he killed his captor after he had 
 torn his hands free, and once more escaped. 
 After that, he dared not go back again, for he 
 was too well known and too difficult to disguise. 
 He could not keep out of the fighting, however, 
 and went as a scout and free lance with General 
 Davis, during Price's second Invasion of Mis- 
 souri. He was not an enlisted man, and seems 
 to have done pretty much as he liked. One day 
 he rode out on his own hook, and was stopped 
 by three men, who ordered him to halt and dis- 
 mount. All three men had their hands on their 
 revolvers; but, to show the diflference between 
 average men and a specialist, Bill killed two of 
 them and fatally shot the other before they 
 could get into action. His tally was now sixty- 
 six men at least. 
 
 Curtis now sent Bill out Into Kansas to look 
 
The Outlaw ijy 
 
 into a report that some Indians were about to 
 join the Confederate forces. Bill got the news, 
 and also engaged In a knife duel with the Sioux, 
 Conquering Bear, whom he accused of trying 
 to ambush him. It was a fair and desperate 
 fight, with knives, and although Bill finally 
 killed his man, he himself was so badly cut up 
 that he came near dying, his arm being ripped 
 from shoulder to elbow, a wound which it took 
 years to mend. It is doubtful if any man ever 
 survived such Injuries as he did, for by this 
 time he was a mass of scars from pistol and 
 knife wounds. He had probably been In dan- 
 ger of his life more than a hundred times In 
 personal difficulties; for the man with a reputa- 
 tion as a bad man has a reputation which needs 
 continual defending. 
 
 After the war. Bill lived from hand to mouth, 
 like most frontier dwellers. It was at Spring- 
 field, Missouri, that another duel of his long 
 list occurred, In which he killed Dave Tutt, a 
 fine pistol shot and a man with social ambitions 
 in badness. It was a fair fight in the town 
 square by appointment. Bill killed his man and 
 wheeled so quickly on Tutt's followers that Tutt 
 had not had time to fall before Bill's six- 
 shooter was turned the opposite way, and he 
 
178 The Story of 
 
 was asking Tutt's friends if they wanted any 
 of it themselves. They did not. This fight 
 was forced on Bill, and his quiet attempts to 
 avoid it and his stern way of accepting it, when 
 inevitable, won him high estimation on the bor- 
 der. Indeed, he was now known all over the 
 country, and his like has not since been seen. 
 He was still a splendid looking man, and as 
 cool and quiet and modest as ever he had been. 
 
 Bill now went to trapping in the less settled 
 parts of Nebraska, and for a while he lived in 
 peace, until he fell into a saloon row over some 
 trivial matter and invited four of his opponents 
 outside to fight him with pistols ; the four were 
 to fire at the word, and Bill to do the same — his 
 pistol against their four. In this fight he killed 
 one man at first fire, but he himself was shot 
 through the shoulder and disabled in his right 
 arm. He killed two more with his left hand 
 and badly wounded the other. This was a fair 
 fight also, and the only wonder is he was not 
 killed; but he seemed never to consider odds, 
 and literally he knew nothing but fight. 
 
 His score was now seventy-two men, not 
 counting Indians. He himself never reported 
 how many Indians he and Buffalo Bill killed 
 as scouts in the Black Kettle campaign under 
 
The Outlaw 1 79 
 
 Carr and Primrose, but the killing of Black 
 Kettle himself was sometimes attributed to 
 Wild BUI. The latter was badly wounded In 
 the thigh with a lance, and It took a long time 
 for this wound to heal. To give this hurt and 
 others better opportunity for mending, BUI now 
 took a trip back East to his home In Illinois. 
 While East he found that he had a reputation, 
 and he undertook to use It. He found no way 
 of making a living, however, and he returned 
 to the West, where he could better market his 
 qualifications. 
 
 At that time Hays City, Kansas, was one of 
 the hardest towns on the frontier. It had more 
 than a hundred gambling dives and saloons to 
 its two thousand population, and murder was an 
 ordinary thing. Hays needed a town marshal, 
 and one who could shoot. Wild Bill was 
 unanimously selected, and in six weeks he was 
 obliged to kill Jack Strawhan for trying to 
 shoot him. This he did by reason of his supe- 
 rior quickness with the six-shooter, for Strawhan 
 was drawing first. Another bad man, Mulvey, 
 started to run Hays, In whose peace and dignity 
 Bill now felt a personal ownership. Covered 
 by Mulvey's two revolvers. Bill found room for 
 the lightning flash of time, which is all that is 
 
i8o The Story of 
 
 needed by the real revolver genius, and killed 
 Mulvey on the spot. His tally was now 
 seventy-five men. He made it seventy-eight in 
 a fight with a bunch of private soldiers, who 
 called him a "long-hair" — a term very accurate, 
 by the way, for Bill was proud of his long, 
 blond hair, as was General Custer and many an- 
 other man of the West at that time. In this 
 fight. Bill was struck by seven pistol balls and 
 barely escaped alive by flight to a ranch on the 
 prairie near by. He lay there three weeks, while 
 General Phil Sheridan had details out with 
 orders to get him dead or alive. He later 
 escaped in a box-car to another town, and his 
 days as marshal of Hays were over. 
 
 Bill now tried his hand at Wild West theatri- 
 cals, seeing that already many Easterners were 
 "daffy," as he called it, about the West; but he 
 failed at this, and went back once more to the 
 plains where he belonged. He was chosen mar- 
 shal of Abilene, then the cow camp par excel- 
 lence of the middle plains, and as tough a com- 
 munity as Hays had been. 
 
 The wild men from the lower plains, fight- 
 ing men, mad from whiskey and contact with 
 the settlements' possibilities of long-denied in- 
 dulgence, swarmed in the streets and dives, 
 
The Outlaw i8i 
 
 mingling with desperadoes and toughs from all 
 parts of the frontier. Those who have never 
 lived in such a community will never be able by 
 any description to understand its phenomena. 
 It seems almost unbelievable that sober, steady- 
 going America ever knew such days; but. there 
 they were, and not so long ago, for this was 
 only 1870. 
 
 Two days after Bill was elected marshal of 
 Abilene, he killed a desperado who was 
 "whooping-up" the town in customary fashion. 
 That same night, he was on the street, in a dim 
 light, when all at once he saw a man whisk 
 around a corner, and saw something shine, as 
 he thought, with the gleam of a weapon. As 
 showing how quick were the hand and eye of 
 the typical gun-man of the day, it may be stated 
 that Bill killed this man in a flash, only to find 
 later that it was a friend, and one of his own 
 deputies. The man was only pulling a hand- 
 kerchief from his pocket. Bill knew that he 
 was w^atched every moment by men who wanted 
 to kill him. He had his life in his hands all 
 the time. For instance, he had next to kill the 
 friend of the desperado whom he had shot. By 
 this time, Abilene respected its new marshal; 
 indeed, was rather proud of him. The reign 
 
1 82 The Story of 
 
 of the bad man of the plains was at Its height, 
 and the professional man-killer, the specialist 
 with firearms, was a figure here and there over 
 wide regions. Among all these none compared 
 with this unique specimen. He was generous, 
 too, as he was deadly, for even yet he was sup- 
 porting a McCandlas widow, and he always 
 furnished funerals for his corpses. He had one 
 more to furnish soon. Enemies down the 
 range among the cow men made up a purse of 
 five thousand dollars, and hired eight men to 
 kill the town marshal and bring his heart back 
 South. BUI heard of It, and literally made all 
 of them jump off the railroad train where he 
 met them. One was killed In the jump. His 
 list of homicides was now eighty-one. He had 
 never yet been arrested for murder, and his kill- 
 ing was In fair open fight, his life usually against 
 large odds. He was a strange favorite of for- 
 tune, who seemed certainly to shield him round- 
 about. 
 
 Bill now went East for another try at theatri- 
 cals, in which, happily, he was unsuccessful, and 
 for which he felt a strong distaste. He was 
 scared — on the stage; and when he saw what 
 was expected of him he quit and went back once 
 more to the West. He appeared at Cheyenne, 
 
The Outlaw 183 
 
 in the Black Hills, wandering thus from one 
 point to another after the fashion of the fron- 
 tier, where a man did many things and in many 
 places. He had a little brush with a band of 
 Indians, and killed four of them with four 
 shots from his six-shooter, bringing his list in 
 red and white to eighty-five men. He got away 
 alive from the Black Hills with difficulty; but in 
 1876 he was back again at Deadwood, married 
 now, and, one would have thought, ready to 
 settle down. 
 
 But the life of turbulence ends in turbulence. 
 He who lives by the sword dies by the sword. 
 Deadwood was as bad a place as any that could 
 be found in the mining regions, and Bill was 
 not an officer here, as he had been in Kansas 
 towns. As marshal of Hays and Abilene and 
 United States marshal later at Hays City, he 
 had been a national character. He was at 
 Deadwood for the time only plain Wild Bill, 
 handsome, quiet, but ready for anything. 
 
 Ready for anything but treachery ! He him- 
 self had always fought fair and in the open. 
 His men were shot in front. Not such was to 
 be his fate. On the day of August 2, 1876, 
 while he was sitting at a game of cards in a 
 saloon, a hard citizen by name of Jack McCall 
 
184 The Story of 
 
 slipped up behind him, placed a pistol to the 
 back of his head, and shot him dead before he 
 knew he had an enemy near. The ball passed 
 through Bill's head and out at the cheek, lodg- 
 ing In the arm of a man across the table. 
 
 Bill had won a little money from McCall 
 earlier In the day, and won it fairly, but the 
 latter had a grudge, and was no doubt one of 
 those disgruntled souls who "had it In" for all 
 the rest of the world. He got away with the 
 killing at the time, for a miners' court let him 
 go. A few days later, he began to boast about 
 his act, seeing what fame was his for ending so 
 famous a life; but at Yankton they arrested him, 
 tried him before a real court, convicted him, 
 and hanged him promptly. 
 
 Wild Bill's body was burled at Deadwood, 
 and his grave, surrounded by a neat railing and 
 marked by a monument, long remained one of 
 the features of Deadwood. The monument and 
 fence were disfigured by vandals who sought 
 some memento of the greatest bad man ever 
 in all likelihood seen upon the earth. His tally 
 of eighty-five men seems large, but in fair prob- 
 ability it is not large enough. His main en- 
 counters are known historically. He killed a 
 great many Indians at different times, but of 
 
The Outlaw 185 
 
 these no accurate estimate can be claimed. Nor 
 is his list of victims as a sharpshooter in the 
 army legitimately to be added to his record. 
 Cutting out all doubtful instances, however, 
 there remains no doubt that he killed between 
 twenty and thirty men in personal combat in 
 the open, and that never once was he tried in 
 any court on a charge even of manslaughter. 
 
 This record is not approached by that of any 
 other known bad man. Many of them are 
 credited with twenty men, a dozen men, and so 
 forth; but when the records are sifted the list 
 dwindles. It is doubted whether any other bad 
 man in America ever actually killed twenty men 
 in fair personal combat. Bill was not killed 
 in fair fight, nor could McCall have hurt him 
 had Bill suspected his intent. 
 
 Hickok was about thirty-nine years old when 
 killed, and he had averaged a little more than 
 two men for each year of his entire life. He 
 was well-known among army officers, and es- 
 teemed as a scout and a man, never regarded 
 as a tough in any sense. He was a man of 
 singular personal beauty. Of him General 
 Custer, soon thereafter to fall a victim himself 
 upon the plains, said: "He was a plainsman 
 In every sense of the word, yet unlike any other 
 
1 86 The Story of 
 
 of his class. Whether on foot or on horse- 
 back, he was one of the most perfect types of 
 physical manhood I ever saw. His manner was 
 entirely free from all bluster and bravado. He 
 never spoke of himself unless requested to do 
 so. His influence among the frontiersmen was 
 unbounded; his word was law. Wild Bill was 
 anything but a quarrelsome man, yet none but 
 himself could enumerate the many conflicts in 
 which he had been engaged.'' 
 
 These are the words of one fighting man 
 about another, and both men are entitled to 
 good rank in the annals of the West. The 
 praise of an army general for a man of no rank 
 or wealth leaves us feeling that, after all, it 
 was a possible thing for a bad man to be a good 
 man, and worthy of respect and admiration, 
 utterly unmingled with maudlin sentiment or 
 weak love for the melodramatic. 
 
The Outlaw 187 
 
 Chapter XIII 
 
 Frontier Wars — Armed Conflicts of Bodies of 
 Men on the Frontiers — Political Wars; Town 
 Site Wars; Cattle Wars — Factional Fights^ 
 
 THE history of the border wars on the 
 American frontier, where the fighting 
 was more like battle than murder, and 
 where the extent of the crimes against law be- 
 came too large for the law ever to undertake 
 any settlement, would make a long series of 
 bloody volumes. These wars of the frontier 
 were sometimes political, as the Kansas anti- 
 slavery warfare; or, again, they were fights 
 over town sites, one armed band against an- 
 other, and both against the law. Wars over 
 cows, as of the cattle men against the rustlers and 
 "little fellows," often took on the phase of large 
 armed bodies of men meeting in bloody en- 
 counter; though the bloodiest of these wars are 
 those least known, and the opera boujfe wars 
 those most widely advertised. 
 
I 88 The Story of 
 
 The state of Kansas, now so calm and peace- 
 ful, is difficult to picture as the scene of a gen- 
 eral bloodshed; yet wherever you scratch Kan- 
 sas history you find a fight. No territory of 
 equal size has had so much war over so many 
 different causes. Her story in Indian fighting, 
 gambler fighting, outlaw fighting, town site 
 fighting, and political fighting Is one not ap- 
 proached by any other portion of the West; 
 and if at times it was marked with fanaticism or 
 with sordidness. It was none the less bitter and 
 notable. 
 
 The border wars of Kansas and Missouri at 
 the time immediately preceding the civil war 
 would be famed in song and story, had not the 
 greater conflict between North and South wiped 
 all that out of memory. Even the North was 
 divided over the great question of the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise. Alabama, Arkan- 
 sas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, 
 Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mary- 
 land, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, 
 North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, 
 Texas, and Virginia gave a whole or a majority 
 vote for this repeal of the Compromise. 
 Against the repeal were Connecticut, Maine, 
 Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, 
 
The Outlaw 189 
 
 Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Illi- 
 nois and New Jersey voted a tie vote. Ohio 
 cast four votes for the repeal measure, seven- 
 teen against it. 
 
 This vote brought the territories of Kansas 
 and Nebraska into the Union with the option 
 open on whether or not they should have 
 slavery: "it being the true intent and meaning 
 of this act not to legislate slavery into any terri- 
 tory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave 
 the people thereof perfectly free to form and 
 regulate their own domestic institutions in their 
 own way." 
 
 That was very well; but who were "the peo- 
 ple" of these debated grounds? Hundreds of 
 abolitionists of the North thought it their duty 
 to flock to Kansas and take up arms. Hundreds 
 of the inhabitants of Missouri thought it in- 
 cumbent upon them to run across the line and 
 vote in Kansas on the "domestic institutions"; 
 and to shoot in Kansas and to burn and ravage 
 in Kansas. They were met by the anti-slavery 
 legions along the wide frontier, and brother 
 slew brother for years, one series of more or 
 less ignoble and dastardly outrages following 
 another in big or little, murders and arson In 
 big or little, until the whole country at last was 
 
190 The Story of 
 
 drawn into this matter of the domestic institu- 
 tions of "bleeding Kansas." The animosities 
 formed in those days were bitter and enduring 
 ones, and the more prominent figures on both 
 sides were men marked for later slaughter. 
 The civil war and the slavery question were 
 fought out all over the West for ten years, even 
 twenty years after the war was over. Some 
 large figures camiC up out of this internecine 
 strife, and there were many deeds of courage 
 and many romantic adventures; but on the 
 whole, although the result of all this was for 
 the best, and added another state to the list 
 unalterably opposed to human slavery, the 
 story in detail is not a pleasant one, and adds 
 no great glory to either side. It Is a chapter 
 of American history which is very well let alone. 
 When the railroads came across the Western 
 plains, they brought a man who has been pres- 
 ent on the American frontier ever since the 
 revolutionary war, — the land boomer. He was 
 In Kentucky In time to rob poor old Daniel 
 Boone of all the lands he thought he owned. 
 He founded Marietta, on the Ohio river, on a 
 land steal; and thence, westward, laid out one 
 town after another. The early settler who 
 came down the Ohio valley in the first and sec- 
 
The Outlaw i g I 
 
 ond decades of the past century passed the 
 ruins of abandoned towns far back to the east 
 even in that day. The town-site shark passed 
 across the Mississippi river and the Missouri, 
 and everywhere his record was the same. He 
 was the pioneer of avarice in very many cases, 
 and often he Inaugurated strife where he pur- 
 ported to be establishing law. Each town 
 thought itself the garden spot and center of the 
 universe — one knows not how many Kansas 
 towns, for instance, contended over the absurd 
 honor of being exactly at the center of the 
 United States! — and local pride was such that 
 each citizen must unite with others even in arms, 
 if need be, to uphold the merits of his own 
 "city." 
 
 This peculiar phase of frontier nature usually 
 came most into evidence over the questions of 
 county seats. Hardly a frontier county seat 
 was ever established without a fight of some 
 kind, and often a bloody one. It has chanced 
 that the author has been m and around a few 
 of these clashes between rival towns, and he 
 may say that the vehemence of the antagonism 
 of such encounters would have been humorous, 
 had it not been so deadly. Two "cities," com- 
 posed each of a few frame shanties and a set of 
 
192 The Story of 
 
 blue-print maps, one just as barren of delight 
 as the other, and neither worth fighting over 
 at the time, do not seem typical of any great 
 moral purpose; yet at times their citizens 
 fought as stubbornly as did the men who fought 
 for and against slavery in Kansas. One in- 
 stance of this sort of thing will do, and it is 
 covered in the chapter describing the Stevens 
 County War, one of the most desperate and 
 bloody, as well as one of the most recent feuds 
 of local politicians. 
 
 For some reason, perhaps that of remoteness 
 of time, the wars of the cow men of the range 
 seem to have had a bolder, a less sordid and 
 more romantic interest, if these terms be allow- 
 able. When the cow man began to fence up 
 the free range, to shut up God's out-of-doors, 
 he intrenched upon more than a local or a 
 political pride. He was now infringing upon 
 the great principle of personal freedom. He 
 was throttling the West itself, which had 
 always been a land of freedom. One does not 
 know whether all one's readers have known it, 
 that unspeakable feeling of freedom, of inde- 
 pendence, of rebellion at restraint, which came 
 when one could ride or drive for days across 
 the empire of the plains and never meet a fence 
 
The Outlaw 193 
 
 to hinder, nor need a road to show the way. To 
 meet one of these new far-flung fences of the 
 rich men who began to take up the West was 
 at that time only to cut it and ride on. The 
 free men of the West would not be fenced in. 
 The range was theirs, so they blindly and lov- 
 ingly thought. Let those blame them who love 
 this day more than that. 
 
 But the fence was the sign of the property- 
 owning man ; and the property-owning man has 
 always beaten the nomad and the restless man 
 at last, and set metes and bounds for him to ob- 
 serve. The nesters and rustlers fought out the 
 battle for the free range more fiercely than was 
 ever generally known. 
 
 One of the most widely known of these cow 
 wars was the absurd Johnson County War, 
 of Wyoming, which got much newspaper ad- 
 vertising at the time — the summer of 1892 — 
 and which was always referred to with a certain 
 contempt among old-timers as the "dude war." 
 Only two men were killed in this war, and the 
 non-resident cattle men who undertook to be 
 ultra-Western and do a little vigilante work 
 for themselves among the rustlers found that 
 they were not fit for the task. They were 
 very glad indeed to get themselves arrested 
 
194 T'he Story of 
 
 and under cover, more especially in the protec- 
 tion of the military. They found that they had 
 not lost any rustlers when they stirred up a 
 whole valley full and were themselves besieged, 
 surrounded, and well-nigh ready for a general 
 wiping out. They killed a couple of "little fel- 
 lows," or, rather, some of their hired Texas 
 cow boys did it for them, but that was all they 
 accomplished, except well-nigh to bankrupt 
 Wyoming in the legal muddle, out of which, of 
 course, nothing came. There were in this party 
 of cattle men a member of the legislature, a 
 member of the stock commission, some two 
 dozen wealthy cattle men, two Harvard gradu- 
 ates, and a young Englishman in search of ad- 
 venture. They made, on the whole, about the 
 most contemptible and inefficient band of vigi- 
 lantes that ever went out to regulate things, 
 although their deeds were reported by wire to 
 many journals, and for a time perhaps they felt 
 that they were cutting quite a figure. They had 
 very large property losses to incite them to their 
 action, for the rustlers were then pretty much 
 running things in that part of Wyoming, and 
 the local courts would not convict them. This 
 fiasco scarcely hastened the advent of the day — 
 which came soon enough after the railroads and 
 
The Outlaw 195 
 
 the farmers — under which the home dweller 
 outweighed the nomad.* 
 
 Wars between sheep men and cattle men 
 sometimes took on the phase of armed bodies 
 of men meeting In bloody encounter. The 
 sheep were always unwelcome on the range, 
 and are so to-day, although the courts now ad- 
 just such matters better than they formerly did. 
 The cow baron and his men often took revenge 
 upon the woolly nuisances themselves and killed 
 them In numbers. The author knows of one 
 Instance where five thousand sheep were killed 
 In one box canon by Irate cow men whose range 
 had been Invaded. The sheep eat the grass 
 down to the point of killing It, and cattle will 
 not feed on a country which sheep have crossed. 
 Many wars of this kind have been known all 
 the way from Montana to Mexico. 
 
 Again, factional fights might arise over some 
 trivial matter as an Immediate cause. In a com- 
 munity or a region where numbers of men 
 fairly equal were separated In self-interest. In 
 a day when life was still wild and free, and 
 when the law was still unknown, these differ- 
 ences of opinion sometimes led to bitter and 
 bloody conflicts between factions. 
 
 * See "The Story of the Cowboy," by E. Hough. D. Appleton & Co. 
 
196 The Story of 
 
 Chapter XIV 
 
 The Lincoln County War — The Bloodiest^ 
 Most Dramatic and Most Romantic of all the 
 Border Wars — First Authentic Story Ever 
 Printed of the Bitterest Feud of the Southwest. 
 
 THE entire history of the American 
 frontier is one of rebellion against the 
 law, if, indeed, that may be called re- 
 bellion whose apostles have not yet recognized 
 any authority of the law. The frontier ante- 
 dated anarchy. It broke no social compact, for 
 it had never made one. Its population asked 
 no protection save that afforded under the stern 
 suzerainty of the six-shooter. The anarchy of 
 the frontier, if we may call it such, was some- 
 times little more than self-interest against self- 
 interest. This was the true description of the 
 border conflict now in question. 
 
 The Lincoln County War, fully speaking, 
 embraced three wars; the Pecos War of the 
 early '70's, the Harold War of 1874, and the 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 197 
 
 Lincoln County War proper, which may be said 
 to have begun in 1874 and to have ended in 
 1879. The actors in these different conflicts 
 were all intermingled. There was no blood 
 feud at the bottom of this fighting. It was the 
 war of self-interest against self-interest, each 
 side supported by numbers of fighting men. 
 
 At that time Lincoln County, New Mexico, 
 was about as large as the state of Pennsylvania. 
 For judicial purposes it was annexed to Donna 
 Ana County, and its territories included both 
 the present counties of Eddy and Chaves, and 
 part of what is now Donna Ana. It extended 
 west practically as far the Rio Grande river, 
 and embraced a tract of mountains and high 
 tableland nearly two hundred miles square. 
 Out of this mountain chain, to the east and 
 southeast, ran two beautiful mountain streams, 
 the Bonito and the Ruidoso, flowing Into the 
 Hondo, which continues on to the flat valley of 
 the Pecos river — once the natural pathway of 
 the Texas cattle herds bound north to Utah and 
 the mountain territories, and hence the natural 
 pathway also for many lawful or lawless citi- 
 zens from Texas. 
 
 At the close of the civil war, Texas was full 
 of unbranded and unowned cattle. Out of the 
 
198 The Story of 
 
 town of Paris, Texas, which was founded by 
 his father, came one John Chlsum — one of the 
 most typical cow men that ever Hved. Bold, 
 fearless, shrewd, unscrupulous, genial, mag- 
 netic, he was the man of all others to occupy a 
 kingdom which had heretofore had no ruler. 
 
 John Chlsum drove the first herds up the 
 Pecos trail to the territorial market. He held 
 at one time perhaps eighty thousand head of 
 cattle under his brand of the "Long I" and 
 "jinglebob." Moreover, he had powers of at- 
 torney from a great many cow men In Texas 
 and lower New Mexico, authorizing him to 
 take up any trail cattle which he found under 
 their respective brands. He carried a tin cylin- 
 der, large as a water-spout, that contained, 
 some said, more than a thousand of these pow- 
 ers of attorney. At least, It Is certain he had 
 papers enough to give him a wide authority. 
 Chlsum riders combed every north-bound herd. 
 If they found the cattle of any of his "friends," 
 they were cut out and turned on the Chlsum 
 range. There were many "little fellows," 
 small cattlemen, nested here and there on the 
 flanks of the Chlsum herds. What more natural 
 than that they should steal from him, in case 
 they found a market of their own? That was 
 
The Outlaw 199 
 
 much easier than raising cows of their own. 
 Now, there was a market up this winding Bo- 
 nlto valley, at Lincoln and Fort Stanton. The 
 soldiers of the latter post, and the Indians of 
 the Mescalero reservation near by, needed sup- 
 plies. There were others besides John Chlsum 
 who might need a beef contract now and then, 
 and cattle to fill it. 
 
 At the end of the civil war, there was in 
 New Mexico, with what was known as the Cali- 
 fornia Column, which joined the forces of New 
 Mexican volunteers, an officer known as Major 
 L. G. Murphy. After the war, a great many 
 men settled near the points where they were mus- 
 tered out In the South and West. It was thus 
 with Major Murphy, who located as post- 
 trader at the little frontier post known as Fort 
 Stanton, which was founded by Captain Frank 
 Stanton in 1854, in the Indian days. John 
 Chlsum located his Bosque Grande ranch 
 about 1865, and Murphy came to Fort Stanton 
 about 1866. In 1875, Chlsum dropped down 
 to his South Spring River ranch, and by that 
 time Murphy had been thrown out of the post- 
 tradershlp by Major Clendenning, command- 
 ing officer, who did not like his methods. He 
 had dropped nine miles down the Bonlto from 
 
200 The Story of 
 
 Fort Stanton, with two young associates, under 
 the firm name of Murphy, Riley & Dolan, some- 
 times spoken of as L. G. Murphy & Co. 
 
 Murphy was a hard-drinking man, yet withal 
 something of a student. He was intelligent, 
 generous, bold and shrewd. He "staked'* 
 every little cow man in Lincoln county, includ- 
 ing a great many who hung on the flanks of 
 John Chlsum's herds. These men in turn were 
 in their ethics bound to support him and his 
 methods. Murphy was king of the Bonito 
 country. Chlsum was king of the Pecos; not 
 merchant but cow man, and caring for nothing 
 which had not grass and water on it. 
 
 Here, then, were two rival kings. Each at 
 times had occasion for a beef contract. The 
 result Is obvious to anyone who knows the ways 
 of the remoter West In earlier days. The 
 times were ripe for trouble. Murphy bought 
 stolen beef, and furnished bran Instead of flour 
 on his Indian contracts, as the government 
 records show. His henchmen held the Chlsum 
 herds as their legitimate prey. Thus we now 
 have our stage set and peopled for the grim 
 drama of a bitter border war. 
 
 The Pecos war was mostly an Indiscriminate 
 killing among cow men and cattle thieves, and 
 
The Outlaw 201 
 
 it cost many lives, though it had no beginning 
 and no end. The Texas men, hard riders and 
 cheerful shooters for the most part, came push- 
 ing up the Pecos and into the Bonito caiion. 
 Among these, in 1874, were four brothers 
 known as the Harold boys. Bill, Jack, Tom 
 and Bob, who had come from Texas in 1872. 
 Two of them located ranches on the Ruidoso, 
 being "staked" therein by Major Murphy, king 
 for that part of the countryside. The Harold 
 boys once undertook to run the town of Lin- 
 coln, and a foolish justice ordered a constable 
 to arrest them. One Gillam, an ex-sheriff, told 
 the boys to put on their guns. On that night 
 there were killed Gillam, Bill Harold, Dave 
 Warner and Martinez, the Mexican constable. 
 The dead body of Martinez was lying in the 
 street the next morning with a deep cross cut 
 on the forehead. From that time on for the 
 next five years, it was no uncommon thing to 
 see dead men lying in the streets of Lincoln. 
 The Harold boys had sworn revenge. 
 
 There was a little dance in an adobe one 
 night at Lincoln, when Ben Harold and some 
 Texas men from the Seven Rivers country rode 
 up. They killed four men and one woman that 
 night before they started back to Seven Rivers. 
 
202 The Story of 
 
 From that time on, it was Texas against the 
 law, such as the latter was. No resident places 
 the number of the victims of the Harold war 
 at less than forty or fifty, and it is believed that 
 at least seventy-five would be more correct. 
 These killings proved the weakness of the law, 
 for none of the Harold gang was ever punished. 
 As for the Lincoln County War proper, the 
 magazine was now handsomely laid. Only the 
 spark was needed. What would that naturally 
 be? Either an actual law court, or else — 
 a woman! In due time, both were forth- 
 coming. 
 
 The woman in the case still lives to-day in 
 New Mexico, sometimes spoken of as the ''Cat- 
 tle Queen" of New Mexico. She bears now 
 the name of Mrs. Susan E. Barber. Her 
 maiden name was Susan E. Hummer, the name 
 sometimes spelled Homer, and she was born in 
 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Susan Hummer 
 was a granddaughter of Anna Maria Spangler- 
 Stauffer. The Spangler family is a noble one 
 of Germany and very old. George Spangler 
 was cup-bearer to Godfrey, Chancellor of 
 Frederick Barbarossa, and was with the latter 
 on the Crusade when Barbarossa was drowned 
 in the Syrian river, Calycadmus, in 1190. The 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 203 
 
 American seat of this old family was in York 
 county, Pennsylvania, where the first Spanglers 
 settled in 1 73 1. It was from this tenacious and 
 courageous ancestry that there sprang this figure 
 of a border warfare in a region wild as Barba- 
 rossa's realm centuries ago. 
 
 On August 23, 1873, in Atchison, Kansas, 
 Susan Hummer was married to Alexander A. 
 McSween, a young lawyer fresh from the 
 Washington university law school of St. Louis. 
 McSween was born in Charlottetown, Prince 
 Edward Island, and was educated in the first 
 place as a Presbyterian minister. He was 
 a man of good appearance, of intelligence and 
 address, and of rather more polish than the 
 average man. He was an orator, a dreamer, 
 and a visionary; a strange, complex character. 
 He was not a fighting man, and belonged any- 
 where In the world rather than on the frontier 
 of the bloody Southwest. His health was not 
 good, and he resolved to journey to New 
 Mexico. He and his young bride started over- 
 land, with a good team and conveyance, and 
 reached the little placita of Lincoln, in the 
 Bonito cafion, March 15, 1875. Outside of 
 the firm of Murphy, Riley & Dolan, there were 
 at that time but one or two other American 
 
204 The Story of 
 
 families. McSween started up in the practice 
 of law. 
 
 There appeared In northern New Mexico at 
 about this time an Englishman by the name of 
 J. H. Tunstall, newly arrived In the West In 
 search of Investment. Tunstall was told that 
 there was good open cattle range to be had In 
 Lincoln county. He came to Lincoln, met Mc- 
 Sween, formed a partnership with him In the 
 banking and mercantile business, and, more- 
 over, started for himself, and altogether Inde- 
 pendently, a horse and cattle ranch on the Rio 
 Fellz, a day's journey below Lincoln. Now, 
 King Murphy, of Lincoln county, found a rival 
 business growing up directly under his eyes. He 
 liked this no better than King Chlsum liked the 
 little cow men on his flanks In the Seven Rivers 
 country. Things were ripening still more 
 rapidly for trouble. Presently, the Immediate 
 cause made Its appearance. 
 
 There had been a former partner and friend 
 of Major Murphy In the post-tradership at 
 Fort Stanton, Colonel Emil Fritz, who estab- 
 lished the Fritz ranch, a few miles below Lin- 
 coln. Colonel Fritz having amassed a consider- 
 able fortune, concluded to return to Germany. 
 He had Insured his life In the American Insur- 
 
The Outlaw 20 c 
 
 ance Company for ten thousand dollars, and 
 had made a will leaving this policy, or the 
 greater part of it, to his sister. The latter had 
 married a clerk at Fort Stanton by the name of 
 Scholland, but did not get along well with her 
 husband. Heretofore no such thing as divorce 
 had been known in that part of the world; but 
 courts and lawyers were now present, and it 
 occurred to Mrs. Scholland to have a divorce. 
 She sent to Mr. McSween for legal counsel, and 
 for a time lived in the McSween house. 
 
 Now came news of the death, in Germany, 
 of Colonel Emil Fritz. His brother, Charlie 
 Fritz, undertook to look up the estate. He 
 found the will and insurance policy had been 
 left with Major Murphy; but Major Murphy, 
 accustomed to running affairs in his own way, 
 refused to give up the Emil Fritz will, and 
 forced McSween to get a court order appoint- 
 ing Mrs. Scholland administratrix of the Fritz 
 estate. Not even in that capacity would Major 
 Murphy deliver to her the will and insurance 
 policy when they were demanded, and it is 
 claimed that he destroyed the will. Certainly 
 it was never probated. Murphy was accus- 
 tomed to keep this will in a tin can, hid in a hole 
 in the adobe wall of his store building. There 
 
2o6 The Story of 
 
 were no safes at that time and place. The 
 policy had been left as security for a loan of 
 nine hundred dollars advanced by a firm known 
 as Splegelberg Brothers. Few Ingredients were 
 now lacking for a typical melodrama. Mean- 
 time the plot thickened by the failure of the in- 
 surance company! 
 
 McSween, In the interest of Mrs. Scholland, 
 now went East to see what could be done In the 
 collection of the Insurance policy. He was able 
 finally, In 1876, to collect the full amount of ten 
 thousand dollars, and this he deposited In his 
 own name In a St. Louis bank then owned by 
 Colonel Hunter. He had been obliged to pay 
 the Splegelbergs the face of their loan before 
 he could get the policy to take East with him. 
 He wished to be secured against this advance- 
 ment and reimbursed as well for his expenses, 
 which, together with his fee, amounted to a con- 
 siderable sum. Moreover, the German Minis- 
 ter enjoined McSween from turning over any 
 of this money, as there were other heirs in Ger- 
 many. Major Murphy owed McSween some 
 money. Colonel Fritz also died owing Mc- 
 Sween thirty-three hundred dollars, fees due on 
 legal work. Yet Murphy demanded the full 
 amount of the Insurance policy from McSween 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 207 
 
 again and again. Murphy, Riley & Dolan 
 now sued out an attachment on McSween's 
 property, and levied on the goods in the Tun- 
 stall-McSween store. The "law" was now 
 doing its work; but there was a very liberal 
 interpretation put upon the law's intent. As 
 construed by Sheriff William Brady, the writ 
 applied also to the Englishman Tunstall's prop- 
 erty in cattle and horses on the Rio Feliz 
 ranch; which, of course, was high-handed 
 illegality. McSween's statement that he had no 
 interest in the Feliz ranch served no purpose. 
 Brady and Murphy were warm friends. The 
 lawyer McSween had accused them of being 
 something more than that — allies and conspira- 
 tors. McSween and Tunstall bought Lincoln 
 county scrip cheap; but when they presented it 
 to the county treasurer. Murphy, it was 
 not paid, and it was charged that he and 
 Brady had made away with the county funds. 
 That was never proved, for, as a matter of fact, 
 no county books were ever kept! McSween 
 started the first set ever known there. 
 
 At this time there was working for Tunstall 
 on the Feliz ranch the noted desperado, Billy 
 the Kid, who a short time formerly had worked 
 for John Chisum. The latter at this stage of 
 
2o8 The Story of 
 
 the advancing troubles, appears rather as a third 
 party, or as holding one point of a triangle, 
 whose other two corners were occupied by the 
 Murphy and McSween factions. 
 
 Whether or not it was a legal posse which 
 went out to serve the attachment on the Tun- 
 stall cattle — or whether or not a posse was 
 necessary for that purpose — the truth is that a 
 band of men, on February 13th, 1878, did go 
 out under some semblance of the law and in the 
 interests of the Murphy people's claim. Some 
 state that William S. Morton, or ''Billy" Mor- 
 ton, was chosen by Sheriff Brady as his deputy 
 and as leader of this posse. Others name dif- 
 ferent men as leaders. Certainly, the band was 
 suited for any desperate occasion. With it was 
 one Tom Hill, who had killed several men at 
 different times, and who had been heard to say 
 that he intended to kill Tunstall. There was 
 also Jesse Evans, just in from the Rio Grande 
 country, and, unless that were Billy the Kid, 
 the most redoubtable fighter in all that country. 
 Evans had formerly worked for John Chisum, 
 and had been the friend of Billy the Kid; but 
 these two had now become enemies. Others of 
 the party were William M. Johnson, Ham 
 Mills, Johnnie Hurley, Frank Baker, several 
 
The Outlaw 209 
 
 ranchers still living in that country, and two or 
 three Mexicans. All these rode across the 
 mountains to the Ruidoso valley on their way 
 to the Rio Feliz. They met, coming from the 
 Tunstall ranch, Tunstall himself in company 
 with his foreman, Dick Brewer, John Middle- 
 ton and Billy the Kid. When the Murphy 
 posse came up with Tunstall, he was alone. His 
 men were at the time chasing a flock of wild 
 turkeys along a distant hillside. When called 
 upon to halt, Tunstall did so, and then came up 
 toward the posse. 'Tou wouldn't hurt me, boys, 
 would you?" he said, as he approached lead- 
 ing his horse. When within a few yards, Tom 
 Hill said to him, "Why, hello, Tunstall, is that 
 you?" and almost with the words fired upon him 
 with his six-shooter and shot him down. Some 
 say that Hill shot Tunstall again, and a young 
 Mexican boy called Pantilon beat in his skull 
 with a rock. They put Tunstall's hat under his 
 head and left him lying there beside his horse, 
 which was also killed. His folded coat was 
 found under the horse's head. His body, lashed 
 on a burro's back, was brought over the moun- 
 tains by his friends that night Into Lincoln, 
 twenty miles distant. Fifty men took up the 
 McSween fight that night ; for. In truth, the kill- 
 
2IO The Story of 
 
 Ing of Tunstall was murder and without justifi- 
 cation. 
 
 That was the beginning of the actual Lincoln 
 County War. Dick Brewer, Tunstall's fore- 
 man, was now leader of the McSween fighting 
 men. McSween, of course, supplied him with 
 color of "legal" authority. He was appointed 
 "special constable." Neither party had diffi- 
 culty in obtaining all the legal papers required. 
 Each party was presently to have a sheriff of its 
 own. Meantime, there was at Lincoln an accom- 
 modating justice of the peace, John P. Wilson, 
 who was ready to give either faction any sort 
 of legal paper it demanded. Dick Brewer, 
 Billy the Kid, and nearly a dozen others of the 
 first McSween posse started to the lower 
 country, where lived a good many of Murphy's 
 friends, small cow men and others. On the Rio 
 Penasco, about six miles from the Pecos, they 
 came across a party of five men, two of whom, 
 Billy Morton and Frank Baker, had been pres- 
 ent at the killing of Tunstall. Baker and Mor- 
 ton surrendered under promise of safekeeping, 
 and were held for a time at Roswell. On the 
 trail from Roswell to Lincoln, at a point near 
 the Agua Negra, both these men, while kneel- 
 ing and pleading for their lives, were de- 
 
The Outlaw 211 
 
 llberately shot and killed by Billy the Kid. 
 There was with the Brewer posse a buffalo-hun- 
 ter by the name of McClosky, who had prom- 
 ised to take care of these prisoners. Joe Mc- 
 Nab, of the posse, shot and killed McClosky in 
 cold blood. In this McSween posse were "Doc" 
 Skurlock, Charlie Bowdre, Billy the Kid, Hen- 
 dry Brown, Jim French, John Middleton, with 
 McNab, Wait and Smith, besides McClosky, 
 who seems not to have been loyal enough to 
 them to sanction cold blooded murder. These 
 victims were killed March 7th, 1878. 
 
 There had now been deliberate murder com- 
 mitted upon the one side and upon the other. 
 There were many men implicated on each side. 
 These men, in self-interest, now drew apart to- 
 gether. The factions, of necessity, became 
 more firmly established. It may be seen that 
 there was very little principle at stake on either 
 side. The country was now simply going wild 
 again. It meant to take the law into its own 
 hands; and the population was divided into 
 these two factions, to one or the other of which 
 every resident must perforce belong. A choice, 
 and sometimes a quick one, was an Imperative 
 necessity. 
 
 The next killing was that of Buckshot Rob- 
 
212 The Story of 
 
 erts, at Blazer's Mill, near the Mescalero Res- 
 ervation buildings, an affair described in a later 
 chapter. Thirteen men, later of the Kid's 
 gang, led by Dick Brewer, attacked Roberts, 
 who killed Dick Brewer before he himself died. 
 The death of the latter left the Kid chief of the 
 McSween forces. 
 
 A great blood lust now possessed all the popu- 
 lation. It wanted no law. There is no doubt 
 about the intention to make away with Judge 
 Warren Bristol of the circuit court. The lat- 
 ter, knowing of these turbulent times in Lincoln, 
 decided not to hold court. He sent word to 
 Sheriff William Brady to open court and then 
 at once to adjourn it. This was on April i, 
 1878. 
 
 Sheriff Brady, In walking down the street 
 toward the dwelling-house in which court ses- 
 sions were then held, was obliged to pass the 
 McSween store and residence. Behind the cor- 
 ral wall, there lay ambushed Billy the Kid and 
 at least five others of his gang. Brady was ac- 
 companied by Billy Matthews (J. B. Matthews, 
 now dead; postmaster of Roswell, New 
 Mexico, In 1904), by George Hindman, his 
 deputy, and Dad Peppin, later sheriff of Lin- 
 coln county. The Kid and his men waited until 
 
The Outlaw 213 
 
 the victims had gone by. Then a volley was fired. 
 Sheriff Brady, shot in the back, slowly sank 
 down, his knees weakening under him. "My 
 God! My God I My God I" he exclaimed, as 
 he gradually dropped. He had been struck in 
 the back by five balls. As he sank down, he 
 turned his head to see his murderers, and as he 
 did so received a ball in the eye, and so fell 
 dead. George Hindman, the deputy, also shot 
 in the back, ran down the street about one hun- 
 dred and fifty yards before he fell. He lay in 
 the street and few dared to go out to him. A 
 saloon-keeper, Ike Stockton (himself a bad 
 man, and later killed at Durango, Colorado), 
 offered him a drink of water, which he brought 
 in his hat, and Hindman, accepting it, fell back 
 dead. 
 
 The murder of Sheriff Brady left the country 
 without even the semblance of law; but each 
 party now took steps to set up a legal machinery 
 of its own, as cover for its own acts. The old 
 justice of the peace, John P. Wilson, would 
 Issue a warrant on any pretext for any person; 
 but there must be some one with authority to 
 serve the process. In a quasi-election, the Mc- 
 Sween faction Instituted John Copeland as their 
 sheriff. The Murphy faction held that Cope- 
 
214 ^^^ Story of 
 
 land never qualified as sheriff. He lived with 
 McSween part of the time. It was understood 
 that he was sheriff for the purpose of bothering 
 nobody but the Murphy people. 
 
 Meantime, the other party were not thus to 
 be surpassed. In June, 1878, Governor Axtell 
 appointed George W. Peppin as sheriff of Lin- 
 coln county. Peppin qualified at Mesilla, came 
 back to Lincoln, and demanded of Copeland 
 the warrants in his possession. He had, on his 
 part, twelve warrants for the arrest of mem- 
 bers of the McSween gang. Little lacked now 
 to add confusion in this bloody coil. The coun- 
 try was split into two factions. Each had a 
 sheriff as a figurehead! What and where was 
 the law? 
 
 Peppin had to get fighting men to serve his 
 warrants, and he could not always be particular 
 about the social standing of his posses. He had 
 a thankless and dangerous position as the "Mur- 
 phy sheriff." Most of his posses were recruited 
 from among the small ranchers and cow boys of 
 the lower Pecos. Peppin was sheriff only a few 
 months, and threw up the job $2,800 in debt. 
 
 The men of both parties were now scouting 
 about for each other here and there over a dis- 
 trict more than a hundred miles square; but 
 
The Outlaw 215 
 
 presently the war was to take on the dignity 
 of a pitched battle. Early in July, 1878, the 
 Kid and his gang rounded up at the McSween 
 house. There were a dozen white desperadoes 
 in their party. There were about forty Mexi- 
 cans also identified with the McSween faction. 
 These were quartered in the Montana and Ellis 
 residences, well down the street. 
 
 The Murphy forces now surrounded the Mc- 
 Sween house, and at once a pitched battle began. 
 The McSween men started the firing from the 
 windows and loopholes of their fortress. The 
 Peppin men replied. The town, divided 
 against itself, held under cover. For three days 
 the two little armies lay here, separated by the 
 distance of the street, perhaps sixty men in all 
 on the McSween side, perhaps thirty or forty 
 In all on the Murphy-Peppin side, of whom 
 nineteen were Americans. 
 
 To keep the McSween men inside their forti- 
 fications, Peppin had three men posted on the 
 mountain side, whence they could look down 
 directly upon the top of the houses, as the moun- 
 tain here rises up sharply back of the narrow 
 line of adobe buildings. These pickets were 
 Charlie Crawford, Lucillo Montoye, and an- 
 other Mexican, and with their long-range buf- 
 
2i6 The Story of 
 
 falo guns they threw a good many heavy slugs 
 of lead into the McSween house. At last, one 
 Fernando Herrera, a McSween Mexican, 
 standing In the back door of the Montana 
 house, fired, at a distance of about nine hun- 
 dred yards, at Charlie Crawford. The shot 
 cut Crawford down, and he lay, with his back 
 broken, behind a rock on the mountain side In 
 the hot sun nearly all day. Crawford was later 
 brought down to the street. Medical attend- 
 ance there was none, and few dared to offer 
 sympathy, but Captain Saturnino Baca* carried 
 Crawford a drink of water. 
 
 The death of Crawford ended the second 
 day's fighting. Peppln's party now numbered 
 sixteen men from the Seven Rivers country, or 
 
 * Captain Saturnino Baca was a friend of Kit Carson, an officer in the New 
 Mexican Volunteers, and the second commanding officer of Fort Stanton. 
 He came to Lincoln in 1865, and purchased of J. Trujillo the old stone 
 tower, as part of what was then the Baca property, near the McSween 
 residence. The Bacas were recognized as non-combatants, but were friendly 
 to Major Murphy. Mrs. McSween and Mrs. Baca were bitter enemies, 
 and it was commonly said that, as each side had a sheriff, each side had a 
 woman. Bonifacio J. Baca, son of Captain and Mrs. Baca, was a protege 
 of Major Murphy, who sent him to Notre Dame University, Indiana, to be 
 educated. "Bonnie" Baca was at different times clerk of the probate 
 court, county assessor, deputy sheriff, etc. , and was court interpreter under 
 Judge Warren H. Bristol. He was teaching school at the time Sheriff 
 Brady was shot, and from his refuge in the "round tower," a few feet 
 distant, saw Brady fall. Captain Baca, wife and son, were after that closely 
 watched by the men of the McSween faction, but managed to remain 
 neutral and never became involved in the fighting, though Billy the Kid 
 more than once threatened to kill young Baca. 
 
The Outlaw 217 
 
 twenty-eight In all. The McSween men be- 
 sieged In the adobe were Billy the Kid, Harvey 
 Norrls (killed), Tom O'FoUIard, Ighenio Sala- 
 zar (wounded and left for dead), Ignacio Gon- 
 zales, Jose Semora (killed), Francisco Romero 
 (killed), and Alexander A. McSween, leader 
 of the faction (killed). Doc Skurlock, Jack 
 Middleton, and Charlie Bowdre were in the 
 adjoining store building. 
 
 At about noon of the third day, old Andy 
 Boyle, ex-soldier of the British army, said, 
 *'We'll have to get a cannon and blow In the 
 doors. I'll go up to the fort and steal a can- 
 non." Half-way up to the fort, he found his 
 cannon — two Catling guns and a troop of 
 colored cavalry — already on the road to stop 
 what had been reported as firing on women and 
 children. The detachment was under charge of 
 the commanding officer of Fort Stanton, Colo- 
 nel Dudley, who marched his men past the be- 
 leagured house and drew them up below the 
 place. Colonel Dudley was besought by Mrs. 
 McSween, who came out under fire, to save her 
 husband's life; but he refused to Interfere or 
 take side In the matter, saying that the sheriff 
 of the county was there and in charge of his 
 own posse. Mrs. McSween refused to accept 
 
21 8 The Story of 
 
 protection and go up to the post, but returned 
 to her husband for what she knew must soon be 
 the end. 
 
 McSween, ex-minister, lawyer, honest or dis- 
 honest instigator, innocent or malicious cause — 
 and one may choose his adjectives in this mat- 
 ter — of all these bloody scenes, now sat in the 
 house, his head bowed in his hands, the picture 
 of foreboding despair. His nerve was abso- 
 lutely gone. No one paid any attention to him. 
 His wife, the actual leader, was far braver than 
 he. The Kid was the commander. "They'd 
 kill us all if we surrendered," he said. *'We'll 
 shoot it out!" 
 
 Old Andy Boyle got some sticks and some 
 coal oil, and, under protection of rifles, started 
 a fire against a street door of the house. Jack 
 Long and two others also fired the house in the 
 rear. A keg of powder had been concealed 
 under the floor. The flames reached this pow- 
 der, and there was an explosion which did more 
 than anything else toward ending the siege. 
 
 At about dusk. Bob Beckwith, old man 
 Pierce, and one other man, ran around toward 
 the rear of the house. Beckwith called out to 
 the inmates to surrender. They demanded that 
 the sheriff come for a parley. 'Tm a deputy 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 219 
 
 sheriff," replied Beckwith. It was dark or 
 nearly so. Several figures burst out of the rear 
 door of the burning house, among these the un- 
 fortunate McSween. Around him, and ahead 
 of him, ran Billy the Kid, Skurlock, French, 
 O'Folliard, Bowdre, and a few others. The 
 flashing of six-shooters at close range ended 
 the three days' battle. McSween, still unarmed, 
 dropped dead. He was found, half sitting, 
 leaning against the corral wall. Bob Beckwith, 
 of the Peppin forces, fell almost at the same 
 time, killed by Billy the Kid. Near McSween's 
 body lay those of Romero and Semora and of 
 Harvey Norris. The latter was a young Kan- 
 san, newly arrived in that country, of whom 
 little was known. 
 
 With the McSween party, there was one 
 game Mexican, Ighenio Salazar, who is alive 
 to-day, by miracle. In the rush from the house, 
 Salazar was shot down, being struck by two bul- 
 lets. He feigned death. Old Andy Boyle 
 stood over him with his gun cocked. "I guess 
 he's dead," said Andy. "If I thought he 
 wasn't, I shoot him some more." They then 
 jumped on Salazar's body to assure themselves. 
 In the darkness, Salazar rolled over into a ditch, 
 later made his escape, stopped his wounds with 
 
220 The Story of 
 
 some corn husks, and found concealment in 
 a Mexican house until he subsequently re- 
 covered. 
 
 This fight cost McSween his life just at the 
 point when he thought he had attained success. 
 Four days before he was killed, he had word 
 from the United States Government's commis- 
 sioner, Angell, that the President had deposed 
 Governor Axtell of New Mexico, on account 
 of his appointment of Dad Peppin as sheriff, 
 and on charges that Axtell was favoring the 
 Murphy faction. General Lew Wallace was 
 now sent out as Governor of New Mexico, in- 
 vested with "extraordinary powers." He 
 needed them. President Hayes had issued 
 governmental proclamation calling upon these 
 desperate fighting men to lay down their arms, 
 but it was not certain they would easily be per- 
 suaded. It was a long way to Washington, and 
 a short way to a six-shooter. 
 
 General Wallace assured Mrs. McSween of 
 protection, but he found there was no such 
 thing as getting to the bottom of the Lincoln 
 County War. It would have been necessary to 
 hang the entire population of the county to ex- 
 ecute a formal justice. Almost none of the in- 
 dictments "stuck," and one by one the cases 
 
The Outlaw 221 
 
 were dismissed. The thing was too big for the 
 law. 
 
 The only man ever actually indicted and 
 brought to trial for a killing during the Lin- 
 coln County War was Billy the Kid, and there 
 is many a resident of Lincoln to-day who de- 
 clares that the Kid was made a scapegoat; and 
 many a man even to-day charges Governor 
 Wallace with bad faith. Governor Wallace 
 met the Kid by appointment at the Ellis House 
 in Lincoln. The Kid came in fully armed, and 
 the old soldier was surprised to see in him a 
 bright-faced and pleasant-talking boy. In the 
 presence of two witnesses now living, Governor 
 Wallace asked the Kid to come in and lay down 
 his arms, and promised to pardon him if he 
 would stand his trial and if he should be con- 
 victed in the courts. The Kid declined. 
 "There is no justice for me in the courts of this 
 country now,'* said he. "I've gone too far." 
 And so he went back with his little gang of 
 outlaws, to meet a dramatic end, after further 
 Incidents in a singular and blood-stained career. 
 
 The Lincoln County War now spread wider 
 than even the boundaries of the United States. 
 A United States deputy, Wiederman, had been 
 employed by the father of the murdered J. H. 
 
222 The Story of 
 
 Tunstall to take care of the Tunstall estates 
 and to secure some kind of British revenge for 
 his murder. Wiederman falsely persuaded Tun- 
 stall pere that he had helped kill Frank Baker 
 and Billy Morton, and Tunstall pere made him 
 rich, Wiederman going to England, where it 
 was safer. The British legation took up the 
 matter of Tunstall's death, and the slow-mov- 
 ing governmental wheels at Washington began 
 to revolve. A United States indemnity was 
 paid for Tunstall's life. 
 
 Mrs. McSween, meantime, kept up her work 
 in the local courts. Some time after her hus- 
 band's death, she employed a lawyer by the 
 name of Chapman, of Las Vegas, a one-armed 
 man, to undertake the dangerous task of aiding 
 her in her work of revenge. By this time, most 
 of the fighters were disposed to lay down their 
 arms. The whole society of the country had 
 been ruined by the war. Murphy & Co. 
 had long ago mortgaged everything they had, 
 and a good many things which they did not 
 have, e. g., some of John Chisum's cattle, to 
 Tom Catron, of Sante Fe. A big peace talk 
 was made in the town, and it was agreed that, 
 as there was no longer any advantage of a finan- 
 cial nature In keeping up the war, all parties 
 
H 
 
 o 
 
 tm 
 
 o 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 223 
 
 concerned might as well quit organized fight- 
 ing, and engage in individual pillage instead. 
 Murphy & Co. were ruined. Murphy and Mc- 
 Sween were both dead. Chisum could be de- 
 pended upon to pay some of the debts to the 
 warriors through stolen cattle, if not through 
 signed checks. Why, then, should good, game 
 men go on killing each other for nothing? This 
 was the argument used. 
 
 In this conference there were, on the Mur- 
 phy side, Jesse Evans, Jimmie Dolan and Bill 
 Campbell. On the other side were Billy the 
 Kid, Tom O'Folliard and the game Mexican, 
 Salazar. Each of these men had a .45 Colt at 
 his belt, and a cocked Winchester in his hand. 
 At last, however, the six men shook hands. 
 They agreed to end the war. Then, frontier 
 fashion, they set off for the nearest saloon. 
 
 The Las Vegas lawyer. Chapman, happened 
 to cross the street as these desperate fighting 
 men, used to killing, now well drunken, came 
 out, all armed, and all swearing friendship. 
 
 "Halt, you, there!'' cried Bill Campbell to 
 Chapman; and the latter paused. "Damn 
 you," said Campbell to Chapman; "you are 
 
 the of a that has come down 
 
 here to stir up trouble among us fellows. We're 
 
224 The Story of 
 
 peaceful. It's all settled, and weVe friends 
 now. Now, damn you, just to show you're 
 peaceable too, you dance." 
 
 "Fm a gentleman," said Chapman, ''and I'll 
 dance for no ruffian." An instant later, shot 
 through the heart by Campbell's six-shooter, 
 as is alleged, he lay dead in the roadway. No 
 one dared disturb his body. He was shot at 
 such close range that some papers in his coat 
 pocket took fire from the powder flash, and his 
 body was partially consumed as it lay there in 
 the road. 
 
 For this killing, Jimmie Dolan, Billy Mat- 
 thews and Bill Campbell were indicted and 
 tried. Dolan and Matthews were acquitted. 
 Campbell, in default of a better jail, was kept 
 in the guard-house at Fort Stanton. One night 
 he disappeared, in company with his guard and 
 some United States cavalry horses. Since then 
 nothing has been heard of him. His real name 
 was not Campbell, but Ed Richardson. 
 
 Billy the Kid did not kill John Chisum, 
 though all the country wondered at that fact. 
 There was a story that he forced Chisum to 
 sign a bill of sale for eight hundred head of 
 cattle. He claimed that Chisum owed money 
 to the McSween fighting men, to whom he had 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 225 
 
 promised salaries which were never paid; but 
 no evidence exists that Chisum ever made such 
 a promise, although he sometimes sent a wagon- 
 load of supplies to the McSween fighting men. 
 
 John Chisum died of cancer at Eureka 
 Springs, Missouri, December 26, 1884, and his 
 great holdings as a cattle king afterward be- 
 came somewhat involved. He could once have 
 sold out for $600,000, but later mortgaged his 
 holdings for $250,000. He was concerned in 
 a packing plant at Kansas City, a business into 
 which he was drawn by others, and of which 
 he knew nothing. 
 
 Major Murphy died at Sante Fe before the 
 big fight at Lincoln. Jimmie Dolan died a few 
 years later, and lies buried in the little grave- 
 yard near the Fritz ranch. Riley, the other 
 member of the firm, went to Colorado, and was 
 last heard of at Rocky Ford, where he was 
 prosperous. The heritage of hatred was about 
 all that McSween left to his widow, who pres- 
 ently married George L. Barber, at Lincoln, 
 and later proved herself to be a good business 
 woman — good enough to make a fortune in the 
 cattle business from the four hundred head of 
 cattle John Chisum gave her to settle a debt 
 he had owed McSween. She afterward estab- 
 
226 The Story of 
 
 llshed a fine ranch near Three Rivers, New 
 Mexico. 
 
 Dad Peppin, known as the "Murphy sher- 
 iff" by the McSween faction, hved out his life 
 on his little holding at the edge of Lincoln 
 placita. He died in 1905. His rival, John 
 Copeland, died in 1902. The street of Lin- 
 coln, one of the bloodiest of its size in the 
 world, is silent. Another generation is grow- 
 ing up. William Brady, Major Brady's eldest 
 son, and Josefina Brady-Chavez, a daughter, 
 live in Lincoln ; and Bob Brady, another son of 
 the murdered sheriff, was long jailer at Lincoln 
 jail. The law has arisen over the ruin wrought 
 by lawlessness. It is a noteworthy fact that, 
 although the law never punished the partici- 
 pants in this border conflict, the lawlessness was 
 never ended by any vigilante movement. The 
 fighting was so desperate and prolonged that it 
 came to be held as warfare and not as murder. 
 There is no doubt that, barring the border fight- 
 ing of Kansas and Missouri, this was the great- 
 est of American border wars. 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 227 
 
 Chapter XV 
 
 The Stevens County War — The Bloodiest 
 County Seat War of the West — The Personal 
 Narrative of a Man Who Was Shot and Left 
 for Dead — The Most Expensive United States 
 Court Case Ever Tried. : : : : : 
 
 IN the month of May, 1886, the writer was 
 one of a party of buffalo-hunters bound for 
 the Neutral Strip and the Panhandle of 
 Texas, where a small number of buffalo still re- 
 mained at that time. We traveled across the en- 
 tire southwestern part of Kansas, below the 
 Santa Fe railroad, at a time when the great 
 land boom of 1886 and 1887 was at its height. 
 Town-site schemes in western Kansas were at 
 that time innumerable, and a steady stream of 
 immigration was pouring westward by rail and 
 wagon into the high and dry plains of the coun- 
 try, where at that time farming remained a 
 doubtful experiment. In the course of our trav- 
 
2 28 The Story of 
 
 els, we saw one morning, rising before us in the 
 mirage of the plains, what seemed to be a series 
 of crenelated turrets, castles peaked and bas- 
 tioned. We knew this was but the mirage, and 
 knew that it must have some physical cause. 
 But what was a town doing in that part of the 
 world ? We drove on and in a few hours found 
 the town — a little, raw boom town of un- 
 painted boards and tents, which had sprung 
 up almost overnight In that far-off region. The 
 population was that of the typical frontier town, 
 and the pronounced belief of all was that this 
 settlement was to be the commercial metropolis 
 of the Southwest. This little town was later 
 known as Woodsdale, Kansas. It offered then 
 no hint of the bloody scenes In which it was 
 soon to figure; but within a few weeks it was 
 so deeply embroiled in war with the rival town 
 of Hugoton as to make history notable even 
 on that turbulent frontier. 
 
 Mr. Herbert M. Tonney, now a prosperous 
 citizen of Flora, Illinois, was a resident of that 
 portion of the country In the stirring days of 
 the land boom, and became involved to an ex- 
 tent beyond his own seeking In this county seat 
 fight. While serving as an oflicer of the peace, 
 he was shot and left for dead. No story can 
 
The Outlaw 229 
 
 serve so well as his personal narrative to convey 
 a clear Idea of the causes, methods and results 
 of a typical county seat war In the West. His 
 recountal follows: 
 
 "I do not need to swear to the truthfulness 
 of my story, for I have already done so In many 
 courts and under the cross-examination of some 
 of the ablest lawyers In the country. I have 
 repeated the story on the stand in a criminal 
 case which cost the United States government 
 more money than It has ever expended In any 
 similar trial, unless perhaps that having to do 
 with the assassination of President Lincoln. I 
 can say that I know what It is to be murdered. 
 
 "In March, 1886, I moved out Into south- 
 western Kansas, In what was later to be known 
 as Stevens county, then a remote and apparently 
 unattractive region. In 1885 a syndicate of citi- 
 zens of McPherson, Kansas, had been formed 
 for the purpose of starting a new town In 
 southwestern Kansas. The members were lead- 
 ing bankers, lawyers, and merchants. These 
 sent out an exploration party, among which 
 were such men as Colonel C. E. Cook, former 
 postmaster of McPherson; his brother, Orrin 
 Cook, a lawyer; John Pancoast, J. B. Chamber- 
 Iain, J. W. Calvert, John Robertson, and 
 
230 The Story of 
 
 others. They located a section of school lands, 
 In what was later known as Stevens county, as 
 near the center of the proposed county as the 
 range of sand dunes along the Cimarron river 
 would permit. Others of the party located 
 lands as close to the town site as possible. On 
 August 3, 1886, Governor Martin issued a 
 proclamation for the organization of Stevens 
 county. It appeared upon the records of the 
 State of Kansas that the new county had 2,662 
 bona-fide inhabitants, of whom 868 were house- 
 holders. These claimed a taxable property, in 
 excess of legal exemptions, amounting to $313,- 
 035, including railroad property of $140,380. 
 I need not state that the organization was 
 wholly based upon fraud. An election was 
 called for September 9, and the town of Hugo- 
 ton — at first called Hugo — was chosen. 
 
 "There can be competition in the town-site 
 business, however. At Mead Center, Kansas, 
 there resided an old-time Kansas man, Colonel 
 S. N. Wood, who also wanted a town site in 
 the new county. Wood's partner. Captain I. 
 C. Price, went down on July 3 to look over the 
 situation. He was not known to the Hugoton 
 men, and he was invited by Calvert, the census 
 taker, to register his name as a citizen. He 
 
The Outlaw 231 
 
 protested that he was only a visitor, but was 
 informed that this made no possible difference; 
 whereupon, Price proceeded to register his 
 own name, that of his partner, those of many 
 of his friends, and many purely imaginary 
 persons. He also registered the families of 
 these persons, and finally — in a burst of good 
 American humor — went so far as to credit cer- 
 tain single men of his acquaintance with large 
 families, including twenty or thirty pairs of 
 twins! This cheerful imagination on his part 
 caused trouble afterwards; but certain It is that 
 these fictitious names, twins and all, went Into 
 the sworn records of Hugoton-^-an unborn 
 population of a defunct town, whose own con- 
 ception was in iniquity! 
 
 "Price located a section of government land 
 on the north side of the sand hills, eight miles 
 from Hugoton, and this was duly platted for 
 a town site. Corner lots were selling at Hugo- 
 ton for $1,000 apiece, and people were flocking 
 to that town. The new town was called 
 Woodsdale, and Colonel Wood offered lots 
 free to any who would come and build upon 
 them. Settlers now streamed to Woodsdale. 
 Tents, white-topped wagons and frail shanties 
 sprung up as though by magic. The Woods- 
 
232 The Story of 
 
 dale boom attracted even homesteaders who 
 had cast in their lot with Hugoton. Many of 
 these forgot their oaths in the land office, pulled 
 up and filed on new quarter sections nearer to 
 Woodsdale. The latter town was jubilant. 
 Colonel Wood and Captain Price, in the month 
 of August, held a big ratification meeting, 
 taunting the men of Hugoton with those thirty 
 pairs of twins that never were on land or sea. 
 A great deal of bad blood was engendered at 
 this time. 
 
 "Soon after this Wood and Price started to- 
 gether for Garden City. They were followed 
 by a band of Hugoton men and captured in a 
 dugout on the Cimarron river. Brought back 
 to Hugoton, a mock trial was held upon them 
 and they were released on a mock bond, being 
 later taken out of town under guard. A report 
 was printed in the Hugoton paper that certain 
 gentlemen of that town had gone south with 
 Colonel Wood and Captain Price, 'for the pur- 
 pose of a friendly buffalo hunt.' It was the in- 
 tention to take these two prisoners into the wild 
 and lawless region of No Man's Land, or the 
 Panhandle of Texas, there to kill them, and to 
 bring back the report that they were accident- 
 ally killed in the buffalo chase. This strange 
 
The Outlaw 233 
 
 hunting party did go south, across No Man's 
 Land and into the desert region lying around 
 the headwaters of the Beaver. The prisoners 
 knew what they were to expect, but, as it 
 chanced, their captors did not dare kill them. 
 Meantime, Woodsdale had organized a 'posse' 
 of twenty-four men, under Captain S. O. Au- 
 brey, the noted frontier trailer, formerly an 
 Indian scout. This band, taking up the trail 
 below Hugoton, followed and rescued Wood 
 and Price, and took prisoners the entire Hugo- 
 ton 'posse.' The latter were taken to Garden 
 City, and here the law was in turn set at defi- 
 ance by the Woodsdale men, the horses, 
 wagons, arms, etc., of the Hugoton party being 
 put up and sold in the court to pay the board 
 of the teams, expenses of publication, etc. 
 Colonel Wood bought these effects in at public 
 auction. 
 
 "By this time, Stevens county had been or- 
 ganized and the Hugoton 'pull' was in the as- 
 cendency. A continuance had been taken at 
 Garden City by the Hugoton prisoners, who 
 were charged with kidnapping. The papers in 
 this case were sent down from Finney county 
 to the first session of the District Court of 
 Stevens county. The result was foregone. 
 
234 T^he Story of 
 
 Tried by their friends, the prisoners were 
 promptly discharged. 
 
 "The feeling between the two towns was all 
 the time growing more bitter. Cases had been 
 brought against Calvert, the census-taker, for 
 perjury, and action was taken looking toward 
 the setting aside of the organization of the 
 county. The Kansas legislature, however, now 
 met, and the political 'pull' of Hugoton was still 
 strong enough to secure a special act legalizing 
 the organization of Stevens county. It was 
 now the legislature against the Supreme Court; 
 for a little later the Supreme Court declared 
 that the organization had been made through 
 open fraud and by means of perjury. 
 
 "Naturally, trouble might have been ex- 
 pected at the fall election. There were two 
 centers of population, two sets of leaders, two 
 clans, separated by only eight miles of sand 
 hills. There could be but one county seat and 
 one set of officers. Here Woodsdale began to 
 suffer, for her forces were divided among 
 themselves. 
 
 "Colonel Wood, the leader of this commun- 
 ity, had slated John M. Cross as his candidate 
 for sheriff. A rival for the nomination was 
 Sam Robinson, who owned the hotel at Woods- 
 
The Outlaw 235 
 
 dale, and had Invested considerable money 
 there. Robinson was about forty years of age, 
 and was known to be a bad man, credited with 
 two or three killings elsewhere. Wood had 
 always been able to flatter him and handle him ; 
 but when Cross was declared as the nominee for 
 sheriff, Robinson became so embittered that he 
 moved over to Hugoton, where he was later 
 chosen town marshal and township constable. 
 Hugoton men bought his hotel, leaving Robin- 
 son In the position of holding real estate In 
 Woodsdale without owning the Improvements 
 on It. Hence when the town-site commission- 
 ers began to Issue deeds, Robinson was debarred 
 from claiming a deed by reason of the hotel 
 property having been sold. Bert Nobel, a 
 friend of Robinson's, sold his drug store and 
 moved over with Robinson to Hugoton. Hugo- 
 ton bought other property of Woodsdale mal- 
 contents, leaving the buildings standing at 
 Woodsdale and taking the citizens to them- 
 selves. The Hugoton men put up as their can- 
 didate one Dalton, and declared him elected. 
 Wood contested the election, and finally suc- 
 ceeded In getting his man Cross declared as 
 sheriff of Stevens county. 
 
 "It was now proposed to Issue bonds for a 
 
236 The Story of 
 
 double line of railroad across this county, such 
 bonds amounting to eight thousand dollars per 
 mile. At this time, the population was largely 
 one of adventurers, and there was hardly a foot 
 of deeded land in the entire county. In the dis- 
 cussion over this bond election, Robinson got 
 into trouble with the new sheriff, in which Rob- 
 inson was clearly in the wrong, as he had no 
 county jurisdiction, being at the time of the 
 altercation outside of his own township and 
 town. Later on, a warrant for Robinson's 
 arrest was issued and placed in the hands of 
 Ed Short, town marshal of Woodsdale. Short 
 was known as a killer, and hence as a fit man 
 to go after Robinson.* He went to Hugoton 
 to arrest Robinson, and there was a shooting 
 affair, in which the citizens of Hugoton pro- 
 tected their man. The Woodsdale town mar- 
 shal, however, still retained his warrant and 
 cherished his purpose of arresting his man. 
 
 * This man, Ed. Short, later came to a tragic end. A man of courage, 
 as has been intimated, he had assisted in the capture of a member of the 
 famous Dalton gang, one Dave Bryant, who had robbed a Rock Island 
 express train, and was taking him to Wichita, Kansas, to jail. On the 
 way Short had occasion to go into the smoker of the train, leaving the 
 prisoner in charge of the express messenger, whom Short had furnished with 
 a revolver. By some means Bryant became possessed of this revolver, held 
 up the messenger, and was in the act of jumping from the swiftly moving 
 train, when Short came out of the smoker. Catching sight of Short, 
 Bryant fired and struck him. Short returning the fire, and both falling from 
 the train together, dead. 
 
The Outlaw 237 
 
 "On July 22 of this year, 1888, Short learned 
 that Sam Robinson, the two Cooks, and a man 
 by the name of Donald, together with some 
 women and children, had gone on a picnic down 
 in the Neutral Strip, south of the Stevens 
 county line. Short raised a 'posse' of four or 
 five men and started after Robinson, who was 
 surprised in camp near Goff creek. There was 
 a parley, which resulted in Robinson escaping 
 on a fast horse, which was tied near the shack 
 where he was stopping with his wife and chil- 
 dren. Short, meantime, had sent back word to 
 Woodsdale, stating that he needed help to take 
 Robinson. Meantime, also, the Hugoton men, 
 learning that Short had started down after 
 Robinson, had sent out two strong parties to 
 rescue the latter. A battle was imminent. 
 
 "It was at this time that I myself appeared 
 upon the scene of this turbulent and lawless 
 drama, although, in my own case, I went as a 
 somewhat unwilling participant and as a servant 
 of the law, not anticipating consequences so 
 grave as those which followed. 
 
 "The sheriff of the county, John M. Cross, 
 on receiving the message from Short, called for 
 volunteers, which was equivalent to summoning 
 a 'posse.' He knew there was going to be 
 
238 The Story of 
 
 trouble, and left his money and watch behind 
 him, stating that he feared for the result of his 
 errand. . His 'posse' was made up of Ted 
 Eaton, Bob Hubbard, Holland Wilcox, and 
 myself. At that time I was only a boy, about 
 nineteen years of age. 
 
 "We had a long and hard ride to Reed's 
 camp, on Goff creek, whence Short had sent up 
 his message. Arriving there, we found Reed, 
 who was catching wild horses, together with a 
 man by the name of Patterson and another man, 
 but Short was not in sight. From Reed we 
 learned that Robinson had gotten away from 
 Short, who had started back, leaving word for 
 Mr. Cross, should he arrive, to return home. 
 A band of men from Hugoton, we learned 
 later, had overtaken Short and his men and 
 chased them for twenty-five miles, but the lat- 
 ter reached Springfield, Seward county, un- 
 harmed. 
 
 "Robinson, who had made his escape to a 
 cow camp and thence to Hugoton upon a fresh 
 horse, now met and led down into the Strip 
 one of the first Hugoton 'posses.' Among them 
 were Orrin Cook, Charles Cook, J. W. Cal- 
 vert, J. B. Chamberlain, John Jackson, John 
 A. Rutter, Fred Brewer, William Clark, and a 
 
The Outlaw 239 
 
 few others. Robinson was, of course, the 
 leader of this band. 
 
 "After Sheriff Cross asked me to go down 
 with him to see what had become of Ed Short, 
 I went over and got Wilcox and we rode down 
 to the settlement of Voorhees. Thence we rode 
 to Goff creek, and all reached Reed's camp 
 about seven or eight o'clock on Wednesday 
 morning, July 25, 1888. Here we remained 
 until about five o'clock of that afternoon, when 
 we started for home. Our horses gave out, and 
 we got off and led them until well on Into the 
 night. 
 
 *'At about moonrlse, we came to a place In 
 the Neutral Strip known as the 'Hay Mead- 
 ows,* where there was a sort of pool of standing 
 water, at which settlers cut a kind of coarse hay. 
 There was In camp there, making hay, an old 
 man by the name of A. B. Haas, of Voorhees, 
 and with him were his sons, C. and Keen Haas, 
 as well as Dave Scott, a Hugoton partisan. 
 When we met these people here, we concluded 
 to stop for a while. Eaton and Wilcox got 
 into the wagon-box and lay down. My horse 
 got loose and I was a few minutes In repicket- 
 Ing him. I had not been lying down more than 
 twenty minutes, when we were surprised by the 
 
240 The Story of 
 
 Hugoton 'posse' under Robinson. The latter 
 had left the trail, which came down from the 
 northeast, and were close upon us. They had 
 evidently been watching us during the evening 
 with field-glasses, as they seemed to know where 
 we had stopped, and had completely surrounded 
 us before we knew of their being near us. 
 
 "The first I heard was Cross exclaiming, 
 'They have got us!' At that time there was 
 shooting, and Robinson called out, 'Boys, close 
 in!' He called out to Cross, 'Surrender, and 
 hold up your hands!' Our arms were mostly 
 against the haystacks. Not one of us fired a 
 shot, or could have done so at that moment. 
 
 "Sheriff Cross, Hubbard, and myself got up 
 and stood together. We held up our hands. 
 They did not seem to notice Wilcox and Eaton, 
 who were lying In the wagon. Robinson called 
 out to Cross, 'Give up your arms !' 
 
 " 'I have no arms,' replied Cross. He ex- 
 plained that his Winchester was on his saddle 
 and that he had no revolver. 
 
 " 'I know better than that,' said Robinson. 
 'Search him !' Some one of the Hugoton party 
 then went over Cross after weapons, and told 
 Robinson that he had no arms. 
 
 1 know better,' reiterated Robinson. The 
 
 (t r 
 

 
The Outlaw 241 
 
 others stood free at that moment, and Robin- 
 son exclaimed, 'Sheriff Cross, you are my first 
 man.' He raised his Winchester and fired at 
 Cross, a distance of a few feet, and I saw Cross 
 fall dead at my side. It was all a sort of trance 
 or dream to me. I did not seem to realize what 
 was going on, but knew that I could make no 
 resistance. My gun was not within reach. I 
 knew that I, too, would be shot down. 
 
 "Hubbard had now been disarmed, if indeed 
 he had on any weapon. Robinson remarked to 
 him, 'I want you, too!' and as he spoke he 
 raised his Winchester and shot him dead, Hub- 
 bard also falling close to where I stood, his 
 murderer being but a few feet from him. 
 
 "I knew that my turn must come pretty soon. 
 It was Chamberlain who was to be my execu- 
 tioner, J. B. Chamberlain, chairman of the 
 board of county commissioners of Stevens 
 county, and always prominent in Hugoton mat- 
 ters. Chamberlain was about eight feet from 
 me, or perhaps less, when he raised his rifle 
 deliberately to kill me. There were powder 
 burns on my neck and face from the shot, as 
 the woman who cared for me on the following 
 day testified in court. 
 
 "I saw the rifle leveled, and realized that I 
 
242 The Story of 
 
 was going to be killed. Instinctively, I flinched 
 to one side of the line of the rifle. That saved 
 my life. The ball entered the left side of my 
 neck, about three-quarters of an inch from the 
 carotid artery and about half an inch above the 
 left clavicle, coming out through the left 
 shoulder. I felt no pain at the time, and, in- 
 deed, did not feel pain until the next day. The 
 shock of the shot knocked me down and numbed 
 me, and I suppose I lay a minute or two before 
 I recovered sensation or knew anything about 
 my condition. It was supposed by all that I 
 was killed, and, in a vague way, I agreed that 
 I must be killed; that my spirit was simply pres- 
 ent listening and seeing. 
 
 *'Eaton had now got out of the wagon, and 
 he started to run towards the horses. Robin- 
 son and one or two others now turned and pur- 
 sued him, and I heard a shot or so. Robinson 
 came back and I heard him say, 'I have shot 
 the who drew a gun on me !' 
 
 "Then I heard the Hugoton men talking and 
 declaring that they must have the fifth man of 
 our party, whom they had not yet found. At 
 this time, old man Haas and his sons came and 
 stood near where I was and saw me looking up. 
 The former, seeing that I was not dead, asked 
 
The Outlaw 243 
 
 me where I had been shot. 'They have shot 
 my arm off,' I answered him. At this moment 
 I heard the Hugoton men starting toward me, 
 and I dropped back and feigned death. Haas 
 did not betray me. The Hugoton men now lit 
 matches and peered into the faces of their vic- 
 tims to see if they were dead. I kept my eyes 
 shut when the matches were held to my face, 
 and held my breath. 
 
 "They finally found Wilcox, I do not know 
 just where, but they stood him up within fifteen 
 feet of where I was lying feigning death. They 
 asked Wilcox what he had been doing there, 
 and he replied that he had just been down on 
 the Strip looking around. 
 
 " 'That's a damned lie !' replied Robinson, 
 the head executioner. As he spoke, he raised 
 his Winchester and fired. Wilcox fell, and as 
 he lay he moaned a little bit, as I heard: 
 
 " 'Put the fellow out of his misery,' remarked 
 Robinson, carelessly. Some one then appar- 
 ently fired a revolver shot and Wilcox became 
 silent. 
 
 "Some one came to me, took hold of my foot, 
 and began to pull me around to see whether I 
 was dead. Robinson wanted it made sure. 
 Chamberlain, my executioner, said, 'He's dead; 
 
244 "^^^ Story of 
 
 I gave him a center shot. I don't need shoot 
 a man twice at that distance.' Either Chamber- 
 lain or some one else took me by the legs, 
 dragged me about, and kicked me in the side, 
 leaving bruises which were visible for many 
 days afterwards. I feigned death so well that 
 they did not shoot me again. They did shoot 
 a second time each of the others who lay near 
 me. We found seven cartridges on the ground 
 near where the killing was done. Eaton was 
 shot at a little distance from us, and I do not 
 know whether he was shot more than once 
 or not. 
 
 ^'The haymakers were now in trouble, and 
 said that they could not go on putting up their 
 hay with the corpses lying around. Robinson 
 told them to hitch up and follow the Hugoton 
 party away. They did this, and after a while 
 I was left lying there in the half-moonlight, 
 with the dead bodies of my friends for com- 
 pany. 
 
 "After the party had been gone about twenty 
 minutes, I found I could get on my feet, 
 although I was very weak. At first, I went 
 and examined Wilcox, Cross, and Hubbard, 
 and found they were quite dead. Their belts 
 and guns were gone. Then I went to get my 
 
The Outlaw 245 
 
 horse. It was hard for me to get Into the sad- 
 dle, and It has always seemed to me providential 
 that I could do so at all. My horse was very 
 wild and difficult to mount under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances. Now, It seemed to me that he 
 knew my plight. It Is certain that at that time 
 and afterwards he was perfectly quiet and gen- 
 tle, even when I laboriously tried to get into the 
 saddle. 
 
 "At a little distance, there was a buffalo wal- 
 low, with some filthy water In It. I led my 
 horse here, lay down In the water, and drank 
 a little of it. After that I rode about fifteen 
 or sixteen miles along a trail, not fully knowing 
 where I was going. In the morning, I met 
 constable Herman Cann, of Voorhees, who 
 had been told by the Haas party of the fore- 
 going facts. Of course, we might expect a 
 Hugoton 'posse' at any time. As a matter of 
 fact, the same crowd who did the killing (fif- 
 teen of them, as I afterwards learned) , after 
 taking the haymakers back toward the State 
 of Kansas, returned on their hunt for one of 
 Short's men, who they supposed was still In that 
 locality. It was probably not later than one or 
 two o'clock in the morning when they found 
 me gone. 
 
246 The Story of 
 
 *'Our butchers now again sat down on the 
 ground near the bodies of their victims, and 
 they seem to have enjoyed themselves. There 
 was talk that some beer bottles were emptied 
 and left near the heads of their victims as 
 markers, but whether this was deliberately done 
 I cannot say. 
 
 ''Constable Cann later hid me in the middle 
 of a cornfield. This, no doubt, saved my life, 
 for the Hugoton scouts were soon down there 
 the next morning, having discovered that one 
 of the victims had come to life. Woodsdale 
 had sent out two wagons with ice to bring in 
 the bodies of the dead men, but these Hugoton 
 scouts met them and made them ride through 
 Hugoton, so that the assembled citizens of that 
 town might see the corpses. The county attor- 
 ney, William O'Connor, made a speech, de- 
 manding that Hugoton march on Woodsdale 
 and kill Wood and Ed Short. 
 
 "By this time, of course, all Woodsdale was 
 also under arms. My friends gathered from 
 all over the countryside, a large body of them, 
 heavily armed. Mr. Cann, the constable, had 
 tried to take me to Liberal, but I could not 
 stand the ride. I was then taken to the house 
 of a doctor in the settlement at LaFayette. On 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 247 
 
 the second night after the massacre I was taken 
 to Woodsdale by about twenty of the Woods- 
 dale boys, who came after me. We arrived at 
 Woodsdale about daybreak next morning. In 
 our night trip we could see the skyrocket sig- 
 nals used by the Robinson-Cook gang. 
 
 "After my arrival at Woodsdale, it might 
 have been supposed that all the country was in 
 a state of war, instead of living in a time of 
 modern civilization. Entrenchments were 
 thrown up, rifle pits were dug, and stands estab- 
 lished for sharp-shooters. Guards were thrown 
 out all around the town, and mounted scouts 
 continued to scour the country. Hugoton, ex- 
 pecting that Woodsdale would make an organ- 
 ized attack In retaliation, was quite as fully 
 fortified In every way. Had there been a de- 
 termined leader, the bloodshed would have 
 been much greater. Of course, the result of 
 this state of hostilities was that the governor 
 sent out the militia, and there were Investiga- 
 tions, and, later on, arrests and trials. The two 
 towns literally fought each other to the death. 
 
 "The murder of Sheriff Cross occurred in 
 1888. The militia were withdrawn within 
 about thirty days thereafter. Both towns con- 
 tinued to break the law — in short, agreed jointly 
 
248 The Story of 
 
 to break the law. They drew up a stipulation, 
 it is said, under which Colonel Wood was to 
 have all the charges against the Hugoton men 
 dismissed. In return. Wood was to have all 
 the charges against him in Hugoton dismissed, 
 and was to have safe conduct when he came up 
 to court. Not even this compounding of felony 
 was kept as a pact between these treacherous 
 communities. 
 
 "The trial lagged. Wood was once more 
 under bond to appear at Hugoton, before the 
 court of his enemy, Judge Botkin, and among 
 many other of his Hugoton enemies. On the 
 day that Colonel Wood was to go for his trial, 
 June 23, 1 89 1, he drove up in a buggy. In 
 the vehicle with him were his wife and a Mrs. 
 Perry Carpenter. Court was held in the 
 Methodist church. At the time of Wood's 
 arrival, the docket had been called and a num- 
 ber of cases set for trial, including one against 
 Wood for arson — there was no crime in the 
 calendar of which one town did not accuse the 
 other, and, indeed, of which the citizens of 
 either were not guilty. 
 
 "Wood left the two ladies sitting in the 
 buggy, near the door, and stepped up to the 
 clerk's desk to look over some papers. As he 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 249 
 
 went in, he passed, leaning against the door, 
 one Jim Brennan, a deputy of Hugoton, who 
 did not seem to notice him. Brennan was a 
 friend of C. E. Cook, then under conviction 
 for the Hay Meadows massacre. Brennan 
 stood talking to Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Carpen- 
 ter, smiling and apparently pleasant. Colonel 
 Wood turned and came down towards the door, 
 again passing close to Brennan but not speak- 
 ing to him. He was almost upon the point of 
 climbing to his seat In the buggy, when Bren- 
 nan, without a word and without any sort of 
 warning, drew a revolver and shot him In the 
 back. Wood wheeled around, and Brennan 
 shot him the second time, through the right side. 
 Not a word had been spoken by any one. 
 Wood now started to run around the corner of 
 the house. His wife, realizing now what was 
 happening, sprang from the buggy-seat and fol- 
 lowed to protect him. Brennan fired a third 
 time, but missed. Mrs. Wood, reaching her 
 husband's side, threw her arms around his neck. 
 Brennan coming close up, fired a fourth shot, 
 this time through Wood's head. The mur- 
 dered man fell heavily, literally in his wife's 
 arms, and for the moment it was thought both 
 were killed. Brennan drew a second revolver. 
 
250 The Story of 
 
 and so stood over Wood's corpse, refusing to 
 surrender to any one but the sheriff of Morton 
 county. 
 
 *'The presiding judge at this trial was 
 Theodoslus Botkin, a figure of peculiar emi- 
 nence in Kansas at that time. Botkin gave 
 Brennan into the custody of the sheriff of Mor- 
 ton county. He was removed from the county, 
 and it need hardly be stated that when he was 
 at last brought back for trial it was found im- 
 possible to empanel a jury, and he was set free. 
 No one was ever punished for this cold-blooded 
 murder. 
 
 "Colonel S. N. Wood was an Ohio man, but 
 moved to Kansas in the early Free Soil days. 
 He was a friend and champion of old John 
 Brown and a colonel of volunteers in the civil 
 war. He had served in the legislature of Kan- 
 sas, and was a good type of the early and ad- 
 venturous pioneer. 
 
 **Whether or not suspicion attached to Judge 
 Botkin for his conduct in this matter, he him- 
 self seems to have feared revenge, for he held 
 court with a Winchester at his hand and a brace 
 of revolvers on the desk in front of him, his 
 court-house always surrounded with an armed 
 guard. He offended men in Seward county. 
 
The Outlaw 251 
 
 and there was a plot made to kill him. A party 
 lay in wait along the road to intercept Botkin 
 on his journey from his homestead — every one 
 in Kansas at that time had a ^claim' — but Bot- 
 kin was warned by some friend. He sent out 
 Sam Dunn, sheriff of Seward county, to dis- 
 cover the truth of the rumor. Dunn went on 
 down the trail and, in a rough part of the 
 country, was fired upon and killed, instead of 
 Botkin. Arrests were made in this matter also, 
 but the sham trials resulted much as had that 
 of Brennan. The records of these trials may 
 be seen In Seward county. It was murder for 
 murder, anarchy for anarchy, evasion for eva- 
 sion, in this portion of the frontier. Judge Bot- 
 kin soon after this resigned his seat upon the 
 bench and went to lecturing upon the virtues 
 of the Keeley cure. Afterwards he went to the 
 legislature — the same legislature which had 
 once tried him on charges of impeachment as 
 a judge! 
 
 "These events all became known In time, 
 and lawlessness proved Its own Inability to en- 
 dure. The towns were abandoned. Where In 
 1889 there were perhaps 4,000 people, there 
 remained not 100. The best of the farms were 
 abandoned or sold for taxes, the late InhabI- 
 
252 The Story of 
 
 tants of the two warring settlements wander- 
 ing out over the world. The legislature, hood- 
 winked or cajoled heretofore, at length dis- 
 organized the county, and anarchy gave back 
 its own to the wilderness. 
 
 "I have indicated that the trial of the men 
 guilty of assassinating my friends and of at- 
 tempting to kill myself in the Hay Meadow 
 butchery was one which reached a considerable 
 importance at the time. The crimes were com- 
 mitted in that strange portion of the country 
 called No Man's Land or the Neutral Strip. 
 The accused were tried in the United States 
 court at Paris, Texas. I myself drew the in- 
 dictments against them. There were tried the 
 Cooks, Chamberlain, Robinson and others of 
 the Hugoton party, and of these six were con- 
 victed and sentenced to be hung. These men 
 were defended by Colonel George R. Peck, 
 later chief counsel of the Chicago, Milwaukee 
 & St. Paul Railway. With him were associated 
 Judge John F. Dillon, of New York; W. H. 
 Rossington, of St. Louis; Senator Manderson, 
 of Nebraska ; Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, and 
 others. The Knights of Pythias raised a fund 
 to defend the prisoners, and spent perhaps a 
 hundred thousand dollars in all in this under- 
 
The Outlaw 253 
 
 taking. A vast political 'pull' was exercised at 
 Topeka and Washington. After the sentence 
 had been passed, the case was taken up to the 
 United States Supreme Court, on the ground 
 that the Texas court had no jurisdiction in the 
 premises, and on the further grounds of errors 
 in the trial. The United States Supreme 
 Court, in 1891, reversed the Texas court, on 
 an error on the admission of evidence, and re- 
 manded the cases. The men were never put on 
 trial again, except that, in 1898, Sam Robin- 
 son, meantime pardoned out of the penitentiary 
 in Colorado, where he had been sent for rob- 
 bing the United States mails at Florissant, Colo- 
 rado, returned to Texas, and was arrested on 
 the old charge. The men convicted were C. E. 
 Cook, Orrin Cook, Cyrus C. Freese, John Law- 
 rence and John Jackson. 
 
 "The Illinois legislature petitioned Congress 
 to extend United States jurisdiction over No 
 Man's Land, and so did the state of Indiana; 
 and it was attached to the East District of 
 Texas for the purposes of jurisdiction. Con- 
 gressman Springer held up this bill for a time, 
 using it as a club for the passage of a measure 
 of his own upon which he was Intent. Thus, 
 it may be seen that the tawdry little tragedy in 
 
254 The Story of 
 
 that land which indeed was 'No Man's Land' 
 in time attained a national prominence. 
 
 "The collecting of the witnesses for this trial 
 cost the United States government over one 
 hundred thousand dollars. The trial was long 
 and bitterly fought. It resulted, as did every 
 attempt to convict those concerned in the 
 bloody doings of Stevens county, in an abso- 
 lute failure of the ends of justice. Of all the 
 murders committed in that bitter fighting, not 
 one murderer has ever been punished! Never 
 was greater political or judicial mockery. 
 
 "I had the singular experience, once in my 
 life, of eating dinner at the same table with the 
 man who brutally shot me down and left me 
 for dead. J. B. Chamberlain, the man who 
 shot me, and who thought he had killed me, 
 came in with a friend and sat down at the same 
 table in a Leavenworth, Kansas, restaurant, 
 where I was eating. My opportunity for re- 
 venge was there. I did not take it. Chamber- 
 lain and his friend did not know who I was. I 
 left the matter to the law, with what results 
 the records of the law's failure in these matters 
 has shown. 
 
 "Of those who were tried for these murders, 
 J. B. Chamberlain is now dead. C. E. Cook, 
 
The Outlaw 255 
 
 who was much alarmed lest the cases might be 
 reinstated In the year 1898, claims Quincy, Illi- 
 nois, as his home, but has Interests In Florida. 
 O. J. Cook Is dead. Jack Lawrence Is dead. 
 John Kelley Is dead. Other actors In the 
 drama, unconvicted, are also dead or nameless 
 wanderers. As the Indictments were all 
 quashed in 1898, Sam Robinson, whose where- 
 abouts Is unknown, will never be brought to 
 trial for his deeds in the Hay Meadow butch- 
 ery. He was not tried at Paris, being then In 
 the Colorado penitentiary. His friend and 
 partner, Bert Nobel, who was sent to the peni- 
 tentiary for seven years for participating in the 
 postoffice robbery, was pardoned out, and later 
 killed a policeman at Trinidad, Colorado. He 
 was tried there and hanged. So far as I know, 
 this is the only legal punishment ever inflicted 
 upon any of the Hugoton or Woodsdale men, 
 who outvied each other in a lawlessness for 
 which anarchy would be a mild name." 
 
256 The Story of 
 
 Chapter XVI 
 
 Biographies of Bad Men — Desperadoes of the 
 Deserts — Billy the Kid, Jesse Evans, Joel 
 Fowler, and Others Skilled in the Art of Gun 
 Fighting, ::::::::: 
 
 THE desert regions of the West seemed 
 always to breed truculence and touchi- 
 ness. Some of the most desperate out- 
 laws have been those of western Texas, New 
 Mexico, and Arizona. These have sometimes 
 been Mexicans, sometimes half-breed Indians, 
 very rarely full-blood or half-blood negroes. 
 The latter race breeds criminals, but lacks in 
 the initiative required In the character of the 
 desperado. Texas and the great arid regions 
 west of Texas produced rather more than their 
 full quota of bad w^hlte men who took naturally 
 to the gun. 
 
 By all means the most prominent figure in 
 the general fighting along the Southwestern 
 
The Outlaw 257 
 
 border, which found climax In the Lincoln 
 County War, was that historic and somewhat 
 romantic character known as Billy the Kid, who 
 had more than a score of killings to his credit 
 at the time of his death at the age of twenty- 
 one. His character may not be chosen as an 
 exemplar for youth, but he affords an Instance 
 hardly to be surpassed of the typical bad 
 man. 
 
 The true name of Billy the Kid was William 
 H. Bonney, and he was born in New York 
 City, November 23, 1859. His father removed 
 to Coffeyvllle, on the border of the Indian Na- 
 tions, in 1862, where soon after he died, leaving 
 a widow and two sons. Mrs. Bonney again 
 moved, this time to Colorado, where she mar- 
 ried again, her second husband being named 
 Antrim. All the time clinging to what was the 
 wild border, these two now moved down to 
 Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they remained 
 until Billy was eight years of age. In 1868, 
 the family made their home at Silver City, New 
 Mexico, where they lived until 1871, when 
 Billy was twelve years of age. His life until 
 then had been one of shifting about. In poverty 
 or at best rude comfort. His mother seems to 
 have been a wholesome Irishwoman, of no great 
 
258 The Story of 
 
 education, but of good instincts. Of the boy's 
 father nothing is known; and of his stepfather 
 little more, except that he was abusive to the 
 stepchildren. Antrim survived his wife, who 
 died about 1870. The Kid always said that his 
 stepfather was the cause of his "getting 
 off wrong." 
 
 The Kid was only twelve years old when, 
 in a saloon row in which a friend of his was 
 being beaten, he killed with a pocket-knife a 
 man who had previously insulted him. Some 
 say that this was an insult offered to his mother; 
 others deny it and say that the man had at- 
 tempted to horsewhip Billy. The boy turned 
 up with a companion at Fort Bowie, Pima 
 county, Arizona, and was around the reserva- 
 tion for a while. At last he and his associate, 
 who appears to have been as well saturated 
 with border doctrine as himself at tender years, 
 stole some horses from a band of Apaches, and 
 incidentally killed three of the latter in a night 
 attack. They made their first step at easy 
 living in this enterprise, and, young as they 
 were, got means in this way to travel about over 
 Arizona. They presently turned up at Tucson, 
 where Billy began to employ his precocious 
 skill at cards; and where, presently, in the 
 
BILLY THE KID 
 
 Said to have slain twenty-two men in his short career. Killed when twenty- 
 one years old by Sheriff Pat F Garrett 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 259 
 
 Inevitable gambler's quarrel, he killed another 
 man. He fled across the line now Into old 
 Mexico, where. In the state of Sonora, h^ set 
 up as a youthful gambler. Here he killed a 
 gambler, Jose Martinez, over a monte game, 
 on an "even break," being the fraction of a 
 second the quicker on the draw. He was 
 already beginning to show his natural fitness 
 as a handler of weapons. He kept up his record 
 by appearing next at Chihuahua and robbing a 
 few monte dealers there, killing one whom he 
 waylaid with a new companion by the name of 
 Segura. 
 
 The Kid was now old enough to be danger- 
 ous, and his life had been one of irresponsi- 
 bility and lawlessness. He was nearly at his 
 physical growth at this time, possibly five feet 
 seven and a half inches in height, and weighing 
 a hundred and thirty-five pounds. He was 
 always slight and lean, a hard rider all his life, 
 and never old enough to begin to take on flesh. 
 His hair was light or light brown, and his eyes 
 blue or blue-gray, with curious red hazel spots 
 in them. His face was rather long, his chin 
 narrow but long, and his front teeth were a 
 trifle prominent. He was always a pleasant 
 mannered youth, hopeful and buoyant, never 
 
26o The Story of 
 
 glum or grim, and he nearly always smiled when 
 talking. 
 
 The Southwestern border at this time offered 
 but few opportunities for making an honest 
 living. There were the mines and there were 
 the cow ranches. It was natural that the half- 
 wild life of the cow punchers would sooner or 
 later appeal to the Kid. He and Jesse Evans 
 met somewhere along the lower border a party 
 of punchers, among whom were Billy Morton 
 and Frank Baker, as well as James McDaniels; 
 the last named being the man who gave Billy 
 his name of "The Kid," which hung to him 
 all his life. 
 
 The Kid arrived in the Seven Rivers country 
 on foot. In his course east over the mountains 
 from Mesllla to the Pecos valley he had been 
 mixed up with a companion, Tom O'Keefe, in 
 a fight with some more Apaches, of whom the 
 Kid is reported to have killed one or more. 
 There is no doubt that the Guadalupe moun- 
 tains, which he crossed, were at that time a 
 dangerous Indian country. That the Kid 
 worked for a time for John Chisum, on his 
 ranch near Roswell, is well known, as is the 
 fact that he cherished a grudge against Chisum 
 for years, and was more than once upon the 
 
The Outlaw 261 
 
 point of killing him for a real or fancied griev- 
 ance. He left Chisum and took service with 
 J. H. Tunstall on his Feliz ranch late in the 
 winter of 1877, animated by what reason we 
 may not know. In doing this, he may have 
 acted from pique or spite or hatred. There 
 was some quarrel between him and his late asso- 
 ciates. Tunstall was killed by the Murphy fac- 
 tion on February 18, 1878. From that time, 
 the path of the Kid is very plain and his acts 
 well known and authenticated. He had by this 
 time killed several men, certainly at least two 
 white men; and how many Mexicans and In- 
 dians he had killed by fair means or foul will 
 never be really known. His reputation as a 
 gun fighter was well established. 
 
 Dick Brewer, Tunstall's foreman, was now 
 sworn in as a "special deputy" by McSween, and 
 a war of reprisal was now on. The Kid was 
 soon in the saddle with Brewer and after his 
 former friends, all Murphy allies. There were 
 about a dozen in this posse. On March 6, 
 1878, these men discovered and captured a band 
 of five men, including Frank Baker and Billy 
 Morton, both old friends of the Kid, at the 
 lower crossing of the Rio Penasco, some six 
 miles from the Pecos. The prisoners were kept 
 
262 The Story of 
 
 over night at Chisum's ranch, and then the 
 posse started with them for Lincoln, not taking 
 the Hondo-Bonito trail, but one via the Agua 
 Negra, on the east side of the Capitans; proof 
 enough that something bloody was in contem- 
 plation, for that was far from any settlements. 
 Apologists of the Kid say that Morton and 
 Baker "tried to escape," and that the Kid fol- 
 lowed and killed them. The truth in all proba- 
 bility is that the party, sullen and bloody-minded, 
 rode on, waiting until wrath or whiskey should 
 inflame them so as to give resolution for the act 
 they all along intended. The Kid, youngest 
 but most determined of the band, no doubt did 
 the killing of Billy Morton and Frank Baker; 
 and in all likelihood there is truth in the asser- 
 tion that they were on their knees and begging 
 for their lives when he shot them. McClosky 
 was killed by McNab, on the principle that dead 
 men tell no tales. This killing was on March 
 9, 1878. The murder of Sheriff William Brady 
 and George Hindman by the Kid and his half- 
 dozen companions occurred April i, 1878, and 
 It is another act which can have no palliation 
 whatever. 
 
 The Kid was now assuming prominence as a 
 gun fighter and leader, young as he was. After 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 263 
 
 the big fight in Lincoln was over, and the Mc- 
 Sween house in flames, the Kid was leader of 
 the sortie which took him and a few of his 
 companions to safety. The list of killings back 
 of him was now steadily lengthening, and, in- 
 deed, one murder followed another so fast all 
 over that country that it was hard to keep track 
 of them all. 
 
 The killing of the Indian agency clerk, Bern- 
 stein, August 5, 1878, on a horse-stealing expe- 
 dition, was the next act of the Kid and his men, 
 who thereafter fled northeast, out through the 
 Capitan Gap, to certain old haunts around Fort 
 Sumner, some ninety miles north of Roswell, 
 up the Pecos valley. Here a little band of out- 
 laws, led by the Kid, lived for a time as they 
 could by stealing horses along the Bonito and 
 around the Capitans, and running them off north 
 and east. There were in this band at the time 
 the Kid, Charlie Bowdre, Doc Skurlock, Wayt, 
 Tom OTolliard, Hendry Brown and Jack Mid- 
 dleton. Some or all of these were in the march 
 with stolen horses which the Kid engineered 
 that fall, going as far east as Atacosa, on the 
 Canadian, before the stock was all gotten rid 
 of. Middleton, Wayt, and Hendry Brown 
 there left the Kid's gang, telling him that he 
 
264 The Story of 
 
 would get killed before long; but the latter 
 laughed at them and returned to his old 
 grounds, alternating between Lincoln and Fort 
 Sumner, and now and then stealing some cows 
 from the Chisum herd. 
 
 In January, 1880, the Kid enlarged his list 
 of victims by killing, in a very justifiable en- 
 counter, a bad man from the Panhandle by the 
 name of Grant, who had been loafing around in 
 his country, and who, no doubt, intended to kill 
 the Kid for the glory of it. The Kid had, a few 
 moments before he shot Grant, taken the pre- 
 caution to set the hammer of the latter's re- 
 volver on an "empty," as he whirled it over in 
 examination. They were apparently friends, 
 but the Kid knew that Grant was drunk and 
 bloodthirsty. He shot Grant twice through the 
 throat, as Grant snapped his pistol in his face. 
 Nothing was done with the Kid for this, of 
 course. 
 
 Birds of a feather now began to appear in 
 the neighborhood of Fort Sumner, and the Kid's 
 gang was increased by the addition of Tom 
 Pickett, and later by Billy Wilson, Dave Ruda- 
 baugh. Buck Edwards, and one or two others. 
 These men stole cattle now from ranges as far 
 east as the Canadian, and sold them to obliging 
 
The Outlaw 265 
 
 butcher-shops at the new mining camp of White 
 Oaks, just coming into prominence; or, again, 
 they took cattle from the lower Pecos herds and 
 sold them north at Las Vegas; or perhaps they 
 stole horses at the Indian reservation and dis- 
 tributed them along the Pecos valley. Their 
 operations covered a country more than two 
 hundred miles across in either direction. They 
 had accomplices and friends in nearly every 
 little placita of the country. Sometimes they 
 gave a man a horse as a present. If he took it, 
 it meant that they could depend upon him to 
 keep silent. Partly by friendliness and partly 
 by terrorizing, their influence was extended until 
 they became a power in all that portion of the 
 country; and their self-confidence had now 
 arisen to the point that they thought none dared 
 to molest them, while in general they behaved in 
 the high-handed fashion of true border bandits. 
 This was the heyday of the Kid's career. 
 
 It was on November 27, 1880, that the Kid 
 next added to his list of killings. The men of 
 White Oaks, headed by deputy sheriff William 
 Hudgens, saloon-keeper of White Oaks, formed 
 a posse, after the fashion of the day, and 
 started out after the Kid, who had passed all 
 bounds in impudence of late. In this posse 
 
266 The Story of 
 
 were Hudgens and his brother, Johnny Hud- 
 gens, Jim Watts, John Mosby, Jim Brent, J. P. 
 Langston, Ed. Bonnell, W. G. Dorsey, J. W. 
 Bell, J. P. Eaker, Charles Kelly, and Jimmy 
 Carlyle. They bayed up the Kid and his gang 
 in the Greathouse ranch, forty miles from 
 White Oaks, and laid siege, although the 
 weather was bitterly cold and the party had not 
 supplies or blankets for a long stay. Hudgens 
 demanded the surrender of the Kid, and the lat- 
 ter said he could not be taken alive. Hudgens 
 then sent word for Billy Wilson to come out and 
 have a talk. The latter refused, but said he 
 would talk with Jimmy Carlyle, if the latter 
 would come into the house. Carlyle, against 
 the advice of all, took off his pistol belt and 
 stepped into the house. He was kept there for 
 hours. About two o'clock in the afternoon they 
 heard the window glass crash and saw Carlyle 
 break through the window and start to run. 
 Several shots followed, and Carlyle fell dead, 
 the bullets that killed him cutting dust in the 
 faces of Hudgens' men, as they lay across the 
 road from the house. 
 
 This murder was a nail In the Kid's coffin, 
 for Carlyle was well liked at White Oaks. By 
 this time the toils began to tighten in all direc- 
 
The Outlaw 267 
 
 tlons. The United States Government had a 
 detective, Azariah F. Wild, in Lincoln county. 
 Pat Garrett had now just been elected sheriff, 
 and was after the outlaws. Frank Stewart, a 
 cattle detective, with a party of several men, 
 was also in from the Canadian country looking 
 for the Kid and his gang for thefts committed 
 over to the east of Lincoln county, across the 
 lines of Texas and the Neutral Strip. The Kid 
 at this time wrote to Captain J. C. Lea, at 
 Roswell, that if the officers would leave him 
 alone for a time, until he could get his stuff 
 together, he would pull up and leave the coun- 
 try, going to old Mexico, but that if he was 
 crowded by Garrett or any one else, he surely 
 would start in and do some more killing. This 
 did not deter Garrett, who, with a posse made 
 up of Chambers, Barney Mason, Frank Stew- 
 art, Juan Roibal, Lee Halls, Jim East, "Poker 
 Tom," "Tenderfoot Bob," and "The Animal," 
 with others, all more or less game, or at least 
 game enough to go as far as Fort Sumner, at 
 length rounded up the Kid, and took him, Billy 
 Wilson, Tom Pickett and Dave Rudabaugh; 
 Garrett killing O'Folliard and Bowdre. 
 
 Pickett was left at Las Vegas, as there was 
 no United States warrant out against him. 
 
268 The Story of 
 
 Rudabaugh was tried later for robbing the 
 United States mails, later tried for killing his 
 jailer, and was convicted and sentenced to be 
 hung; but once more escaped from the Las 
 Vegas jail and got away for good. The Kid 
 was not so fortunate. He was tried at Mesilla, 
 before Judge Warren H. Bristol, the same man 
 whose life he was charged with attempting in 
 1879. Judge Bristol appointed Judge Ira E. 
 Leonard, of Lincoln, to defend the prisoner, 
 and Leonard got him acquitted of the charge 
 of killing Bernstein on the reservation. He was 
 next tried, at the same term of court, for the 
 killing of Sheriff William Brady, and In March, 
 188 1, he was convicted under this charge and 
 sentenced to be hanged at Lincoln on May 13, 
 1 88 1. He was first placed under guard of 
 Deputies Bob Ollinger and Dave Woods, and 
 taken across the mountains In the custody of 
 Sheriff Garrett, who received his prisoner at 
 Fort Stanton on April 21. 
 
 Lincoln county was just beginning to emerge 
 from savagery. There was no jail worth the 
 name, and all the county could claim as a place 
 for the house of law and order was the big store 
 building lately owned by Murphy, Riley & 
 Dolan. It was necessary to keep the Kid under 
 
The Outlaw 269 
 
 guard for the three weeks or so before his exe- 
 cution, and Sheriff Garrett chose as the best 
 available material Bob Ollinger and J. W. Bell, 
 a good, quiet man from White Oaks, to act as 
 the death watch over this dangerous man, who 
 seemed now to be nearly at the end of his day. 
 Against Bob Ollinger the Kid cherished an 
 undying hatred, and longed to kill him. Ollin- 
 ger hated him as much, and wanted nothing so 
 much as to kill the Kid. He was a friend of 
 Bob Beckwith, whom the Kid had killed, and 
 the two had always been on the opposite 
 sides of the Lincoln county fighting. Ollinger 
 taunted the Kid with his deeds, and showed his 
 own hatred in every way. There are many 
 stories about what now took place in this old 
 building at the side of bloody little Lincoln 
 street. A common report is that in the evening 
 of April 28, 188 1, the Kid was left alone in the 
 room with Bell, Ollinger having gone across 
 the street for supper; that the Kid slipped his 
 hands out of his irons — as he was able to do 
 when he liked, his hands being very small — 
 struck Bell over the head with his shackles while 
 Bell was reading or was looking out of the win- 
 dow, later drawing Bell's revolver from its 
 scabbard and killing him with it. This story 
 
270 The Story of 
 
 Is not correct. The truth Is that Bell took the 
 Kid, at his request, Into the yard back of the 
 jail; returning, the Kid sprang quickly up the 
 stairs to the guard-room door, as Bell turned to 
 say something to old man Goss, a cook, who 
 was standing In the yard. The Kid pushed 
 open the door, caught up a revolver from a 
 table, and sprang to the head of the stairs just 
 as Bell turned the angle and started up. He 
 fired at Bell and missed him, the ball striking 
 the left-hand side of the staircase. It glanced, 
 however, and passed through Bell's body, lodg- 
 ing In the wall at the angle of the stair. Bell 
 staggered out Into the yard and fell dead. This 
 story Is borne out by the reports of Goss and 
 the Kid, and by the bullet marks. The place Is 
 very familiar to the author, who at about that 
 time practiced law In the same building, when 
 It was used as the Court House, and who has 
 also talked with many men about the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The Kid now sprang Into the next room and 
 caught up Olllnger's heavy shotgun, loaded 
 with the very shells OlHnger had charged for 
 him. He saw OlHnger coming across the street, 
 and just as he got below the window at the cor- 
 ner of the building the Kid leaned over and 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 271 
 
 said, coolly and pleasantly, "Hello, old fellow!" 
 The next instant he fired and shot Ollinger 
 dead. He then walked around through the 
 room and out upon the porch, which at that 
 time extended the full length of the building, 
 and, coming again in view of Ollinger's body, 
 took a second deliberate shot at it. Then he 
 broke the gun across the railing and threw the 
 pieces down on Ollinger's body. "Take that 
 to hell with you," he said coolly. Then, seeing 
 himself free and once more king of Lincoln 
 street, he warned away all who would ap- 
 proach, and, with a file which he compelled 
 Goss to bring to him, started to file off one of 
 his leg irons. He got one free, ordered a by- 
 stander to bring him a horse, and at length, 
 mounting, rode away for the Capitans, and 
 so to a country with which he had long been 
 familiar. At Las Tablas he forced a Mexican 
 blacksmith to free him of his irons. He sent 
 the horse, which belonged to Billy Burt, back 
 by some unknown friend the following night. 
 
 He was now again on his native heath, a 
 desperado and an outlaw indeed, and obliged to 
 fight for his life at every turn; for now he knew 
 the country would turn against him, and, as he 
 had been captured through information fur- 
 
272 The Story of 
 
 nished through supposed friends, he knew that 
 treachery was what he might expect. He knew 
 also that sheriff Garrett would never give him 
 up now, and that one or the other of the two 
 must die. 
 
 Yet, knowing all these things, the Kid, by 
 means of stolen horses, broke back once more 
 to his old stamping grounds around Fort Sum- 
 ner. Garrett again got on his trail, and as the 
 Kid, with Incredible fatuity, still hung around 
 his old haunts, he was at length able to close 
 with him once more. With his deputies, John 
 Poe and Thomas P. McKInney, he located the 
 Kid In Sumner, although no one seemed to be 
 explicit as to his whereabouts. He went to Pete 
 Maxwell's house himself, and there, as his two 
 deputies were sitting at the edge of the gallery 
 In the moonlight, he killed the Kid at Max- 
 well's bedside. 
 
 Billy the Kid had very many actual friends, 
 whom he won by his pleasant and cheerful man- 
 ners and his liberality, when he had anything 
 with which to be liberal, although that was not 
 often. He was very popular among the Mexi- 
 cans of the Pecos valley. As to the men the 
 Kid killed In his short twenty-one years, that 
 Is a matter of disagreement. The usual story 
 

 •roiu a paintin.;,>- by Joliii \\\ Xorton 
 
 (i 
 
 THE NEXT INSTANT HE FIRED AND SHOT 
 OLLINGER dead" 
 
The Outlaw 273 
 
 IS twenty-one, and the Kid Is said to have de- 
 clared he wanted to kill two more — Bob Ollln- 
 ger and " Bonnie" Baca — ^before he died, to 
 make it twenty-three in all. Pat Garrett says 
 the Kid had killed eleven men. Others say he 
 had killed nine. A very few say that the Kid 
 never killed any man without full justification 
 and In self-defense. They regard the Kid as a 
 scapegoat for the sins of others. Indeed, he 
 was less fortunate than some others, but his 
 deeds brought him his deserts at last, even as 
 they left him an enduring reputation as one of 
 the most desperate desperadoes ever known In 
 the West. 
 
 Central and eastern New Mexico, from i860 
 to 1880, probably held more desperate and dan- 
 gerous men than any other corner of the West 
 ever did. It was a region then more remote 
 and less known than Africa Is to-day, and no 
 record exists of more than a small portion of 
 its deeds of blood. Nowhere In the world was 
 human life ever held cheaper, and never was any 
 population more lawless. There were no courts 
 and no officers, and most of the scattered inhabi- 
 tants of that time had come thither to escape 
 courts and officers. This environment which 
 produced Billy the Kid brought out others 
 
274 ^'^^ Story of 
 
 scarcely less dangerous, and of a few of these 
 there may be made passing mention. 
 
 Joel Fowler was long considered a dangerous 
 man. He was a ranch owner and cow man, but 
 he came into the settlements often, and nearly 
 always for the immediate purpose of getting 
 drunk. In the latter condition he was always 
 bloodthirsty and quarrelsome, and none could 
 tell what or whom he might make the object of 
 his attack. He was very insulting and over- 
 bearing, very noisy and obnoxious, the sort of 
 desperado who makes unarmed men beg and 
 compels "tenderfeet" to dance for his amuse- 
 ment. His birth and earlier life seem hidden 
 by his later career, when, at about middle life, 
 he lived in central New Mexico. He was 
 accredited with killing about twenty men, but 
 there may have been the usual exaggeration 
 regarding this. His end came in 1884, at So- 
 corro. He was arrested for killing his own 
 ranch foreman. Jack Cale, a man who had be- 
 friended him and taken care of him in many a 
 drunken orgy. He stabbed Cale as they stood 
 at the bar in a saloon, and while every one 
 thought he was unarmed. The law against 
 carrying arms while in the settlements was then 
 just beginning to be enforced; and, although it 
 
The Outlaw 275 
 
 was recognized as necessary for men to go 
 armed while journeying across those wild and 
 little settled plains, the danger of allowing six- 
 shooters and whiskey to operate at the same 
 time was generally recognized as well. If a 
 man did not lay aside his guns on reaching a 
 town, he was apt to be invited to do so by the 
 sheriff or town marshal, as Joel had already 
 been asked that evening. 
 
 Fowler's victim staggered to the door after 
 he was stabbed and fell dead at the street, the 
 act being seen by many. The law was allowed 
 to take its course, and Fowler was tried and 
 sentenced to be hanged. His lawyers took an 
 appeal on a technicality and sent the case to 
 the supreme court, where a long delay seemed 
 inevitable. The jail was so bad that an expen- 
 sive guard had to be maintained. At length, 
 some of the citizens concluded that to hang 
 Fowler was best for all concerned. They took 
 him, mounted, to a spot some distance up the 
 railroad, and there hanged him. Bill Howard, 
 a negro section hand, was permitted by his sec- 
 tion boss to make a coffin and bury Fowler, a 
 matter which the Committee had neglected; 
 and he says that he knows Fowler was buried 
 there and left there for several years, near the 
 
276 The Story of 
 
 railway tracks. The usual story says that Fow- 
 ler was hanged to a telegraph pole In town. At 
 any rate, he was hanged, and a very wise and 
 seemly thing It was. 
 
 Jesse Evans was another bad man of this 
 date, a young fellow In his early twenties when 
 he first came to the Pecos country, but good 
 enough at gun work to make his services desira- 
 ble. He was one of the very few men who did 
 not fear Billy the Kid. He always said that 
 the Kid might beat him with the Winchester, 
 but that he feared no man living with the six- 
 shooter. Evans came very near meeting an 
 Inglorious death. He and the notorious Tom 
 Hill once held up an old German In a sheep 
 camp near what Is now Alamagordo, New 
 Mexico. The old man did not know that they 
 were bad men, and while they were looting his 
 wagon, looking for the money he had In a box 
 under the wagon seat, he slipped up and killed 
 Tom Hill with his own gun, which had been 
 left resting against a bush near by, nearly shoot- 
 ing Hill's spine out. Then he opened fire on 
 Jesse, who was close by, shooting him twice, 
 through the arm and through the lungs. The 
 latter managed to get on his horse, bareback, 
 and rode that night, wounded as he was, and 
 
The Outlaw 277 
 
 partly trailed by the blood from his lungs, sixty 
 miles or more to the San Augustine mountains, 
 where he holed up at a friendly ranch, later to 
 be arrested by Constable Dave Wood, from the 
 railway settlements. In default of better juris- 
 diction, he was taken to Fort Stanton, where he 
 lay In the hospital until he got ready to escape, 
 when he seems to have walked away. Evans 
 and his brother, who was known as George 
 Davis — the latter being the true name of both 
 — then went down toward Pecos City and got 
 into a fight with some rangers, who killed his 
 brother on the spot and captured Jesse, who 
 was confined In the Texas penitentiary for 
 twenty years. He escaped and was returned; 
 yet In the year 1882, when he should have been 
 In the Texas prison, he Is said to have been 
 seen and recognized on the streets of Lincoln. 
 Evans, or Davis, Is said to have been a Tex- 
 arkana man, and to have returned to his home 
 soon after this, only to find his wife living with 
 another man, and supposing her first husband 
 dead. He did not tell the new husband of his 
 presence, but took away with him his boy, whom 
 he found now well grown. It was stated that 
 he went to Arizona, and nothing more Is known 
 of him. 
 
278 The Story of 
 
 Tom Hill, the man above mentioned as 
 killed by the sheep man, was a typical rough, 
 dark, swarthy, low-browed, as loud-mouthed as 
 he was Ignorant. He was a braggart, but none 
 the less a killer. 
 
 Charlie Bowdre Is supposed to have been a 
 Texas boy, as was Tom Hill. Bowdre had a 
 little ranch on the Rio Ruldoso, twenty miles or 
 so from Lincoln; but few of these restless char- 
 acters did much farming. It was easier to steal 
 cattle, and to eat beef free If one were hungry. 
 Bowdre joined Billy the Kid's gang and turned 
 outlaw for a trade. It was all over with his 
 chances of settling down after that. He was a 
 man who liked to talk of what he could do, and 
 a very steady practlcer with the six-shooter, with 
 which weapon he was a good shot, or just good 
 enough to get himself killed by sheriff Pat 
 Garrett. 
 
 Frank Baker, murdered by his former friend, 
 Billy the Kid, at Agua Negra, near the Capl- 
 tans, was part Cherokee In blood, a well-spoken 
 and pleasant man and a good cow hand. He 
 was drawn Into this fighting through his work 
 for Chlsum as a hired man. Baker was said to 
 be connected with a good family In Virginia, 
 who looked up the facts of his death. 
 
The Outlaw 279 
 
 Billy Morton, killed with Baker by the Kid, 
 was a similar instance of a young man loving 
 the saddle and six-shooter and finally getting 
 tangled up with matters outside his proper 
 sphere as a cow hand. He had often ridden 
 with the Kid on the cow range. He was said 
 to have been with the posse that killed Tunstall. 
 
 Hendry Brown was a crack gun fighter, whose 
 services were valued in the posse fighting. He 
 went to Kansas and long served as marshal of 
 Caldwell. He could not stand it to be good, 
 and was killed after robbing the bank and kill- 
 ing the cashier. 
 
 Johnny Hurley was a brave young man, as 
 brave as a Hon. Hurley was acting as deputy 
 for sheriff John Poe, together with Jim Brent, 
 when the desperado Arragon was holed up in 
 an adobe and refused to surrender. The Mexi- 
 can shot Hurley as he carelessly crossed an open 
 space directly in front of the door. Hurley was 
 brown-haired and blue-eyed; a very pleasant 
 fellow. 
 
 Andy Boyle, one of the rough and ruthless 
 sort of warriors, was an ex-British soldier, a 
 drunkard, and a good deal of a ruffian. He 
 drank himself to death after a decidedly mixed 
 record. 
 
28o The Story of 
 
 John McKInney had a certain fame from 
 the fact that in the fight at the McSween house 
 the Kid shot off half his mustache for him at 
 close range, when the latter broke out of cover 
 and ran. 
 
 The tough buffalo hunter, Bill Campbell, 
 who figured largely in bloody deeds in New 
 Mexico, was arrested, but escaped from Fort 
 Stanton, and was never heard from afterward. 
 He came from Texas, but little is known of 
 him. His name, as earlier stated, is thought 
 to have been Ed. Richardson. 
 
 Captain Joseph C. Lea, the staunch friend 
 of Pat Garrett, and the man who first brought 
 him forward as a candidate for sheriff of Lin- 
 coln county, died February 8, 1904, at Ros- 
 well, where he lived for a long time. Lea was 
 said to have been a Quantrell man in the Law- 
 rence massacre. Much of the population of 
 that region had a history that was never writ- 
 ten. Lea was a good man and much respected, 
 peaceable, courteous and generous. 
 
 One more southwestern bad man found 
 Texas congenial after the close of his active 
 fighting, and his is a striking story. Billy Wil- 
 son was a gentlemanly and good-looking young 
 fellow, who ran with Billy the Kid's gang. 
 
The Outlaw 281 
 
 Wilson was arrested on a United States war- 
 rant, charged with passing counterfeit money; 
 but he later escaped and disappeared. Several 
 years after all these events had happened, and 
 after the country had settled down into quiet, 
 a certain ex-sheriff of Lincoln county chanced 
 to be near Uvalde, Texas, for several months. 
 There came to him without invitation, a former 
 merchant of White Oaks, New Mexico, who 
 told the officer that Billy Wilson, under an- 
 other name, was living below Uvalde, towards 
 the Mexican frontier. He stated that Wilson 
 had been a cow hand, a ranch foreman and cow 
 man, was now doing well, had resigned all his 
 bad habits, and was a good citizen. He stated 
 that Wilson had heard of the officer's presence 
 and asked whether the latter would not forego 
 following up a reformed man on the old charges 
 of another and different day. The officer re- 
 plied at once that if Wilson was indeed leading a 
 right life, and did not intend to go bad again, he 
 would not only leave him alone, but would en- 
 deavor to secure for him a pardon from the 
 president of the United States. Less than six 
 months from that time, this pardon, signed by 
 President Grover Cleveland, was In the posses- 
 sion of this officer. In his office In a Rio Grande 
 
282 The Story of 
 
 town of New Mexico. A telegram was sent to 
 Billy Wilson, and he was brave man enough to 
 come and take his chances. The officer, with- 
 out much speech, went over to his safe, took 
 out the signed pardon from the president, and 
 handed it to Wilson. The latter trembled and 
 broke into tears as he took the paper. *'If 
 you ever need my life," said he, "count on me. 
 And I'll never go back on this!" as he touched 
 the executive pardon. He went back to Texas, 
 and Is living there to-day, a good citizen. It 
 would be wrong to mention names in an inci- 
 dent like this. 
 
 Tom O'Folliard was another noted charac- 
 ter. He was something of a gun expert, in his 
 own belief, at least. He was a man of medium 
 height and dark complexion, and of no very 
 great amount of mental capacity. He came 
 into the lower range from somewhere east, 
 probably from Texas, and little is known of 
 him except that he was In some fighting, and 
 that he is buried at Sumner with Bowdre and 
 the Kid. He got away with one or two bluffs 
 and encounters, and came to think that he was 
 as good as the best of men, or rather as bad as 
 the worst; for he was one of those who wanted 
 a reputation as a bad man. 
 
 Tom Pickett was another not far from the 
 
The Outlaw 283 
 
 O'Folliard class, ambitious to be thought wild 
 and woolly and hard to curry; which he was 
 not, when it came to the real currying, as 
 events proved. He was a very pretty handler 
 of a gun, and took pride in his skill with it. He 
 seems to have behaved well after the arrest of 
 the Kid's gang near Sumner, and is not known 
 in connection with any further criminal acts, 
 though he still for a long time wore two guns 
 in the settlements. Once a well-known sheriff 
 happened, by mere chance, to be in his town, 
 not knowing Pickett was there. The latter 
 literally took to the woods, thinking something 
 was on foot In which he was concerned. Be- 
 ing reminded that he had lost an opportunity ^^ 
 to show how bad he was he explained: "I don't -^^^^^ 
 want anything to do with that long-legs." "^ 
 Pickett, no doubt, settled down and became a 
 useful man. Indeed, although It seems a 
 strange thing to say. It Is the truth that much 
 of the old wildness of that border was a matter 
 of general custom, one might also say of habit. 
 The surroundings were wild, and men got to 
 running wild. When times changed, some of 
 them also changed, and frequently showed that 
 after all they could settle down to work and 
 lead decent Hves. Lawlessness is sometimes less 
 a matter of temperament than of surroundings. 
 
284 The Story of 
 
 Chapter XVII 
 
 The Fight of Buckshot Roberts — Encounter 
 Between a Crippled Ex-Soldier and the Band 
 of Billy the Kid — One Man Against Thirteen. 
 
 NEXT to the fight of Wild Bill with 
 the McCandlas gang, the fight of 
 Buckshot Roberts at Blazer's Mill, 
 on the Mescalero Indian reservation, Is per- 
 haps the most remarkable combat of one man 
 against odds ever known In the West. The 
 latter affair Is little known, but deserves Its 
 record. 
 
 Buckshot Roberts was one of those men who 
 appeared on the frontier and gave little his- 
 tory of their own past. He came West from 
 Texas, but It Is thought that he was born far- 
 ther east than the Lone Star state. He was 
 long In the United States army, where he 
 reached the rank of sergeant before his dis- 
 charge; after which he lingered on the frontier, 
 
The Outlaw 285 
 
 as did very many soldiers of that day. He was 
 at one time a member of the famous Texas 
 rangers, and had reputation as an Indian fighter. 
 He had been badly shot by the Comanches. 
 Again, he was on the other side, against the 
 rangers, and once stood off twenty-five of them, 
 although nearly killed in this encounter. From 
 these wounds he was so badly crippled in his 
 right arm that he could not lift a rifle to his 
 shoulder. He was usually known as "Buck- 
 shot" Roberts because of the nature of his 
 wounds. 
 
 Roberts took up a little ranch in the beautiful 
 Ruidoso valley of central New Mexico, one 
 of the most charming spots in the world; and 
 all he asked was to be let alone, for he seemed 
 able to get along, and not afraid of work. 
 When the Lincoln County War broke out, he 
 was recognized as a friend of Major Murphy, 
 one of the local faction leaders; but when the 
 fighting men curtly told him it was about time 
 for him to choose his side, he as curtly replied 
 that he intended to take neither side; that he 
 had seen fighting enough in his time, and would 
 fight no man's battle for him. This for the 
 time and place was treason, and punishable with 
 death. Roberts' friends told him that Billy 
 
286 The Story of 
 
 the Kid and Dick Brewer Intended to kill him, 
 and advised him to leave the country. 
 
 It IS said that Roberts had closed out his 
 affairs and was preparing to leave the country, 
 when he heard that the gang was looking for 
 him, and that he then gave them opportunity 
 to find him. Others say that he went up to 
 Blazer's Mill to meet there a friend of his by 
 the name of Kitts, who, he heard, had been shot 
 and badly wounded. There is other rumor that 
 he went up to Blazer's Mill to have a personal 
 encounter with Major Godfroy, with whom 
 there had been some altercation. There is a 
 further absurd story that he went for the pur- 
 pose of killing Billy the Kid, and getting the 
 reward which was offered for him. These lat- 
 ter things are unlikely. The probable truth is 
 that he, being a brave man, though fully de- 
 termined to leave the country, simply found it 
 written in his creed to go up to Blazer's Mill 
 to see his supposedly wounded friend, and also 
 to see what there was in the threats which he 
 had heard. 
 
 There are living three eye-witnesses of what 
 happened at that time: Frank and George Coe, 
 ranchers on the Ruidoso to-day, and Johnnie 
 Patten, cook on Carrizzo ranch. Patten was an 
 
The Outlaw 287 
 
 ex-soldier of H Troop, Third Cavalry, and was 
 mustered out at Fort Stanton in 1869. At the 
 time of the Roberts fight, he was running the 
 sawmill for Dr. Blazer. Frank Coe says that 
 he himself was attempting to act as peacemaker, 
 and that he tried to get Roberts to give up his 
 arms and not make any fight. Patten says that 
 he himself, at the peril of his life, had warned 
 Roberts that Dick Brewer, the Kid, and his 
 gang intended to kill him. It is certain that 
 when Roberts came riding up on a mule, still 
 wet from the fording of the Tularosa river, he 
 met there Dick Brewer, Billy the Kid, George 
 Coe, Frank Coe, Charlie Bowdre, Doc Middle- 
 ton, one Scroggins, and Dirty Steve (Stephen 
 Stevens) , with others, to the number of thirteen 
 in all. These men still claimed to be a posse, 
 and were under Dick Brewer, "special con- 
 stable.'' 
 
 The Brewer party withdrew to the rear of 
 the house. Frank Coe parleyed with Roberts 
 at one side. Kate Godfroy, daughter of Major 
 Godfroy, protested at what she knew was the 
 purpose of Brewer and his gang. Dick Brewer 
 said to his men, "Don't do anything to him 
 now. Coax him up the road a way." 
 
 Roberts declined to give up his weapons to 
 
288 The Story of 
 
 Frank Coe. He stood near the door, outside 
 the house. Then, as it is told by Johnnie Pat- 
 ten, who saw it all, there suddenly came around 
 upon him from behind the house the gang of the 
 Kid, all gun fighters, each opening fire as he 
 came. The gritty little man gave back not a 
 step toward the open door. Crippled by his old 
 wounds so that he could not raise his rifle to his 
 shoulder, he worked the lever from his hip. 
 Here were a dozen men, the best fighting men 
 of all that wild country, shooting at him at a 
 distance of not a dozen feet; yet he shot Jack 
 MIddleton through the lungs, though failing to 
 kill him. He shot a finger off the hand of George 
 Coe, who then left the fight. Roberts then half 
 stepped forward and pushed his gun against 
 the stomach of Billy the Kid. For some reason 
 the piece failed to fire, and the Kid was saved 
 by the narrowest escape he ever had In his life. 
 Charlie Bowdre now appeared around the cor- 
 ner of the house, and Roberts fired at him next. 
 His bullet struck Bowdre in the belt, and cut 
 the belt off from him. Almost at the same time, 
 Bowdre fired at him and shot him through the 
 body. He did not drop, but staggered back 
 against the wall ; and so he stood there, crippled 
 of old and now wounded to death, but so fierce 
 
The Outlaw 289 
 
 a human tiger that his very looks struck dismay 
 into this gang of professional fighters. They 
 actually withdrew around the house and left 
 him there ! 
 
 Each claimed the credit for having shot the 
 victim. "No," said Charlie Bowdre, "I shot 
 him myself. I dusted him on both sides. I 
 saw the dust fly out on both sides of his coat, 
 where my bullet went clean through him." 
 They argued, but they did not go around the 
 house again. 
 
 Roberts now staggered back into the house. 
 He threw down his own Winchester and picked 
 up a heavy Sharps' rifle which belonged to Dr. 
 Appel, and which he found there, in Dr. 
 Blazer's room. Brewer told Dr. Blazer to 
 bring Roberts out, but, like a man, Blazer 
 refused. Roberts pulled a mattress off the bed 
 to the floor and threw himself down upon It 
 near an open window in the front of the house. 
 The gang had scattered, surrounding the house. 
 Dick Brewer had taken refuge behind a thirty- 
 inch sawlog near the mill, just one hundred and 
 forty steps from the window near which this 
 fierce little fighting man was lying, wounded 
 to death. Brewer raised his head just above the 
 top of the sawlog, so that he could see what 
 
290 The Story of 
 
 Roberts was doing. His eyes were barely visi- 
 ble above the top of the log, yet at that distance 
 the heavy bullet from Roberts' buffalo gun 
 struck him in the eye and blew off the top of his 
 head. 
 
 Billy the Kid was now leader of the posse. 
 His first act was to call his men together and 
 ride away from the spot, his whole outfit 
 whipped by a single man ! There was a corpse 
 behind them, and wounded men with them. 
 
 Thirty-six hours later there was another 
 corpse at Blazer's Mill. The doctor, brought 
 over from Fort Stanton, could do nothing for 
 Roberts, and he died in agony. Johnnie Patten, 
 sawyer and rough carpenter, made one big cof- 
 fin, and in this the two. Brewer and Roberts, 
 were buried side by side. "I couldn't make a 
 very good coffin," says Patten, "so I built it in 
 the shape of a big V, with no end piece at the 
 foot. We just put them both in together." 
 And there they lie to-day, grim grave-company, 
 according to the report of this eye-witness, who 
 would seem to be in a position indicating accu- 
 racy. Emil Blazer, a son of Dr. Blazer, still 
 lives on the site of this fierce little battle, and he 
 says that the two dead men were buried sepa- 
 rately, but side by side, Brewer to the right of 
 
The Outlaw 291 
 
 Roberts. The little graveyard holds a few 
 other graves, none with headboards or records, 
 and grass now grows above them all. 
 
 The building where Roberts stood at bay is 
 now gone, and another adobe is erected a little 
 farther back from the raceway that once fed 
 the old mountain sawmill, but which now is 
 not used as of yore. The old flume still exists 
 where the water ran over onto the wheel, and 
 the site of the old mill, which is now also torn 
 down, is easily traceable. When the author 
 visited the spot in the fall of 1905, all these 
 points were verified and the distances measured. 
 It was a long shot that Roberts made, and down 
 hill. The vitality of the man who made it, his 
 courage, and his tenacity alike of life and of 
 purpose against such odds make Roberts a man 
 remembered with admiration even to-day in 
 that once bloody region. 
 
292 The Story of 
 
 Chapter XVIII 
 
 The Man Hunt — The Western Peace Officer ^ 
 a Quiet Citizen Who Works for a Salary and 
 Risks His Life — The Trade of Man Hunting 
 — Biography of Pat Garrett, a Typical Fron- 
 tier Sheriff. :::::::: 
 
 THE deeds of the Western sheriff have 
 for the most part gone unchronicled, 
 or have luridly been set forth In fic- 
 tion as incidents of blood, Interesting only be- 
 cause of their bloodiness. The frontier officer 
 himself, usually not a man to boast of his own 
 acts, has quietly stepped Into the background 
 of the past, and has been replaced by others 
 who more loudly proclaim their prominence In 
 the advancement of civilization. Yet the typi- 
 cal frontier sheriff, the good man who went 
 after bad men, and made It safe for men to live 
 and own property and to establish homes and to 
 build up a society and a country and a govern- 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 293 
 
 ment, Is a historical character of great Interest. 
 Among very many good ones, we shall perhaps 
 best get at the type of all by giving the story 
 of one; and we shall also learn something of 
 the dangerous business of man hunting In a 
 region filled with men who must be hunted 
 down. 
 
 Patrick Floyd Garrett, better known as Pat 
 Garrett, was a Southerner by birth. He was 
 born In Chambers county, Alabama, June 5, 
 1850. In 1856, his parents moved to Clai- 
 borne parish, Louisiana, where his father was 
 a large landowner, and of course at that time 
 and place, a slave owner, and among the bitter 
 opponents of the new regime which followed 
 the civil war. When young Garrett's father 
 died, the large estates dwindled under bad man- 
 agement; and when within a short time the 
 mother followed her husband to the grave, the 
 family resources, affected by the war, became 
 Involved, although the two Garrett plantations 
 embraced nearly three thousand acres of rich 
 Louisiana soil. On January 25, 1869, Pat Gar- 
 rett, a tall and slender youth of eighteen, set 
 out to seek his fortunes In the wild West, with 
 no resources but such as lay in his brains and 
 body. 
 
294 ^'^^ Story of 
 
 He went to Lancaster, In Dallas county, 
 Texas. A big ranch owner In southern Texas 
 wanted men, and Pat Garrett packed up and 
 went home with him. The world was new to 
 him, however, and he went off with the north- 
 bound cows, like many another youngster of 
 the time. His herd was made up at Eagle 
 Lake, and he only accompanied the drive as 
 far north as Denlson. There he began to get 
 uneasy, hearing of the delights of the still 
 wilder life of the buffalo hunters on the great 
 plains which lay to the west, in the Panhandle 
 of Texas. For three winters, 1875 to 1877, 
 he was In and out between the buffalo range and 
 the settlements, by this time well wedded to 
 frontier life. 
 
 In the fall of 1877, he went West once more, 
 and this time kept on going west. With two 
 hardy companions, he pushed on entirely across 
 the wild and unknown Panhandle country, leav- 
 ing the wagons near what was known as the 
 "Yellow Houses," and never returning to them. 
 His blankets, personal belongings, etc., he never 
 saw again. He and his friends had their heavy 
 Sharps' rifles, plenty of powder and lead, and 
 their reloading tools, and they had nothing else. 
 Their beds they made of their saddle blankets, 
 
PAT F. GARRETT 
 
 The most famous peace officer of the Southwest 
 
The Outlaw 295 
 
 and their food they killed from the wild herds. 
 For their love of adventure, they rode on across 
 an unknown country, until finally they arrived 
 at the little Mexican settlement of Fort Sumner, 
 on the Pecos river, in the month of February, 
 1878. 
 
 Pat and his friends were hungry, but all the 
 cash they could find was just one dollar and a 
 half between them. They gave it to Pat and 
 sent him over to the store to see about eating. 
 He asked the price of meals, and they told him 
 fifty cents per meal. They would permit them 
 to eat but once. He concluded to buy a dollar 
 and a half's worth of flour and bacon, which 
 would last for two or three meals. He joined 
 his friends, and they went into camp on the 
 river bank, where they cooked and ate, per- 
 fectly happy and quite careless about the future. 
 
 As they finished their breakfast, they saw 
 up the river the dust of a cattle herd, and noted 
 that a party were working a herd, cutting out 
 cattle for some purpose or other. 
 
 "Go up there and get a job," said Pat to 
 one of the boys. The latter did go up, but 
 came back reporting that the boss did not want 
 any help. 
 
 "Well, he's got to have help," said Pat. So 
 
296 The Story of 
 
 saying, he arose and started up stream him- 
 self. 
 
 Garrett was at that time, as has been said, 
 of very great height, six feet four and one-half 
 inches, and very slender. Unable to get 
 trousers long enough for his legs, he had pieced 
 down his best pair with about three feet of 
 buffalo leggins with the hair out. Gaunt, dusty, 
 and unshaven, he looked hard, and when he 
 approached the herd owner and asked for work, 
 the other was as much alarmed as pleased. He 
 declined again, but Pat firmly told him he had 
 come to go to work, and was sorry, but it could 
 not be helped. Something in the quiet voice 
 of Garrett seemed to arrest the attention of the 
 cow man. "What can you do. Lengthy?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Ride anything with hair, and rope better 
 than any man youVe got here," answered Gar- 
 rett, casting a critical glance at the other men. 
 
 The cow man hesitated a moment and then 
 said, "Get in." Pat got in. He stayed in. 
 Two years later he was still at Fort Sumner, 
 and married. 
 
 Garrett moved down from Fort Sumner soon 
 after his marriage, and settled a mile east of 
 what is now the flourishing city of Roswell, at 
 
The Outlaw 297 
 
 a spring on the bank of the Hondo, and In the 
 middle of what was then the virgin plains. 
 Here he picked up land, until he had in all 
 more than twelve hundred and fifty acres. If 
 he owned it now, he would be worth a half 
 million dollars. 
 
 He was not, however, to live the steady life 
 of the frontier farmer. His friend. Captain 
 J. C. Lea, of Roswell, came to him and asked 
 if he would run as sheriff of Lincoln county. 
 Garrett consented and was elected. He was 
 warned not to take this office, and word was 
 sent to him by the bands of hard-riding out- 
 laws of that region that if he attempted to 
 serve any processes on them he would be killed. 
 He paid no attention to this, and, as he was 
 still an unknown quantity in the country, which 
 was new and thinly settled, he seemed sure to 
 be killed. He won the absolute confidence of 
 the governor, who told him to go ahead, not to 
 stand on technicalities, but to break up the 
 gang that had been rendering life and property 
 unsafe for years and making the territory a 
 mockery of civilization. If the truth were 
 known, it might perhaps be found that some- 
 times Garrett arrested a bad man and got his 
 warrant for it later, when he went to the settle- 
 
298 The Story of 
 
 ments. He found a straight six-shooter the 
 best sort of warrant, and in effect he took the 
 matter of establishing a government in south- 
 western New Mexico in his own hands, and did 
 It In his own way. He was the whole machin- 
 ery of the law. Sometimes he boarded his pris- 
 oners out of his own pocket. He himself was 
 the state! His word was good, even to the 
 worst cutthroat that ever he captured. Often 
 he had In his care prisoners whom, under the 
 law, he could not legally have held, had they 
 been demanded of him; but he held them in 
 spite of any demand; and the worst prisoner 
 on that border knew that he was safe in Pat 
 Garrett's hands, no matter what happened, and 
 that If Pat said he would take him through to 
 any given point, he would take him through. 
 
 After he had finished his first season of work 
 as sheriff and as United States marshal, Gar- 
 rett ranched it for a time. In 1884, his reputa- 
 tion as a criminal-taker being now a wide one, 
 he organized and took charge of a company of 
 Texas rangers in Wheeler county, Texas, and 
 made Atacosa and thereabouts headquarters for 
 a year and a half. So great became his fame 
 now as a man-taker that he was employed to 
 manage the affairs of a cattle detective agency; 
 
The Outlaw 299 
 
 it being now so far along In civilization that 
 men were beginning to be careful about their 
 cows. He was offered ten thousand dollars to 
 break up a certain band of raiders working in 
 upper Texas, and he did It; but he found that 
 he was really being paid to kill one or two men, 
 and not to capture them; and, being unwilling 
 to act as the agent of any man's revenge, he 
 quit this work and went Into the employment of 
 the "V" ranch In the White mountains. He 
 then moved down to Roswell again, in the 
 spring of 1887. Here he organized the 
 Pecos Valley Irrigation Company. He was 
 the first man to suspect the presence of 
 artesian water in this country, where the great 
 Spring rivers push up from the ground; and 
 through his efforts wells were bored which revo- 
 lutionized all that valley. He ran for sheriff 
 of Chaves county, and was defeated. Angry 
 at his first reverse In politics, he pulled up at 
 Roswell, and sacrificed his land for what he 
 could get for It. To-day It Is covered with 
 crops and fruits and worth sixty to one hundred 
 dollars an acre. 
 
 Garrett now went back to Texas, and settled 
 near Uvalde, where he engaged once more In 
 an Irrigation enterprise. He was here five 
 
300 The Story of 
 
 years, ranching and losing money. W. T. 
 Thornton, the governor of New Mexico, sent 
 for him and asked him if he would take the 
 office of sheriff of Donna Ana county, to fill the 
 unexpired term of Numa Raymond. He was 
 elected to serve two subsequent terms as sheriff 
 of Donna Ana county, and no frontier officer 
 has a better record for bravery. 
 
 In the month of December, 1901, President 
 Theodore Roosevelt, who had heard of Gar- 
 rett, met him and liked him, and without any 
 ado or consultation appointed him collector of 
 customs at El Paso, Texas. Here for the next 
 four years Garrett made a popular collector, 
 and an honest and fearless one. 
 
 The main reputation gained by Garrett was 
 through his killing the desperado, Billy the Kid. 
 It is proper to set down here the chronicle of 
 that undertaking, because that will best serve 
 to show the manner in which a frontier sheriff 
 gets a bad man. 
 
 When the Kid and his gang killed the 
 agency clerk, Bernstein, on the Mescalero res- 
 ervation, they committed a murder on United 
 States government ground and an offense 
 against the United States law. A United States 
 warrant was placed in the hands of Pat Garrett, 
 
The Outlaw 301 
 
 then deputy United States marshal and sheriff- 
 elect, and he took up the trail, locating the men 
 near Fort Sumner, at the ranch of one Brazil, 
 about nine miles east of the settlement. With 
 the Kid were Charlie Bowdre, Tom O'Folliard, 
 Tom Pickett and Dave Rudabaugh, fellows of 
 like kidney. Rudabaugh had just broken jail 
 at Las Vegas, and had killed his jailer. Not a 
 man of the band had ever hesitated at murder. 
 They were now eager to kill Garrett and kept 
 watch, as best they could, on all his move- 
 ments. 
 
 One day Garrett and some of his improvised 
 posse were riding eastward of the town when 
 they jumped Tom O'Folliard, who was 
 mounted on a horse that proved too good for 
 them in a chase of several miles. Garrett at 
 last was left alone following O'Folliard, and 
 fired at him twice. The latter later admitted 
 that he fired twenty times at Garrett with his 
 Winchester; but it was hard to do good shoot- 
 ing from the saddle at two or three hundred 
 yards range, so neither man was hit. O'Fol- 
 liard did not learn his lesson. A few nights 
 later. In company with Tom Pickett, he rode 
 Into town. Warned of his approach, Garrett 
 with another man was waiting, hidden In the 
 
302 The Story of 
 
 shadow of a building. As O'FollIard rode up, 
 he was ordered to throw up his hands, but went 
 after his gun instead, and on the instant Garrett 
 shot him through the body. ''You never heard 
 a man scream the way he did," said Garrett. 
 "He dropped his gun when he was hit, but we 
 did not know that, and as we ran up to catch his 
 horse, we ordered him again to throw up his 
 hands. He said he couldn't, that he was killed. 
 We helped him down then, and took him in the 
 house. He died about forty-five minutes later. 
 He said it was all his own fault, and that he 
 didn't blame anybody. I'd have killed Tom 
 Pickett right there, too," concluded Garrett, 
 "but one of my men shot right past my face 
 and blinded me for the moment, so Pickett got 
 away." 
 
 The remainder of the Kid's gang were now 
 located in the stone house above mentioned, 
 and their whereabouts reported by the ranch- 
 man whose house they had just vacated. The 
 man hunt therefore proceeded methodically, and 
 Garrett and his men, of whom he had only two 
 or three upon whom he relied as thoroughly 
 game, surrounded the house just before dawn. 
 Garrett, with Jim East and Tom Emory, crept 
 up to the head of the ravine which made up 
 
liuiii a paiutiut; by juliu \\\ Xurton 
 
 A TYPICAL WESTERN MAN HUNT 
 
 Pat F. Garrett chasing Tom O'Folliard 
 
The Outlaw 303 
 
 to the ridge on which the fortress of the out- 
 laws stood. The early morning Is always the 
 best time for a surprise of this sort. It was 
 Charlie Bowdre who first came out In the morn- 
 ing, and as he stepped out of the door his career 
 as a bad man ended. Three bullets passed 
 through his body. He stepped back into the 
 house, but only lived about twenty minutes. 
 The Kid said to him, "Charlie, you're killed 
 anyhow. Take your gun and go out and kill 
 
 that long-legged before you die." He 
 
 pulled Bowdre's pistol around In front of him 
 and pushed him out of the door. Bowdre 
 staggered feebly toward the spot where the 
 
 sheriff was lying. "I wish — I wish " he 
 
 began, and motioned toward the house; but 
 he could not tell what It was that he wished. 
 He died on Garrett's blankets, which were laid 
 down on the snow. 
 
 Previous to this Garrett had killed one horse 
 at the door beam where it was tied, and with a 
 remarkable shot had cut the other free, shoot- 
 ing off the rope that held It. These two shots 
 he thought about the best he ever made; and 
 this Is saying much, for he was a phenomenal 
 shot with rifle or revolver. There were two 
 horses inside, but the dead horse blocked the 
 
304 The Story of 
 
 door. Pickett now told the gang to surrender. 
 "That fellow will kill every man that shows out- 
 side that door," said he, "that's all about it. 
 He's killed O'Folliard, and he's killed Charlie, 
 and he'll kill us. Let's surrender and take a 
 chance at getting out again." They listened to 
 this, for the shooting they had seen had pretty 
 well broken their hearts. 
 
 Garrett now sent over to the ranch house 
 for food for his men, and the cooking was too 
 much for the hungry outlaws, who had had 
 nothing to eat. They put up a dirty white rag 
 on a gun barrel and offered to give up. One by 
 one, they came out and were disarmed. That 
 night was spent at the Brazil ranch, the pris- 
 oners under guard and the body of Charlie 
 Bowdre, rolled in its blankets, outside In the 
 wagon. The next morning, Bowdre was buried 
 in the little cemetery next to Tom O'Folliard. 
 The Kid did not know that he was to make the 
 next in the row. 
 
 These men surrendered on condition that 
 they should all be taken through to Santa Fe, 
 and Garrett, at the risk of his life, took them 
 through Las Vegas, where Rudabaugh was 
 wanted. Half the town surrounded the train 
 in the depot yards. Garrett told the Kid that 
 
The Outlaw 305 
 
 If the mob rushed In the door of the car he 
 would toss back a six-shooter to him and ask 
 him to help fight. 
 
 "All right, Pat," said the Kid, cheerfully. 
 "You and I can whip the whole gang of them, 
 and after weVe done it I'll go back to my seat 
 and you can put the Irons on again. YouVe 
 kept your word." There Is little doubt that 
 he would have done this, but as it chanced there 
 was no need, since at the last moment deputy 
 Malloy, of Las Vegas, jumped on the engine 
 and pulled the train out of the yard. 
 
 Billy the Kid was tried and condemned to be 
 executed. He had been promised pardon by 
 Governor Lew Wallace, but the pardon did not 
 come. A few days before the day set for his 
 execution, the Kid, as elsewhere described, 
 killed the two deputies who were guarding him, 
 and got back once more to his old stamping 
 grounds around Fort Sumner. 
 
 "I knew now that I would have to kill the 
 Kid," said Garrett to the writer, speaking remi- 
 niscently of the bloody scenes as we lately vis- 
 ited that country together. "We both knew 
 that it must be one or the other of us If we ever 
 met. I followed him up here to Sumner, as 
 you know, with two deputies, John Poe and 
 
306 The Story of 
 
 'Tip' McKInney, and I killed him in a room 
 up there at the edge of the old cottonwood 
 avenue." 
 
 He spoke of events now long gone by. It 
 had been only with difficulty that we located 
 the site of the building where the Kid's gang 
 had been taken prisoners. The structure itself 
 had been torn down and removed. As to the 
 old military post, once a famous one, It offered 
 now nothing better than a scene of desolation. 
 There was no longer a single human inhabitant 
 there. The old avenue of cottonwoods, once 
 four miles long, was now ragged and un- 
 watered, and the great parade ground had gone 
 back to sand and sage brush. We were obliged 
 to search for some time before we could find the 
 site of the old Maxwell house, In which was 
 ended a long and dangerous man hunt of the 
 frontier. Garrett finally located the place, now 
 only a rough quadrangle of crumbled earthen 
 walls. 
 
 ''This is the place," said he, pointing to one 
 corner of the grass-grown oblong. "Pete Max- 
 well's bed was right In this corner of the room, 
 and I was sitting in the dark and talking to 
 Pete, who was In bed. The Kid passed Poe 
 and McKInney right over there, on what was 
 
The Outlaw 307 
 
 then the gallery, and came through the door 
 right here." 
 
 We paused for a time and looked with a 
 certain gravity at this wind-swept, desolate spot, 
 around which lay the wide, unwinking desert. 
 About us were the ruins of what had been a 
 notable settlement in its day, but which now 
 had passed with the old frontier. 
 
 "I got word of the Kid up here in much the 
 way I had once before," resumed Garrett at 
 length, "and I followed him, resolved to get 
 him or to have him get me. We rode over into 
 the edge of the town and learned that the Kid 
 was there, but of course we did not know which 
 house he was in. Poe went in to inquire around, 
 as he was not known there like myself. He did 
 not know the Kid when he saw him, nor did the 
 Kid know him. 
 
 "It was a glorious moonlight night; I can 
 remember it perfectly well. Poe and McKin- 
 ney and I all met a little way out from the 
 edge of the place. We decided that the Kid 
 was not far away. We went down to the 
 houses, and I put Poe and McKinney outside 
 of Pete Maxwell's house and I went inside. 
 Right here was the door. We did not know 
 it at that time, but just about then the Kid was 
 
308 The Story of 
 
 lying with his boots off In the house of an old 
 Mexican just across there, not very far away 
 from Maxwell's door. He told the Mexican, 
 when he came In, to cook something for him to 
 eat. Maxwell had killed a beef not long be- 
 fore, and there was a quarter hanging up under 
 the porch out In front. After a while, the Kid 
 got up, got a butcher knife from the old Mexi- 
 can, and concluded to go over and cut himself 
 off a piece of meat from the quarter at Max- 
 well's house. This Is how the story arose that 
 he came Into the house with his boots In his 
 hand to keep an appointment with a Mexican 
 girl. 
 
 "The usual story is that I was down close 
 to the wall behind Maxwell's bed. This was 
 not the case, for the bed was close against 
 the wall. Pete Maxwell was lying in bed, right 
 here in this corner, as I said. I was sitting in 
 a chair and leaning over toward him, as I 
 talked in a low tone. My right side was toward 
 him, and my revolver was on that side. I did 
 not know that the Kid was so close at hand, or, 
 indeed, know for sure that he was there in the 
 settlement at all. 
 
 "Maxwell did not want to talk very much. 
 He knew the Kid was there, and knew his own 
 
The Outlaw 309 
 
 danger. I was talking to him in Spanish, in a 
 low tone of voice, as I say, when the Kid came 
 over here, just as I have told you. He saw 
 Poe and McKinney sitting right out there in 
 the moonlight, but did not suspect anything. 
 'Quien esf — 'Who is it?' — he asked, as he 
 passed them. I heard him speak and saw him 
 come backing into the room, facing toward Poe 
 and McKinney. He could not see me, as it 
 was dark in the room, but he came up to the 
 bed where Maxwell was lying and where I was 
 sitting. He seemed to think something might 
 not be quite right. He had in his hand his 
 revolver, a self-cocking .41. He could not see 
 my face, and he had not heard my voice, or he 
 would have known me. 
 
 "The Kid stepped up to the bedside and laid 
 his left hand on the bed and bent over Max- 
 well. He saw me sitting there in the half dark- 
 ness, but did not recognize me, as I was sitting 
 down. My height would have betrayed me had 
 I been standing. 'Pete, Quien esf he asked 
 in a low tone of voice; and he half motioned 
 toward me with his six-shooter. That was 
 when I looked across into eternity. It wasn't 
 far to go. 
 
 "That was exactly how the thing was. I 
 
3IO The Story of 
 
 gave neither Maxwell nor the Kid time for any- 
 thing farther. There flashed over my mind 
 at once one thought, and it was that I had 
 to shoot and shoot at once, and that my shot 
 must go to the mark the first time. I knew 
 the Kid would kill me in a flash if I did not 
 kill him. 
 
 "Just as he spoke and motioned toward me, 
 I dropped over to the left and rather down, 
 going after my gun with my right hand as I 
 did so. As I fired, the Kid dropped back. I 
 had caught him just about the heart. His pis- 
 tol, already pointed toward me, went off as he 
 fell, but he fired high. As I sprang up, I fired 
 once more, but did not hit him, and did not 
 need to, for he was dead. 
 
 "I don't know that he ever knew who it was 
 that killed him. He could not see me in the 
 darkness. He may have seen me stoop over 
 and pull. If he had had the least suspicion who 
 it was, he would have shot as soon as he saw 
 me. When he came to the bed, I knew who he 
 was. The rest happened as I have told you. 
 There is no other story about the killing of 
 Billy the Kid which is the truth. It is also un- 
 true that his body was ever removed from Fort 
 Sumner. It lies there to-day, and I'll show you 
 
The Outlaw 311 
 
 where we buried him. I laid him out myself, 
 In this house here, and I ought to know." 
 
 Twenty-five years of time had done their 
 work In all that country, as we learned when we 
 entered the little barbed-wire enclosure of the 
 cemetery where the Kid and his fellows were 
 burled. There are no headstones In this ceme- 
 tery, and no sacristan holds Its records. Again 
 Garrett had to search In the salt grass and 
 greasewood. "Here is the place," said he, at 
 length. "We burled them all in a row. The 
 first grave Is the Kid's, and next to him is 
 Bowdre, and then O'FollIard." 
 
 Here was the sole remaining record of the 
 man hunt's end. So passes the glory of the 
 world! In this desolate resting-place, in a 
 wind-swept and forgotten graveyard, rests all 
 the remaining fame of certain bad men who in 
 their time were bandit kings, who ruled by 
 terror over half a Western territory. Even 
 the headboard which once stood at the Kid's 
 grave — and which was once riddled with bul- 
 lets by cowards who would not have dared to 
 shoot that close to him had he been alive — ^was 
 gone. It is not likely that the graves will be 
 visited again by any one who knows their local- 
 ity. Garrett looked at them in silence for a 
 
312 The Story of 
 
 time, then, turning, went to the buckboard for 
 a drink at the canteen. "Well," said he, quietly, 
 "here's to the boys, anyway. If there is any 
 other life, I hope they'll make better use of It 
 than they did of the one I put them out of." 
 
The Outlaw 3^3 
 
 Chapter XIX 
 
 Bad Men of Texas — The Lone Star State 
 Always a Producer of Fighters — A Long His- 
 tory of Border War — The Death of Ben 
 Thompson. :::::- ' ' 
 
 A REVIEW of the story of the Ameri- 
 can desperado will show that he has 
 always been most numerous at the edge 
 of things, where there was a frontier, a debata- 
 ble ground between civilization and lawless- 
 ness, or a border between opposing nations or 
 sections. He does not wholly pass away with 
 the coming of the law, but his home is essen- 
 tially in a new and undeveloped condition of 
 society. The edge between East and West, 
 between North and South, made the territory 
 of the bad man of the American interior. 
 
 The far Southwest was the oldest of all 
 American frontiers, and the stubbornest. We 
 have never, as a nation, been at war with any 
 
314 The Story of 
 
 other nation whose territory has adjoined our 
 own except in the case of Mexico; and long 
 before we went to war as a people against 
 Mexico, Texas had been at war with her as a 
 state, or rather as a population and a race 
 against another race. The frontier of the Rio 
 Grande Is one of the bloodiest of the world, 
 and was such long before Texas was finally 
 admitted to the union. There was never any 
 new territory settled by so vigorous and bellig- 
 erent a population as that which first found and 
 defended the great empire of the Lone Star. 
 Her early men were, without exception, fighters, 
 and she has bred fighters ever since. 
 
 The allurement which the unsettled lands 
 of the Southwest had for the young men of the 
 early part of the last century lay largely in the 
 appeal of excitement and adventure, with a 
 large possibility of worldly gain as well. The 
 men of the South who drifted down the old 
 River Road across Mississippi and Louisiana 
 were shrewd in their day and generation. They 
 knew that eventually Texas would be taken 
 away from Mexico, and taken by force. Her 
 vast riches would belong to those who had 
 earned them. Men of the South were even then 
 hunting for another West, and here was a 
 
The Outlaw • 315 
 
 mighty one. The call came back that the fight- 
 ing was good all along the line ; and the fighting 
 men of all the South, from Virginia to Louisi- 
 ana, fathers and sons of the boldest and bravest 
 of Southern families, pressed on and out to 
 take a hand. They were scattered and far 
 from numerous when they united and demanded 
 a government of their own, independent of the 
 far-ofi and inefiicient head of the Mexican law. 
 They did not want Coahuila as their country, 
 but Texas, and asked a government of their 
 own. Lawless as they were, they wanted a real 
 law, a law of Saxon right and justice. 
 
 Men like Crockett, Fannin, Travers and 
 Bowie were influenced half by political ambi- 
 tion and half by love of adventure when they 
 moved across the plains of eastern Texas and 
 took up their abode on the firing line of the 
 Mexican border. If you seek a historic band 
 of bad men, fighting men of the bitterest Bare- 
 sark type, look at the immortal defenders of 
 the Alamo. Some of them were, in the light of 
 calm analysis, little better than guerrillas; but 
 every man was a hero. They all had a chance 
 to escape, to go out and join Sam Houston 
 farther to the east; but they refused to a man, 
 and, plying the border weapons as none but 
 
3i6 The Story of 
 
 such as themselves might, they died, full of the 
 glory of battle; not in ranks and shoulder to 
 shoulder, with banners and music to cheer them, 
 but each for himself and hand to hand with his 
 enemy, a desperate fighting man. 
 
 The early men of Texas for generations 
 fought Mexicans and Indians in turn. The 
 country was too vast for any system of law. 
 Each man had learned to depend upon himself. 
 Each cabin kept a rifle and pistol for each male 
 old enough to bear them, and each boy, as he 
 grew up, was skilled in weapons and used to 
 the thought that the only arbitrament among 
 men was that of weapons. Part of the popula- 
 tion, appreciating the exemptions here to be 
 found, was, without doubt, criminal; made up 
 of men who had fled, for reasons of their own, 
 from older regions. These in time required the 
 attention of the law; and the armed bodies of 
 hard-riding Texas rangers, a remedy born of 
 necessity, appeared as the executives of the law. 
 
 The cattle days saw the wild times of the 
 border prolonged. The buffalo range caught 
 its quota of hard riders and hard shooters. 
 And always the apparently exhaustless empires 
 of new and unsettled lands — an enormous, un- 
 tracked empire of the wild — beckoned on and 
 
The Outlaw 317 
 
 on ; so that men In the most densely settled sec- 
 tions were very far apart, and so that the law 
 as a guardian could not be depended upon. It 
 was not to be wondered at that the name of 
 Texas became the synonym for savagery. That 
 was for a long time the wildest region within 
 our national confines. Many men who attained 
 fame as fighters along the Pecos and Rio 
 Grande and Gila and Colorado came across the 
 borders from Texas. Others slipped north into 
 the Indian Nations, and left their mark there. 
 Some went to the mines of the Rockies, or the 
 cattle ranges from Montana to Arizona. Many 
 stayed at home, and finished their eventful lives 
 there in the usual fashion — killing now and 
 again, then oftener, until at length they killed 
 once too often and got hanged; or not often 
 enough once, and so got shot. 
 
 To undertake to give even the most superfi- 
 cial study to a field so vast as this would require 
 a dozen times the space we may afford, and 
 would lead us far into matters of history other 
 than those intended. We can only point out 
 that the men of the Lone Star state left their 
 stamp as horsemen and weapon-bearers clear 
 on to the north, and as far as the foot of the 
 Arctic circle. Their language and their meth- 
 
3i8 The Story of 
 
 ods mark the entire cattle business of the plains 
 from the Rio Grande to the Selkirks. Theirs 
 was a great school for frontiersmen, and Its 
 graduates gave full account of themselves 
 wherever they went. Among them were bad 
 men, as bad as the worst of any land, and in 
 numbers not capable of compass even in a 
 broad estimate. 
 
 Some citizens of Montgomery county, Texas, 
 were not long ago sitting in a store of an even- 
 ing, and they fell to counting up the homicides 
 which had fallen under their notice in that 
 county within recent memory. They counted 
 up seventy-five authenticated cases, and could 
 not claim comprehensiveness for their tally. 
 Many a county of Texas could do as well or bet- 
 ter, and there are many counties. It takes you 
 two days to ride across Texas by railway. A 
 review of the bad man field of Texas pauses 
 for obvious reasons! 
 
 So many bad men of Texas have attained 
 reputation far wider than their state that it be- 
 came a proverb upon the frontier that any 
 man born on Texas soil would shoot, just as 
 any horse born there would "buck." There Is 
 truth back of most proverbs, although to-day 
 both horses and men of Texas are losing some- 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 319 
 
 thing of their erstwhile bronco character. That 
 out of such conditions, out of this hardy and 
 Indomitable population, the great state could 
 bring order and quiet so soon and so perma- 
 nently over vast unsettled regions, is proof alike 
 of the fundamental sternness and justness of the 
 American character and the value of the Ameri- 
 can fighting man. 
 
 Yet, though peace hath her victories not less 
 than war, it is to be doubted whether in her own 
 heart Texas is more proud of her statesmen 
 and commercial kings than of her stalwart 
 fighting men, bred to the use of arms. The 
 beautiful city of San Antonio Is to-day busy 
 and prosperous; yet to-day you tread there 
 ground which has been stained red over and 
 over again. The names of Crockett, Milam, 
 Travis, Bowie, endure where those of captains 
 of Industry are forgotten. Out of history such 
 as this, covering a half century of border fight- 
 ing, of frontier travel and merchandising, of 
 cattle trade and railroad building, it is impossi- 
 ble — In view of the many competitors of equal 
 claims — to select an example of bad eminence 
 fit to bear the title of the leading bad man of 
 Texas. 
 
 There was one somewhat noted Texas char- 
 
320 The Story of 
 
 acter, however, whose life comes down to mod- 
 ern times, and hence is susceptible of fairly ac- 
 curate review — a thing always desirable, though 
 not often practical, for no history is more dis- 
 torted, not to say more garbled, than that deal- 
 ing with the somewhat mythical exploits of 
 noted gun fighters. Ben Thompson, of Austin, 
 killer of more than twenty men, and a very per- 
 fect exemplar of the creed of the six-shooter, 
 will serve as instance good enough for a generic 
 application. Thompson was not a hero. He 
 did no deeds of war. He led no forlorn hope 
 into the imminent deadly breach. His name is 
 preserved in no history of his great common- 
 wealth. He was in the opinion of certain peace 
 officers, all that a citizen should not be. Yet 
 in his way he reached distinction; and so strik- 
 ing was his life that even to-day he does not 
 lack apologists, even as he never lacked friends. 
 Ben Thompson was of English descent, and 
 was born near Lockhart, Texas, according to 
 general belief, though it is stated that he was 
 born in Yorkshire, England. Later his home 
 was in Austin, where he spent the greater part 
 of his life, though roaming from place to place. 
 Known as a bold and skillful gun man, he was 
 looked on as good material for a hunter of bad 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 321 
 
 men, and at the time of his death was marshal 
 of police at Austin. In personal appearance 
 Thompson looked the part of the typical gam- 
 bler and gun fighter. His height was about five 
 feet eight Inches, and his figure was muscular 
 and compact. His hair was dark and waving; 
 his eyes gray. He was very neat In dress, and 
 always took particular pains with his footwear, 
 his small feet being always clad In well-fitting 
 boots of light material, a common form of 
 foppery In a land where other details of dress 
 were apt to be carelessly regarded. He wore 
 a dark mustache which, In his early years, he 
 was wont to keep waxed to points. In speech 
 he was quiet and unobtrusive, unless excited by 
 drink. With the six-shooter he was a peerless 
 shot, an absolute genius, none In all his wide 
 surrounding claiming to be his superior; and 
 he had a ferocity of disposition which grew with 
 years until he had, as one of his friends put It, 
 "a craving to kill people." Each killing 
 seemed to make him desirous of another. He 
 thus came to exercise that curious fascination 
 which such characters have always commanded. 
 Fear he did not know, or at least no test aris- 
 ing In his somewhat varied life ever caused him 
 to show fear. He passed through life as a wild 
 
322 The Story of 
 
 animal, ungoverned by the law, rejoicing in 
 blood; yet withal he was held as a faithful 
 friend and a good companion. To this day 
 many men repel the accusation that he was bad, 
 and maintain that each of his twenty killings 
 was done in self-defense. The brutal phase of 
 his nature was no doubt dominant, even al- 
 though it was not always in evidence. He was 
 usually spoken of as a "good fellow," and those 
 who palliate or deny most of his wild deeds 
 declare that local history has never been as fair 
 to him as he deserved. 
 
 Thompson's first killing was while he was a 
 young man at New Orleans, and according to 
 the story, arose out of his notions of chivalry. 
 He was passing down the street in a public con- 
 veyance, in company of several young Creoles, 
 who were going home from a dance in a some- 
 what exhilarated condition. One or two of the 
 strangers made remarks to an unescorted girl, 
 which Thompson construed to be offensive, and 
 he took it upon himself to avenge the Insult to 
 womanhood. In the affray that followed he 
 killed one of the young men. For this he was 
 obliged to flee to old Mexico, taking one of 
 the boats down the river. He returned pres- 
 ently to Galveston, where he set up as a gam- 
 
The Outlaw 323 
 
 bier, and began to extend his reputation as a 
 fighting man. Most of his encounters were 
 over cards or drink or women, the history of 
 many or most of the border killings. 
 
 Thompson's list grew steadily, and by the 
 time he was forty years of age he had a reputa- 
 tion far wider than his state. In all the main 
 cities of Texas he was a figure more or less 
 familiar, and always dreaded. His skill with 
 his favorite weapon was a proverb in a state 
 full of men skilled with weapons. Moreover, 
 his disposition now began to grow more ugly, 
 sullen and bloodthirsty. He needed small pre- 
 text to kill a man if, for the slightest cause, he 
 took a dislike to him. To illustrate the ferocity 
 of the man, and his readiness to provoke a quar- 
 rel, the following story is told of him: 
 
 A gambler by the name of Jim Burdette was 
 badly whipped by the proprietor of a variety 
 show, Mark Wilson, who, after the fight, told 
 Burdette that he had enough of men like him, 
 who only came to his theater to raise trouble 
 and interfere with his business, and that if 
 either he or any of his gang ever again at- 
 tempted to disturb his audiences that they would 
 have him (Wilson) to deal with. The next 
 day Ben Thompson, seated in a barber shop. 
 
324 The Story of 
 
 heard about the row and said to a negro stand- 
 ing by: "Mack, d — n your nigger soul, you go 
 down to that place this evening and when the 
 house Is full and everybody Is seated, you just 
 
 raise hell and we'll see what that Is made 
 
 of." The program was carried out. The 
 negro arose In the midst of the audience and 
 delivered himself of a few blood-curdling yells. 
 Instantly the proprietor came out of the place, 
 but caught sight of Thompson, who had drawn 
 a pair of guns and stood ready to kill Wilson. 
 The latter was too quick for him, and quickly 
 disappeared behind the scenery, after his shot- 
 gun. There was too much excitement that 
 night, and the matter passed off without a kill- 
 ing. A few nights thereafter, Thompson pro- 
 cured some lamp-black, which he gave the gam- 
 bler Burdette, with Instructions to go to the 
 theater, watch his chance, and dash the stuff 
 In Wilson's face. This was done and when 
 the Ill-fated proprietor, who Immediately went 
 for his shotgun, came out with that weapon, 
 Thompson fell to the ground, and the con- 
 tents of the gun, badly fired at the hands of 
 Wilson, his face full of lamp-black, passed over 
 Thompson's head. Thompson then arose and 
 filled Wilson full of holes, killing him instantly. 
 
The Outlaw 325 
 
 The bartender, seeing his employer's life in 
 danger, fired at Thompson wildly, and as 
 Thompson turned on him he dodged behind 
 the bar to receive his death wound through the 
 counter and in his back. Thompson at the 
 court of last resort managed to have a lot of 
 testimony brought to bear, and, with a half 
 dozen gamblers to swear to anything he needed, 
 he was admitted to bail and later freed. 
 
 He is said to have killed these two men for 
 no reason in the world except to show that he 
 could "run" a place where others had failed. 
 A variation of the story is that a saloon keeper 
 fired at Thompson as he was walking down the 
 street in Austin, and missing him, sprang back 
 behind the bar, Thompson shooting him 
 through the head, through the bar front. An- 
 other man's life now meant little to him. He 
 desired to be king, to be "chief," just as the 
 leaders of the desperadoes in the mining regions 
 of California and Montana sought to be 
 "chief." It meant recognition of their courage, 
 their skill, their willingness to take human life 
 easily and carelessly and quickly, a singular am- 
 bition which has been so evidenced in no other 
 part of the world than the American West. 
 It is certain that the worst bad men all over 
 
326 The Story of 
 
 Texas were afraid of Ben Thompson. He was 
 "chief." 
 
 Ben Thompson left the staid paths of life 
 in civilized communities. He did not rob, and 
 he did not commit theft or burglary or any high- 
 way crimes; yet toiling and spinning were not 
 for him. He was, for the most part, a gambler, 
 and after a while he ceased even to follow that 
 calling as a means of livelihood. Forgetting 
 the etiquette of his chosen profession, he in- 
 sisted on winning no manner how and no matter 
 what the game. He would go into a gambling 
 resort in some town, and sit in at a game. If 
 he won, very well. If he lost, he would become 
 enraged, and usually ended by reaching out and 
 raking in the money on the table, no matter 
 what the decision of the cards. He bought 
 drinks for the crowd with the money he thus 
 took, and scattered it right and left, so that his 
 acts found a certain sanction among those who 
 had not been despoiled. 
 
 To know what nerve it required to perform 
 these acts of audacity, one must know some- 
 thing of the frontier life, which at no corner 
 of the world was wilder and touchier than in 
 the very part of the country where Thompson 
 held forth. There were hundreds of men quick 
 
The Outlaw '^27 
 
 with the gun all about him, men of nerve, 
 but he did not hesitate to take all manner of 
 chances In that sort of population. The mad- 
 ness of the bad man was upon him. He must 
 have known what alone could be his fate at 
 last, but he went on, defying and courting his 
 own destruction, as the finished desperado al- 
 ways does, under the strange creed of self- 
 reliance which he established as his code of life. 
 Thus, at a banquet of stockmen In Austin, and 
 while the dinner was In progress, Thompson, 
 alone, stampeded every man of them, and at 
 that time nearly all stockmen were game. The 
 fear of Thompson's pistol was such that no one 
 would stand for a fight with him. Once 
 Thompson went to the worst place In Texas, 
 the town of Luling, where Rowdy Joe was run- 
 ning the toughest dance house In America. He 
 ran all the bad men out of the place, confiscated 
 what cash he needed from the gaming tables 
 and raised trouble generally. He showed that 
 he was "chief." 
 
 In the early eighties. In the quiet, sleepy, 
 bloody old town of San Antonio, there was a 
 dance hall, gambling resort and vaudeville the- 
 ater, In which the main proprietor was one Jack 
 Harris, commonly known as Pegleg Harris. 
 
328 The Story of 
 
 Thompson frequently patronized this place on 
 his visits to San Antonio, and received treatment 
 which left him with a grudge against Harris, 
 whom he resolved to kill. He followed his man 
 into the bar-room one day and killed Harris as 
 he stood in the semi-darkness. It was only 
 another case of "self-defense" for Thompson, 
 who was well used to being cleared of criminal 
 charges or left unaccused altogether; and no 
 doubt Harris would have killed him If he could. 
 After killing Harris, Thompson declared 
 that he proposed to kill Harris' partners, Fos- 
 ter and SImms. He had an especial grudge 
 against Billy SImms, then a young man not yet 
 nineteen years of age, because, so it Is stated, he 
 fancied that SImms supplanted him In the affec- 
 tions of a woman in Austin; and he carried 
 also his grudge against the gambling house, 
 where SImms now was the manager. Every 
 time Thompson got drunk, he declared his In- 
 tention of killing Billy SImms, and as the latter 
 was young and Inexperienced, he trembled In 
 his boots at this talk which seemed surely to 
 spell his doom. SImms, to escape Thompson's 
 wrath, removed to Chicago, and remained there 
 for a time, but before long was summoned 
 home to Austin, where his mother was very ill. 
 
The Outlaw 329 
 
 Thompson knew of his presence in Austin, but 
 with magnanimity declined to kill SImms while 
 he was visiting his sick mother. "Wait till he 
 goes over to Santone," he said, "then I'll step 
 over and kill the little ." Simms, pres- 
 ently called to San Antonio to settle some debt 
 of Jack Harris' estate, of which as friend and 
 partner of the widow he had been appointed 
 administrator, went to the latter city with a 
 heavy heart, supposing that he would never 
 leave it alive. He was told there that Thomp- 
 son had been threatening him many times; and 
 Simms received many telegrams to that effect. 
 Some say that Thompson himself telegraphed 
 Simms that he was coming down that day to 
 kill him. Certainly a friend of Simms on the 
 same day wired him warning: "Party who 
 wants to destroy you on train this day bound for 
 San Antonio." 
 
 Friends of Thompson deny that he made 
 such threats, and insist that he went to San 
 Antonio on a wholly peaceful errand. In any 
 case, this guarded but perfectly plain message 
 set Simms half distracted. He went to the 
 city marshal and showed his telegram, asking 
 the marshal for protection, but the latter told 
 him nothing could be done until Thompson had 
 
330 The Story of 
 
 committed some "overt act." The sheriff and 
 all the other officers said the same thing, not 
 caring to meet Thompson if they could avoid 
 it. Simms later in telling his story would sob 
 at the memory of his feeling of helplessness 
 at that time. The law gave him no protection. 
 He was obliged to take matters in his own 
 hands. He went to a judge of the court, and 
 asked him what he should do. The judge pon- 
 dered for a time, and said: "Under the circum- 
 stances, I should advise a shotgun." 
 
 Simms went to one of the faro dealers of the 
 house, a man who was known as bad, and who 
 never sat down to deal faro without a brace of 
 big revolvers on the table; but this dealer ad- 
 vised him to go and "make friends with 
 Thompson." He went to Foster, Harris' old 
 partner, and laid the matter before him. Fos- 
 ter said, slowly, "Well, Billy, when he comes 
 we'll do the best we can." Simms thought that 
 he too was weakening. 
 
 There was a big policeman, a Mexican by 
 name of Coy, who was considered a brave man 
 and a fighter, and Simms now went to him and 
 asked for aid, saying that he expected trouble 
 that night, and wanted Coy to do his duty. Coy 
 did not become enthusiastic, though as a matter 
 
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The Outlaw <^ <^ j 
 
 of fact neither he nor Foster made any attempt 
 to leave the place. Simms turned away, feeling 
 that his end was near. In desperation he got a 
 shotgun, and for a time stationed himself near 
 the top of the stair up which Thompson would 
 probably come when entering the place. The 
 theater was up one flight of stairs, and at the 
 right was the customary bar, from which 
 "ladies" in short skirts served drinks to the 
 crowd during the variety performance, which 
 was one of the attractions of the place. 
 
 It was nervous work, waiting for the killer 
 to come, and Simms could not stand it. He 
 walked down the stairway, and took a turn 
 around the block before he again ascended the 
 stairs to the hall. Meantime, Ben Thompson, 
 accompanied by another character. King Fisher, 
 a man with several notches on his gun, had 
 ascended the stairs, and had taken a seat on the 
 right hand side and beyond the bar, in the row 
 nearest the door. When Simms stepped to 
 the foot of the stairs on his return, he met the 
 barkeeper, who was livid with terror. He 
 pointed trembling up the stair and whispered, 
 "He's there!" Ben Thompson and King Fisher 
 had as yet made no sort of demonstration. It 
 is said that King Fisher had decoyed Thomp- 
 
332 The Story of 
 
 son into the theater, knowing that a trap was 
 laid to kill him. It is also declared that Thomp- 
 son went in merely for amusement. A friend 
 of the author, a New Mexican sheriff who hap- 
 pened to be in San Antonio, saw and talked 
 with both men that afternoon. They were both 
 quiet and sober then. 
 
 Simms' heart was in his mouth, but he made 
 up his mind to die game, if he had to die. 
 Slowly he walked up the stairway. Such was 
 Thompson's vigilance, that he quickly arose and 
 advanced toward Simms, who stood at the top 
 of the stairs petrified and unable to move a 
 muscle. Before Simms could think, his partner, 
 Foster, appeared on the scene, and as he stood 
 up, Thompson saw him and walked toward 
 him and said: "Hello, Foster, how are you?" 
 Slowly and deliberately Foster spoke: "Ben, 
 this world is not big enough for us both. You 
 killed poor Jack Harris like a dog, and you 
 didn't as much as give him a chance for his 
 life. You and I can never be friends any 
 more." Quick as a flash and with a face like 
 a demon, Thompson drew his pistol and 
 jammed It Into Foster's mouth, cruelly tearing 
 his lips and sending him reeling backward. 
 While this was going on, Simms had retreated 
 
The Outlaw 333 
 
 to the next step, and there drew his pistol, not 
 having his shotgun In hand then. He stepped 
 forward as he saw Foster reel from the blow 
 Thompson gave him, and with sudden courage 
 opened fire. His first shot must have taken 
 effect, and perhaps It decided the conflict. 
 Thompson's gun did not get Into action. SImms 
 kept on firing. Thompson reeled back against 
 King Fisher, and the two were unable to fire. 
 Meantime the big Mexican, Coy, showed up 
 from somewhere, just as Foster had. Both 
 Foster and Coy rushed In front of the line of 
 fire of SImms' pistol; and then without doubt, 
 SImms killed his own friend and preserver. 
 Foster got his death wound In such position 
 that SImms admitted he must have shot him. 
 None the less Foster ran Into Thompson as the 
 latter reeled backwards upon Fisher, and, with 
 the fury of a tiger, shoved his own pistol barrel 
 Into Thompson's mouth In turn, and fired twice, 
 completing the work SImms had begun. The 
 giant Coy hurled his bulk Into the struggling 
 mass now crowded Into the corner of the room, 
 and some say he held Ben Thompson's arms, 
 though In the melee It was hard to tell what 
 happened. He called out to SImms, "Don't 
 mind me," meaning that SImms should keep on 
 
334 ^'^^ Story of 
 
 firing. "Kill the of !" he cried. 
 
 Coy no doubt was a factor in saving Simms' 
 life, for one or the other of these two worst 
 men in the Southwest would have got a man 
 before he fell, had he been able to get his hands 
 free in the struggling. Coy was shot in the leg, 
 possibly by Simms, but did not drop. Simms 
 took care of Coy to the end of his life, Coy 
 dying but recently. 
 
 One of the men engaged in this desperate 
 fight says that Coy did not hold Thompson, 
 and that at first no one was shot to the floor. 
 Thompson was staggered by Simms' first shot, 
 which prevented a quick return of fire. It was 
 Foster who killed Thompson and very likely 
 King Fisher, the latter being hemmed in in the 
 corner with Thompson in front of him. Coy 
 rushed into the two and handled them so 
 roughly that they never got their guns into 
 action so far as known. 
 
 Leaving the fallen men at the rear of the 
 theater, Simms now went down stairs, carrying 
 Foster's pistol, with two chambers empty (the 
 shots that killed Thompson) and his own gun. 
 He saw Thompson's brother Bill coming at 
 him. He raised the gun to kill him, when Phil 
 Shardein, then city marshal, jumped on Thomp- 
 
The Outlaw 335 
 
 son and shielded him with his body, calling 
 out, "Don't shoot, Billy, I've got him." This 
 saved Bill Thompson's life. Then several shots 
 were heard upstairs, and upon investigation, 
 it was found that Coy had emptied his pistol 
 into the dead body of Thompson. He also 
 
 shot Fisher, to "make sure the were 
 
 dead." 
 
 Thus they died at last, two of the most noto- 
 rious men of Texas, both with their boots on. 
 There were no tears. Many told what they 
 would or could have done had Ben Thompson 
 threatened them. This closing act in the career 
 of Ben Thompson came in the late spring of 
 1 88 2^ He was then about forty-three years 
 of age. 
 
 King Fisher, who met death at the same time 
 with Thompson, was a good disciple of desper- 
 adoism. He was a dark-haired, slender young 
 man from Goliad county — which county seems 
 to have produced far more than its share of 
 bad men. He had killed six men and stolen a 
 great many horses in his time. Had he lived 
 longer, he would have killed more. He was not 
 of the caliber sufficient to undertake the running 
 of a large city, but there was much relief felt 
 over his death. He had many friends, of 
 
336 The Story of 
 
 course, and some of these deny that he had 
 any Intention of making trouble when he went 
 into the theater with Ben Thompson, just as 
 friends of the latter accuse King Fisher of 
 treachery. There are never lacking men who 
 regard dead desperadoes as martyrs; and indeed 
 it is usually the case that there are mixed cir- 
 cumstances arid frequently extenuating ones, to 
 be found in the history of any killer's life. 
 
 Another Goliad county man well known 
 around San Antonio was Alfred Y. Allee, who 
 was a rancher a short distance back from the 
 railway. Allee was decent when sober, but 
 when drunk was very dangerous, and was rec- 
 ognized as bad and well worth watching. 
 Liquor seemed to transform him and to make 
 him a bloodthirsty fiend. He had killed several 
 men, one or two under no provocation whatever 
 and when they were defenseless, including a 
 porter on a railway train. It was his habit to 
 come to town and get drunk, then to invite 
 every one to drink with him and take offense 
 at any refusal. He liked to be "chief" of the 
 drinking place which he honored with his pres- 
 ence. He once ordered a peaceful citizen of 
 San Antonio, a friend of the writer, up to drink 
 with him, and when the latter declined came 
 
The Outlaw 337 
 
 near shooting him. The man took his drink, 
 then slipped away and got his shotgun. Per- 
 haps his second thought was wiser. "What's 
 the use?" he argued with himself. *'Somc- 
 body'll kill Allee before long anyhow." 
 
 This came quite true, for within the week 
 Allee had run his course. He dropped down 
 to Laredo and began to * 'hurrah' that town 
 also. The town marshal, Joe Bartelow, was a 
 Mexican, but something of a killer himself, and 
 he resolved to end the Allee disturbances, once 
 for all. It is said that Allee was not armed 
 when at length they met in a saloon, and it is 
 said that Bartelow offered his hand in greet- 
 ing. At once Bartelow threw his arm around 
 Alice's neck, and with his free hand cut him 
 to death with a knife. Whether justifiable or 
 not, that was the fashion of the homicide. 
 
 Any man who has killed more than twenty 
 men is in most countries considered fit to qualify 
 as bad. This test would include the little hu- 
 man tiger, Tumlinson, of South Texas, who was 
 part of the time an ofiicer of the law and part 
 of the time an independent killer in Texas. He 
 had many more than twenty men to his credit, 
 it was said, and his Mexican wife, smilingly, 
 always said that "Tumlinson never counted 
 
338 The Story of 
 
 Mexicans." He was a genius with the revol- 
 ver, and as good a rifle shot as would often be 
 found. It made no difference to him whether 
 or not a man was running, for part of his pistol 
 practice was in shooting at a bottle swinging in 
 the wind from the bough of a tree. Legend 
 goes that Tumlinson killed his wife and then 
 shot himself dead, taking many secrets with 
 him. He was bad. 
 
 Sam Bass was a noted outlaw and killer in 
 West Texas, accustomed to ride into town and 
 to take charge of things when he pleased. He 
 had many thefts and robberies to his credit, and 
 not a few murders. His finish was one not in- 
 frequent in that country. The citizens got 
 wind of his coming one day, just before he 
 rode into Round Rock for a little raid. The 
 city marshal and several others opened fire on 
 Bass and his party, and killed them to a man. 
 
 It was of such stuff as this that most of the 
 bad men and indeed many of the peace officers 
 were composed, along a wide frontier in the 
 early troublous days following the civil war, 
 when all the border was a seething mass of 
 armed men for whom the law had as yet gained 
 no meaning. To tell the story of more indi- 
 viduals would be to depart from the purpose 
 
The Outlaw 339 
 
 of this work. Were these men wrong, and 
 were they wholly and unreservedly bad? Ig- 
 norance and bigotry will be the first to give 
 the answer, the first to apply to them the stand- 
 ards of these later days. 
 
340 The Story of 
 
 Chapter XX 
 
 Modern Bad Men — Murder and Robbery as 
 a Profession — The School of Guerrilla War- 
 fare — Butcher Quantrell; the James Broth- 
 ers; the Younger Brothers. : : : : : 
 
 OUTLAWRY of the early border, In 
 days before any pretense at establish- 
 ment of a system of law and govern- 
 ment, and before the holding of property had 
 assumed any very stable form, may have re- 
 tained a certain glamour of romance. The 
 loose gold of the mountains, the loose cattle 
 of the plains, before society had fallen into any 
 strict way of living, and while plenty seemed to 
 exist for any and all, made a temptation easily 
 accepted and easily excused. The ruffians of 
 those early days had a largeness in their meth- 
 ods which gives some of them at least a color 
 of interest. If any excuse may be offered for 
 lawlessness, any palliation for acts committed 
 
The Outlaw 341 
 
 without counteaance of the law, that excuse and 
 palliation may be pleaded for these men if for 
 any. But for the man who is bad and mean as 
 well, who kills for gain, and who adds cruelty 
 and cunning to his acts instead of boldness and 
 courage, little can be said. Such characters 
 afford us horror, but it is horror unmingled with 
 any manner of admiration. 
 
 Yet, if we reconcile ourselves to tarry a mo- 
 ment with the cheap and gruesome, the brutal 
 and ignorant side of mere crime, we shall be 
 obliged to take into consideration some of the 
 bloodiest characters ever known in our history; 
 who operated well within the day of established 
 law; who made a trade of robbery, and whose 
 capital consisted of disregard for the life and 
 property of others. That men like this should 
 live for years at the very door of large cities, 
 in an old settled country, and known familiarly 
 in their actual character to thousands of good 
 citizens, is a strange commentary on the Ameri- 
 can character; yet such are the facts. 
 
 It has been shown that a widely extended war 
 always has the effect of cheapening human life 
 in and out of the ranks of the fighting armies. 
 The early wars of England, in the days of the 
 longbow and buckler, brought on her palmiest 
 
342 The Story of 
 
 days of cutpurses and cutthroats. The days 
 following our own civil war were fearful ones 
 for the entire country from Montana to Texas ; 
 and nowhere more so than along the dividing 
 line between North and South, where feeling 
 far bitterer than soldierly antagonism marked 
 a large population on both sides of that contest. 
 We may further restrict the field by saying that 
 nowhere on any border was animosity so fierce 
 as in western Missouri and eastern Kansas, 
 where jayhawker and border ruflian waged a 
 guerrilla war for years before the nation was 
 arrayed against Itself in ordered ranks. If 
 mere blood be matter of our record here, assur- 
 edly. Is a field of Interest. The deeds of Lane 
 and Brown, of Quantrell and Hamilton, are 
 not surpassed In terror In the history of any 
 land. Osceola, Marais du Cygne, Lawrence — 
 these names warrant a shudder even to-day. 
 
 This locality — say that part of Kansas and 
 Missouri near the towns of Independence and 
 Westport, and more especially the counties of 
 Jackson and Clay in the latter state — was al- 
 ways turbulent, and had reason to be. Here 
 was the halting place of the westbound civili- 
 zation, at the edge of the plains, at the line 
 long dividing the whites from the Indians. 
 
The Outlaw 
 
 343 
 
 Here settled, like the gravel along the cleats of 
 a sluice, the daring men who had pushed west 
 from Kentucky, Tennessee, lower Ohio, eastern 
 Missouri — the Boones, Carsons, Crocketts, and 
 Kentons of their day. Here came the Mor- 
 mons to found their towns, and later to meet 
 the armed resistance which drove them across 
 the plains. Here, at these very towns, was the 
 outfitting place and departing point of the cara- 
 vans of the early Santa Fe trade ; here the Ore- 
 gon Trail left for the far Northwest; and here 
 the Forty-niners paused a moment In their mad 
 rush to the golden coast of the Pacific. Here, 
 too, adding the bitterness of fanaticism to the 
 courage of the frontier, came the bold men of 
 the North who Insisted that Kansas should be 
 free for the expansion of the northern popula- 
 tion and Institutions. 
 
 This corner of Missouri-Kansas was a focus 
 of recklessness and daring for more than a 
 whole generation. The children born there had 
 an inheritance of indifference to death such as 
 has been surpassed nowhere in our frontier un- 
 less that were in the bloody Southwest. The 
 men of this country, at the outbreak of the civil 
 war, made as high an average in desperate 
 fighting as any that ever lived. Too restless to 
 
344 '^^^ Story of 
 
 fight under the ensign of any but their own Ilk, 
 they set up a banner of their own. The black 
 flags of Quantrell and of Lane, of border ruf- 
 fian and jayhawker, were guidons under which 
 quarter was unknown, and mercy a forgotten 
 thing. Warfare became murder, and murder 
 became assassination. Ambushing, surprise, 
 pillage and arson went with murder; and 
 women and children were killed as well as fight- 
 ing men. Is it wonder that in such a school 
 there grew up those figures which a certain 
 class of writers have been wont to call bandit 
 kings; the bank robbers and train robbers of 
 modern days, the James and Younger type of 
 bad men? 
 
 The most notorious of these border fighters 
 was the bloody leader, Charles William Quan- 
 trell, leader at the sacking of Lawrence, and as 
 dangerous a partisan leader as ever threw leg 
 Into saddle. He was bom in Hagerstown, 
 Maryland, July 20, 1836, and as a boy lived 
 for a time in the Ohio city of Cleveland. At 
 twenty years of age, he joined his brother for a 
 trip to California, via the great plains. This 
 was in 1856, and Kansas was full of Free Sell- 
 ers, whose political principles were not always 
 untempered by a large-minded willingness to 
 
The Outlaw 345 
 
 rob. A party of these men surprised the Quan- 
 trell party on the Cottonwood river, and killed 
 the older brother. Charles William Quantrell 
 swore an undying revenge; and he kept his 
 oath. 
 
 It Is not necessary to mention In detail the 
 deeds of this border leader. They might have 
 had commendation for their daring had It not 
 been for their brutality and treachery. Quan- 
 trell had a band of sworn men, held under sol- 
 emn oath to stand by each other and to keep 
 their secrets. These men were well armed and 
 well mounted, were all fearless and all good 
 shots, the revolver being their especial arm, as 
 it was of Mosby^s men in the civil war. The 
 tactics of this force comprised surprise, ambush, 
 and a determined rush, in turn; and time and 
 again they defeated Federal forces many times 
 their number, being thoroughly well acquainted 
 with the country, and scrupling at nothing in 
 the way of treachery, just as they considered 
 little the odds against which they fought. Their 
 victims were sometimes paroled, but not often, 
 and a massacre usually followed a defeat — al- 
 most invariably so if the number of prisoners 
 was small. 
 
 Cold-blooded and unhesitating murder was 
 
34^ The Story of 
 
 part of their everyday life. Thus Jesse James, 
 on the march to the Lawrence massacre, had in 
 charge three men, one of thern an old man, 
 whom they took along as guides from the little 
 town of Aubrey, Kansas. They used these men 
 until they found themselves within a few miles 
 of Lawrence, and then, as is alleged, members 
 of the band took them aside and killed them, 
 the old man begging for his life and pleading 
 that he never had done them any wrong. His 
 murderers were no more than boys. This act 
 may have been that of bad men, but not of the 
 sort of bad men that leaves us any sort of re- 
 spect, such as that which may be given Wild 
 Bill, even Billy the Kid, or any of a dozen 
 other big-minded desperadoes. 
 
 This assassination was but one of scores or 
 hundreds. A neighbor suspected of Federal 
 sympathies was visited in the night and shot or 
 hanged, his property destroyed, his family 
 killed. The climax of the Lawrence massacre 
 was simply the working out of principles of 
 blood and revenge. In that fight, or, more 
 properly, that massacre, women and children 
 went down as well as men. The James boys 
 were Quantrell riders, Jesse a new recruit, and 
 that day they maintained that they had killed 
 
The Outlaw 347 
 
 sixty-five persons between them, and wounded 
 twenty more ! What was the total record of 
 these two men alone In all this period of guer- 
 rilla fighting? It cannot be told. Probably 
 they themselves could not remember. The four 
 Younger boys had records almost or quite as 
 bad. 
 
 There, indeed, was a border soaked in blood, 
 a country torn with intestinal warfare. Quan- 
 trell was beaten now and then, meeting fighting 
 men In blue or In jeans, as well as leading fight- 
 ing men; and at times he was forced to dis- 
 band his men, later to recruit again, and to 
 go on with his marauding up and down the 
 border. His career attracted the attention of 
 leaders on both sides of the opposing armies, 
 and at one time it was nearly planned that Con- 
 federates should join the Unionists and make 
 common cause against these guerrillas, who had 
 made the name of Missouri one of reproach 
 and contempt. The matter finally adjusted It- 
 self by the death of Quantrell in a fight at 
 Smiley, Kentucky, in January, 1865. 
 
 With a birth and training such as this, what 
 could be expected for the surviving Quantrell 
 men? They scattered over all the frontier, 
 from Texas to Minnesota, and most of them 
 
348 The Story of 
 
 lived In terror of their lives thereafter, with the 
 name of Quantrell as a term of loathing at- 
 tached to them where their earlier record was 
 known. Many and many a border killing years 
 later and far removed In locality arose from the 
 Implacable hatred descended from those days. 
 
 As for the James boys, the Younger boys, 
 what could they do? The days of war were 
 gone. There were no longer any armed ban- 
 ners arrayed one against the other. The sol- 
 diers who had fought bravely and openly on 
 both sides had laid down their arms and fra- 
 ternized. The Union grew, strong and Indis- 
 soluble. Men settled down to farming, to artl- 
 sanshlp, to merchandising, and their wounds 
 were healed. Amnesty was extended to those 
 who wished It and deserved It. These men 
 could have found a living easy to them, for 
 the farming lands still lay rich and ready for 
 them. But they did not want this life of toil. 
 They preferred the ways of robbery and blood 
 In which they had begun. They cherished ani- 
 mosity now, not against the Federals, but 
 against mankind. The social world was their 
 field of harvest; and they reaped It, weapon In 
 hand. 
 
 The James family originally came from Ken- 
 
The Outlaw 349 
 
 tucky, where Frank was born, In Scott county, 
 In 1846. The father, Robert James, was a 
 Baptist minister of the Gospel. He removed 
 to Clay county, Missouri, In 1849, ^^<^ Jesse 
 was born there In 1850. Reverend Robert 
 James left for California In 185 1 and never 
 returned. The mother, a woman of great 
 strength of character, later married a Doctor 
 Samuels. She was much embittered by the per- 
 secution of her family, as she considered it. 
 She herself lost an arm In an attack by detectives 
 upon her home, In which a young son was 
 killed. The family had many friends and con- 
 federates throughout the country; else the 
 James boys must have found an end long before 
 they were brought to justice. 
 
 From precisely the same surroundings came 
 the Younger boys, Thomas Coleman, or "Cole," 
 Younger, and his brothers, John, Bruce, James, 
 and Robert. Their father was Henry W. 
 Younger, who settled In Jackson county, Mis- 
 souri, In 1825, and was known as a man of 
 ability and worth. For eight years he was 
 county judge, and was twice elected to the state 
 legislature. He had fourteen children, of 
 whom five certainly were bad. At one time he 
 owned large bodies of land, and he was a pros- 
 
350 The Story of 
 
 perous merchant in Harrisonville for some 
 time. Cole Younger was born January 15, 
 1844, John in 1846, Bruce in 1848, James in 
 1850, and Bob in 1853. As these boys grew 
 old enough, they joined the Quantrell bands, 
 and their careers were precisely the same as 
 those of the James boys. The cause of their 
 choice of sides was the same. Jennison, the 
 Kansas jayhawker leader, in one of his raids 
 into Missouri, burned the houses of Younger 
 and confiscated the horses in his livery stables. 
 After that the boys of the family swore re- 
 venge. 
 
 At the close of the war, the Younger and 
 James boys worked together very often, and 
 were leaders of a band which had a cave in 
 Clay county and numberless farm houses where 
 they could expect shelter in need. With them, 
 part of the time, were George and Ollie Shep- 
 herd; other members of their band were Bud 
 Singleton, Bob Moore, Clel Miller and his 
 brother, Arthur McCoy; others who came and 
 went from time to time were regularly con- 
 nected with the bigger operations. It would be 
 wearisome to recount the long list of crimes 
 these men committed for ten or fifteen years 
 after the war. They certainly brought noto- 
 
The Outlaw 351 
 
 riety to their country. They had the entire 
 press of America reproaching the State of Mis- 
 souri ; they had the governors of that state and 
 two or three others at their wits' end; they had 
 the best forces of the large city detective 
 agencies completely baffled. They killed two 
 detectives — one of whom, however, killed John 
 Younger before he died — and executed another 
 in cold blood under circumstances of repellant 
 brutality. They raided over Missouri, Kansas, 
 Kentucky, Tennessee, even as far east as West 
 Virginia, as far north as Minnesota, as far 
 south as Texas and even old Mexico. They 
 looted dozens of banks, and held up as many 
 railway passenger trains and as many stage 
 coaches and travelers as they liked. The James 
 boys alone are known to have taken in their 
 robberies $275,000, and, including the unlaw- 
 ful gains of their colleagues, the Youngers, no 
 doubt they could have accounted for over half 
 a million dollars. They laughed at the law, 
 defied the state and county governments, and 
 rode as they liked, here, there, and everywhere, 
 until the name of law in the West was a mock- 
 ery. If magnitude in crime be claim to dis- 
 tinction, they might ask the title, for surely their 
 exploits were unrivaled, and perhaps cannot 
 
352 The Story of 
 
 again be equaled. And they did all of these 
 unbelievable things in the heart of the Missis- 
 sippi valley, in a country thickly settled, in the 
 face of a long reputation for criminal deeds, 
 and in a country fully warned against them ! 
 Surely, it seems sometimes that American law is 
 weak. 
 
 It was much the same story in all the long 
 list of robberies of small country banks. A 
 member of the gang would locate the bank and 
 get an idea of the interior arrangements. Two 
 or three of the gang would step in and ask to 
 have a bill changed; then they would cover the 
 cashier with revolvers and force him to open 
 the safe. If he resisted, he was killed; some- 
 times killed no matter what he did, as was 
 cashier Sheets in the Gallatin bank robbery. 
 The guard outside kept the citizens terrified un- 
 til the booty was secured; then flight on good 
 horses followed. After that ensued the fran- 
 tic and unorganized pursuit by citizens and offi- 
 cers, possibly another killing or two en route, 
 and a return to their lurking place in Clay 
 county, Missouri, where they never had any 
 difficulty in proving all the alibis they needed. 
 None of these men ever confessed to a full 
 list of these robberies, and, even years later, 
 
The Outlaw 353 
 
 they all denied complicity ; but the facts are too 
 well known to warrant any attention to their 
 denials, founded upon a very natural reticence. 
 Of course, their safety lay in the sympathy of 
 a large number of neighbors of something the 
 same kidney; and fear of retaliation supplied 
 the only remaining motive needed to enforce 
 secrecy. 
 
 Some of the most noted bank robberies in 
 which the above mentioned men, or some of 
 them, were known to have been engaged were 
 as follows: The Clay County Savings Associ- 
 ation, of Liberty, Missouri, February 14, 1866, 
 In which a little boy by name of Wymore was 
 shot to pieces because he obeyed the orders of 
 the bank cashier and gave the alarm; the bank 
 of Alexander Mitchell & Co., Lexington, Mis- 
 souri, October 30, i860; the McLain Bank, 
 of Savannah, Missouri, March 2, 1867, in 
 which Judge McLain was shot and nearly 
 killed; the Hughes & Mason Bank, of Rich- 
 mond, Missouri, May 23, 1867, and the later 
 attack on the jail, in which Mayor Shaw, Sher- 
 iff J. B. Griffin, and his brave fifteen-year-old 
 boy were all killed; the bank of Russellvllle, 
 Kentucky, March 20, 1868, in which cashier 
 Long was badly beaten; the Daviess County 
 
354 ^'^^ Story of 
 
 Savings Bank, of Gallatin, Missouri, Decem- 
 ber 7, 1869, in which cashier John Sheets was 
 brutally killed; the bank of Obocock Brothers, 
 Corydon, Iowa, June 3, 1871, in which forty 
 thousand dollars was taken, although no one 
 was killed; the Deposit Bank, of Columbia, 
 Missouri, April 29, 1872, in which cashier R. 
 A. C. Martin was killed; the Savings Associa- 
 tion, of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri; the Bank of 
 Huntington, West Virginia, September i, 1875, 
 in which one of the bandits, McDaniels, was 
 killed; the Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, Sep- 
 tember 7, 1876, in which cashier J. L. Hay- 
 wood was killed, A. E. Bunker wounded, and 
 several of the bandits killed and captured as 
 later described. 
 
 These same men or some of them also robbed 
 a stage coach now and then ; near Hot Springs, 
 Arkansas, for example, January 15, 1874, 
 where they picked up four thousand dollars, and 
 included ex-Governor Burbank, of Dakota, 
 among their victims, taking from him alone 
 fifteen hundred dollars; the San Antonio- 
 Austin coach, in Texas, May 12, 1875, in which 
 John Breckenridge, president of the First 
 National Bank of San Antonio, was relieved 
 of one thousand dollars; and the Mammoth 
 
The Outlaw 355 
 
 Cave, Kentucky, stage, September 3, 1880, 
 where they took nearly two thousand dollars 
 in cash and jewelry from passengers of dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 The most daring of their work, however, 
 and that which brought them into contact with 
 the United States government for tampering 
 with the mails, was their repeated robbery of 
 railway mail trains, which became a matter of 
 simplicity and certainty in their hands. To 
 flag a train or to stop it with an obstruction ; or 
 to get aboard and mingle with the train crew, 
 then to halt the train, kill any one who opposed 
 them, and force the opening of the express 
 agent's safe, became a matter of routine with 
 them in time, and the amount of cash they thus 
 obtained was staggering in the total. The 
 most noted train robberies in which members 
 of the James-Younger bands were engaged 
 were the Rock Island train robbery near Coun- 
 cil Bluffs, Iowa, July 21, 1873, i" which en- 
 gineer Rafferty was killed in the wreck, and but 
 small booty secured; the Gad's Hill, Missouri, 
 robbery of the Iron Mountain train, January 
 28, 1874, in which about five thousand dollars 
 was secured from the express agent, mail bags 
 and passengers ; the Kansas- Pacific train robbery 
 
356 The Story of 
 
 near Muncie, Kansas, December 12, 1874, in 
 which they secured more than fifty-five thousand 
 dollars in cash and gold dust, with much jew- 
 elry; the Missouri-Pacific train robbery at 
 Rocky Cut, July 7, 1876, where they held the 
 train for an hour and a quarter and secured 
 about fifteen thousand dollars in all; the rob- 
 bery of the Chicago & Alton train near Glen- 
 dale, Missouri, October 7, 1879, in which the 
 James boys' gang secured between thirty-five 
 and fifty thousand dollars in currency; the rob- 
 bery of the Rock Island train near Winston, 
 Missouri, July 15, 188 1, by the James boys' 
 gang, in which conductor Westfall was killed, 
 messenger Murray badly beaten, and a pas- 
 senger named MacMillan killed, little booty 
 being obtained; the Blue Cut robbery of the 
 Alton train, September 7, 1881, in which the 
 James boys and eight others searched every 
 passenger and took away a two-bushel sack full 
 of cash, watches, and jewelry, beating the ex- 
 press messenger badly because they got so little 
 from the safe. This last robbery caused the 
 resolution of Governor Crittenden, of Missouri, 
 to take the bandits dead or alive, a reward of 
 thirty thousand dollars being arranged by dif- 
 ferent railways and express companies, a price 
 
The Outlaw 357 
 
 of ten thousand dollars each being put on the 
 heads of Frank and Jesse James. 
 
 Outside of this long list of the bandit gang's 
 deeds of outlawry, they were continually in 
 smaller undertakings of a similar nature. Once 
 they took away ten thousand dollars in cash 
 at the box office of the Kansas City Fair, this 
 happening September 26, 1872, in a crowded 
 city, with all the modern machinery of the law 
 to guard its citizens. Many acts at widely 
 separated parts of the country were accredited 
 to the Younger or the James boys, and al- 
 though they cannot have been guilty of all of 
 them, and, although many of the adventures 
 accredited to them in Texas, Mexico, Cali- 
 fornia, the Indian Nations, etc., bear earmarks 
 of apocryphal origin, there is no doubt that 
 for twenty years after the close of the civil 
 war they made a living in this way, their gang 
 being made up of perhaps a score of different 
 men in all, and usually consisting of about six 
 to ten men, according to the size of the under- 
 taking on hand. 
 
 Meantime, all these years, the list of homi- 
 cides for each of them was growing. Jesse 
 James killed three men out of six who attacked 
 his house one night, and not long after Frank 
 
358 The Story of 
 
 and he are alleged to have killed six men in a 
 gambling fight in California. John and Jim 
 Younger killed the Pinkerton detectives Lull 
 and Daniels, John being himself killed at that 
 time by Daniels. A little later, Frank and Jesse 
 James and Clel Miller killed detective Wicher, 
 of the same agency, torturing him for some 
 time before his death in the attempt to make 
 him divulge the Pinkerton plans. The James 
 boys killed Daniel Askew in revenge ; and Jesse 
 James and Jim Anderson killed Ike Flannery 
 for motives of robbery. This last set the gang 
 into hostile camps, for Flannery was a nephew 
 of George Shepherd. Shepherd later killed 
 Anderson in Texas for his share in that act; 
 he also shot Jesse James and for a long time 
 supposed he had killed him. 
 
 The full record of these outlaws will never 
 be known. Their career came to an end soon 
 after the heavy rewards were put upon their 
 heads, and it came in the usual way, through 
 treachery. Allured by the prospect of gaining 
 ten thousand dollars, two cousins of Jesse 
 James, Bob and Charlie Ford, pretending to 
 join his gang for another robbery, became mem- 
 bers of Jesse James' household while he was 
 living incognito as Thomas Howard. On the 
 
THE OLD FRITZ RANCH 
 
 A BORDER FORTRESS 
 
The Outlaw 359 
 
 morning of April 3, 1882, Bob Ford, a mere 
 boy, not yet twenty years of age, stepped be- 
 hind Jesse James as h^ was standing on a chair 
 dusting off a picture frame, and, firing at close 
 range, shot him through the head and killed 
 him. Bob Ford never got much respect for 
 his act, and his money was soon gone. He 
 himself was killed in February, 1892, at Creede, 
 Colorado, by a man named Kelly. 
 
 Jesse James was about five feet ten inches 
 in height, and weighed about one hundred and 
 sixty-five pounds. His hair and eyes were 
 brown. He had, during his life, been shot 
 twice through the lungs, once through the leg, 
 and had lost a finger of the left hand from 
 a bullet wound. Frank James was slighter 
 than his brother, with light hair and blue eyes, 
 and a ragged, reddish mustache. Frank sur- 
 rendered to Governor Crittenden himself at 
 Jefferson City, In October, 1882, taking off his 
 revolvers and saying that no man had touched 
 them but himself since 1861. He was sen- 
 tenced to the penitentiary for life, but later par- 
 doned, as he was thought to be dying of con- 
 sumption. At this writing, he is still alive, 
 somewhat old and bent now, but leading a quiet 
 and steady life, and showing no disposition to 
 
360 The Story of 
 
 return to his old ways. He is sometimes seen 
 around the race tracks, where he does but little 
 talking. Frank James has had many apolo- 
 gists, and his life should be considered In con- 
 nection with the environments in which he grew 
 up. He killed many men, but he was never as 
 cold and cruel as Jesse, and of the two he was 
 the braver man, men say who knew them both. 
 He never was known to back down under any 
 circumstances. 
 
 The fate of the Younger boys was much min- 
 gled with that of the James boys, but the end 
 of the careers of the former came in more 
 dramatic fashion. The wonder is that both 
 parties should have clung together so long, for 
 it Is certain that Cole Younger once intended to 
 kill Jesse James, and one night he came near 
 killing George Shepherd through malicious 
 statements Jesse James had made to him about 
 the latter. Shepherd met Cole at the house of 
 a friend named Hudspeth, in Jackson county, 
 and their host put them in the same bed that 
 night for want of better accommodations. 
 ''After we lay down," said Shepherd later. In 
 describing this, "I saw Cole reach up under his 
 pillow and draw out a pistol, which he put be- 
 side him under the cover. Not to be taken un- 
 
The Outlaw 361 
 
 awares, I at once grasped my own pistol and 
 shoved It down under the covers beside me. 
 Were It to save my life, I couldn't tell what 
 reason Cole had for becoming my enemy. We 
 talked very little, but just lay there watching 
 each other. He was behind and I on the front 
 side of the bed, and during the entire night we 
 looked Into each other's eyes and never moved. 
 It was the most wretched night I ever passed 
 In my life." So much may at times be the 
 price of being ''bad." By good fortune, they 
 did not kill each other, and the next day Cole 
 told Shepherd that he had expected him to shoot 
 on sight, as Jesse James had said he would. 
 Explanations then followed. It nearly came to 
 a collision between Cole Younger and Jesse 
 James later, for Cole challenged him to fight, 
 and It was only with difficulty that their friends 
 accommodated the matter. 
 
 The history of the Younger boys Is tragic all 
 the way through. Their father was assassin- 
 ated, their mother was forced to set fire to her 
 own house and destroy It under penalty of 
 death; three sisters were arrested and confined 
 In a barracks at Kansas City, which during a 
 high wind fell in, killed two of the girls and 
 crippled the other. John Younger was a mur- 
 
362 The Story of 
 
 derer at the age of fourteen, and how many 
 times Cole Younger was a murderer, with or 
 without his wish, will never be known. He was 
 shot three times in one fight in guerrilla days, 
 and probably few bad men ever carried off 
 more lead than he. 
 
 The story of the Northfield bank robbery 
 in Minnesota, which ended so disastrously to 
 the bandits who undertook it, is interesting as 
 showing what brute courage, and, indeed, what 
 fidelity and fortitude may at times be shown by 
 dangerous specimens of bad men. The pur- 
 pose of the robbery was criminal, its carrying 
 out was attended with murder, and the revenge 
 for it came sharp and swift. In all the annals 
 of desperadoes, there is not a battle more strik- 
 ing than this which occurred in a sleepy and 
 contented little village in the quiet northern 
 farming country, where no one for a moment 
 dreamed that the bandits of the rumored bloody 
 lands along the Missouri would ever trouble 
 themselves to come. The events immediately 
 connected with this tragedy, the result of which 
 was the ending of the Younger gang, were as 
 hereinafter described. 
 
 Bill Chadwell, alias Styles, a member of the 
 James boys gang, had formerly lived in Minne- 
 
The Outlaw 363 
 
 sota. He drew a pleasing picture of the wealth 
 of that country, and the ease with which it 
 could be obtained by bandit methods. Cole 
 Younger was opposed to going so far from 
 home, but was overruled. He finally joined the 
 others — Frank and Jesse James, Clel Miller, 
 Jim and Bob Younger, Charlie Pitts and Chad- 
 well. They went to Minnesota by rail, and, 
 after looking over the country, purchased good 
 horses, and prepared to raid the little town of 
 Northfield, in Rice county. They carried their 
 enterprise into effect on September 7, 1876, 
 using methods with which earlier experience 
 had made them familiar. They rode into the 
 middle of the town and opened fire, ordering 
 every one off the streets. Jesse James, Charlie 
 Pitts and Bob Younger entered the bank, where 
 they found cashier J. L. Haywood, with two 
 clerks, Frank Wilcox and A. E. Bunker. Bun- 
 ker started to run, and Bob Younger shot him 
 through the shoulder. They ordered Haywood 
 to open the safe, but he bluntly refused, even 
 though they slightly cut him in the throat to 
 enforce obedience. Firing now began from the 
 citizens on the street, and the bandits in the 
 bank hurried in their work, contenting them- 
 selves with such loose cash as they found in the 
 
364 The Story of 
 
 drawers and on the counter. As they started 
 to leave the bank, Haywood made a motion to- 
 ward a drawer as if to find a weapon. Jesse 
 James turned and shot him through the head, 
 killing him instantly. These three of the ban- 
 dits then sprang out into the street. They were 
 met by the fire of Doctor Wheeler and several 
 other citizens. Hide, Stacey, Manning and 
 Bates. Doctor Wheeler was across the street 
 in an upstairs room, and as Bill Chadwell un- 
 dertook to mount his horse, Wheeler fired and 
 shot him dead. Manning fired at Clel Miller, 
 who had mounted, and shot him from his horse. 
 Cole Younger was by this time ready to retreat, 
 but he rode up to Miller, and removed from 
 his body his belt and pistols. Manning fired 
 again, and killed the horse behind which Bob 
 Younger was hiding, and an instant later a shot 
 from Wheeler struck Bob In the right elbow. 
 Although this arm was disabled Bob shifted 
 his pistol to his left hand and fired at Bates, 
 cutting a furrow through his cheek, but not 
 killing him. About this time a Norwegian by 
 the name of Gustavson appeared on the street, 
 and not halting at the order to do so, he was 
 shot through the head by one of the bandits, 
 receiving a wound from which he died a few 
 
The Outlaw 365 
 
 days later. The gang then began to scatter and 
 retreat. Jim Younger was on foot and was 
 wounded. Cole rode back up the street, and 
 took the wounded man on his horse behind him. 
 The entire party then rode out of town to the 
 west, not one of them escaping without severe 
 wounds. 
 
 As soon as the bandits had departed, news 
 was sent by telegraph, notifying the surround- 
 ing country of the robbery. Sheriffs, police- 
 men and detectives rallied In such numbers that 
 the robbers were hard put to It to escape alive. 
 A state reward of $1,000 for each was pub- 
 lished, and all lower Minnesota organized It- 
 self Into a determined man hunt. The gang 
 undertook to get over the Iowa line, and they 
 managed to keep away from their pursuers until 
 the morning of the 13th, a week after the rob- 
 bery. The six survivors were surrounded on 
 that day in a strip of timber. Frank and Jesse 
 James broke through, riding the same horse. 
 They were fired upon, a bullet striking Frank 
 James In the right knee, and passing through 
 Into Jesse's right thigh. None the less, the two 
 got away, stole a horse apiece that night, and 
 passed on to the Southwest. They rode bare- 
 back, and now and again enforced a horse trade 
 
366 The Story of 
 
 with a farmer or livery-stable man. They got 
 down near Sioux Falls, and there met Doctor 
 Mosher, whom they compelled to dress their 
 wounds, and to furnish them horses and cloth- 
 ing. Later on their horses gave out, and they 
 hired a wagon and kept on. Their escape seems 
 incomprehensible, yet it is the case that they 
 got quite clear, finally reaching Missouri. 
 
 Of the other bandits there were left Cole, 
 Jim and Bob Younger and Charlie Pitts; and 
 after these a large number of citizens followed 
 close. In spite of the determined pursuit, they 
 kept out of reach for another week. On the 
 morning of September 21st, two weeks after 
 the robbery, they were located in the woods 
 along the Watonwan river, not far from Made- 
 lia. Sheriff Glispin hurriedly got together a 
 posse and surrounded them in a patch of timber 
 not over five acres in extent. In a short time 
 more than one hundred and fifty men were 
 about this cover; but although they kept up fir- 
 ing, they could not drive out the concealed ban- 
 dits. Sheriff Glispin called for volunteers; and 
 with Colonel Vaught, Ben Rice, George Brad- 
 ford, James Severson, Charles Pomeroy and 
 Captain Murphy moved into the cover. As 
 they advanced, Charlie Pitts sprang out from 
 
The Outlaw 367 
 
 the brush, and fired point blank at Glispln. At 
 the same Instant the latter also fired and shot 
 Pitts, who ran a short distance and fell dead. 
 Then Cole, Bob and Jim Younger stood up and 
 opened fire as best they could, all of the men 
 of the storming party returning their fire. Mur- 
 phy was struck in the body by a bullet, and 
 his life was saved by his pipe, which he carried 
 in his vest pocket. Another member of the 
 posse had his watch blown to pieces by a bul- 
 let. The Younger boys gave back a little, but 
 this brought them within sight of those sur- 
 rounding the thicket, so they retreated again 
 close to the line of the volunteers. Cole and 
 Jim Younger were now badly shot. Bob, with 
 his broken right arm, stood his ground, the 
 only one able to continue the fight, and kept 
 his revolver going with his left hand. The 
 others handed him their revolvers after his own 
 was empty. The firing from the posse still 
 continued, and at last Bob called out to them 
 to stop, as his brothers were all shot to pieces. 
 He threw down his pistol, and walked forward 
 to the sheriff, to whom he surrendered. Bob 
 always spoke with respect of Sheriff Glispin 
 both as a fighter and as a peace officer. One of 
 the farmers drew up his gun to kill Bob after 
 
368 The Story of 
 
 he had surrendered, but Gllspln told him to 
 drop his gun or he would kill him. 
 
 It is doubtful if any set of men ever showed 
 more determination and more ability to stand 
 punishment than these misled outlaws. Bob 
 Younger was hurt less than any of the others. 
 His arm had been broken at Northfield two 
 weeks before, but he was wounded but once, 
 slightly in the body, out of all the shots fired 
 at him while in the thicket. Cole Younger 
 had a rifle bullet In the right cheek, which 
 paralyzed his right eye. He had received a 
 .45 revolver bullet through the body, and also 
 had been shot through the thigh at Northfield. 
 He received eleven different wounds In the fight, 
 or thirteen bad wounds in all, enough to have 
 killed a half dozen men. Jim's case seemed 
 even worse, for he had In his body eight buck- 
 shot and a rifle bullet. He had been shot 
 through the shoulder at Northfield, and nearly 
 half his lower jaw had been carried away by a 
 heavy bullet, a wound which caused him intense 
 suffering. Bob was the only one able to stand 
 on his feet. 
 
 Of the two men killed In town, Clel Miller 
 and Bill Chadwell, the former had a long rec- 
 ord In bank robberies; the latter, guide In the 
 
The Outlaw 369 
 
 ill-fated expedition to Minnesota, was a horse 
 thief of considerable note at one time In lower 
 Minnesota. 
 
 The prisoners were placed In jail at Fari- 
 bault, the county seat of Rice county, and In a 
 short time the Grand Jury returned true bills 
 against them, charging them with murder and 
 robbery. Court convened November 7th, 
 Judge Lord being on the bench. All of the 
 prisoners pleaded guilty, and the order of 
 the court was that each should be confined in the 
 state penitentiary for the period of his natural 
 life. 
 
 The later fate of the Younger boys may be 
 read in the succinct records of the Minnesota 
 State Prison at Stillwater: 
 
 ^^Thos. Coleman Younger, sentenced Nov. 
 20, 1876, from Rice county under a life sen- 
 tence for the crime of Murder in the first de- 
 gree. Paroled July 14, 1901. Pardoned Feb. 
 4, 1903, on condition that he leave the State 
 of Minnesota, and that he never exhibit himself 
 In public in any way. 
 
 ^^ James Younger, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, 
 from Rice county under a life sentence for the 
 crime of Murder In the first degree. Paroled 
 July 13, 1 90 1. Shot himself with a revolver 
 
37^ The Story of 
 
 In the city of St. Paul, Minn., and died at once 
 from the wound Inflicted on Oct. 19, 1902. 
 
 ^^Robt. Younger, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, 
 from Rice county under a life sentence for the 
 crime of Murder In the first degree. He died 
 Sept. 16, 1889, o^ phthisis." 
 
 The James boys almost miraculously escaped, 
 traveled clear across the State of Iowa and got 
 back to their old haunts. They did not stop, 
 but kept on going until they got to Mexico, 
 where they remained for some time. They did 
 not take their warning, however, and some of 
 their most desperate train robberies were com- 
 mitted long after the Younger boys were In the 
 penitentiary. 
 
 In view of the bloody careers of all these 
 men, It Is to be said that the law has been sin- 
 gularly lenient with them. Yet the Northfield 
 Incident was conclusive, and was the worst back- 
 set ever received by any gang of bad men; un- 
 less, perhaps, that was the defeat of the Dalton 
 gang at CoffeyvUle, Kansas, some years later, 
 the story of which Is given In the following 
 chapter. 
 
The Outlaw yji 
 
 Chapter XXI 
 
 Bad Men of the Indian Nations — A Hotbed 
 of Desperadoes — Reasons for Bad Men in the 
 Indian Nations — The Dalton Boys — The Most 
 Desperate Street Fight of the West. : : : 
 
 WHAT is true for Texas, in the record 
 of desperadoism, is equally applica- 
 ble to the country adjoining Texas 
 upon the north, long known under the general 
 title of the Indian Nations; although it is now 
 rapidly being divided and allotted under the in- 
 creasing demands of an ever-advancing civili- 
 zation. 
 
 The great breeding ground of outlaws has 
 ever been along the line of demarcation be- 
 tween the savage and the civilized. Here in 
 the Indian country, as though In a hotbed espe- 
 cially contrived, the desperado has flourished 
 for generations. The Indians themselves re- 
 tained much their old savage standards after 
 
372 The Story of 
 
 they had been placed in this supposedly perpet- 
 ual haven of refuge by the government. They 
 have been followed, ever since the first move- 
 ment of the tribes into these reservations, by 
 numbers of unscrupulous whites such as hang 
 on the outskirts of the settlements and rebel at 
 the requirements of civilization. Many white 
 men of certain type married among the Indians, 
 and the half-breed is reputed as a product in- 
 heriting the bad traits of both races and the 
 good ones of neither — a sweeping statement not 
 always wholly true. Among these also was a 
 large infusion of negro blood, emanating from 
 the slaves brought in by the Cherokees, and 
 added to later by negroes moving in and marry- 
 ing among the tribes. These mixed bloods 
 seem to have been little disposed toward the 
 ways of law and order. Moreover, the system 
 of law was here, of course, altogether different 
 from that of the States. The freedom from re- 
 straint, the exemption from law, which always 
 marked the border, here found their last abid- 
 ing place. The Indians were not adherents to 
 the white man's creed, save as to the worst fea- 
 tures, and they kept their own creed of blood. 
 No man will ever know how many murders 
 have been committed in these fair and pleasant 
 
The Outlaw 373 
 
 savannahs, among these rough hills or upon 
 these rolling grassy plains from the time Wil- 
 liam Clark, the "Red Head Chief," began the 
 government work of settling the tribes in these 
 lands, then supposed to be far beyond the 
 possible demands of the white population of 
 America. 
 
 Life could be lived here with small exertion. 
 The easy gifts of the soil and the chase, coupled 
 with the easy gifts of the government, unsettled 
 the minds of all from those habits of steady in- 
 dustry and thrift which go with the observance 
 of the law. If one coveted his neighbor's pos- 
 sessions, the ready arbitrament of firearms told 
 whose were the spoils. Human life has been 
 cheap here for more than half a hundred years ; 
 and this condition has endured directly up to 
 and into the days of white civilization. The 
 writer remembers very well that in his hunting 
 expeditions of twenty years ago it was always 
 held dangerous to go into the Nations ; and this 
 was true whether parties went in across the 
 Neutral Strip, or farther east among the Osages 
 or the Creeks. The country below Coffeyville 
 was wild and remote as we saw it then, although 
 now it is settling up, is traversed by railroads, 
 and is slowly passing into the hands of white 
 
374 ^^^ Story of 
 
 men in severalty, as fast as the negroes release 
 their lands, or as fast as the government allows 
 the Indians to give individual titles. In those 
 days it was a matter of small concern if a trav- 
 eler never returned from a journey among the 
 timber clad mountains, or the black jack thickets 
 along the rivers; and many was the murder 
 committed thereabouts that never came to light. 
 
 In and around the Indian Nations there have 
 also always been refugees from the upper fron- 
 tier or from Texas or Arkansas. The country 
 was long the natural haven of the lawless, as 
 it has long been the designated home of a wild 
 population. In this region the creed has been 
 much the same even after the wild ethics of the 
 cow men yielded to the scarcely more lawful 
 methods of the land boomer. 
 
 Each man in the older days had his own no- 
 tion of personal conduct, as each had his own 
 opinions about the sacredness of property. It 
 was natural that train robbing and bank loot- 
 ing should become recognized industries when 
 the railroads and towns came into this fertile 
 region, so long left sacred to the chase. The 
 gangs of such men as the Cook boys, the Wick- 
 cliffe boys, or the Dalton boys, were natural and 
 logical products of an environment. That this 
 
The Outlaw 375 
 
 should be the more likely may be seen from the 
 fact that for a decade or more preceding the 
 great rushes of the land grabbers, the exploits 
 of the James and Younger boys in train and 
 bank robbing had filled all the country with the 
 belief that the law could be defied successfully 
 through a long term of years. The Cook boys 
 acted upon this basis, until at length marshals 
 shot them both, killed one and sent the rem- 
 nants of the other to the penitentiary. 
 
 Since it would be impossible to go into any 
 detailed mention of the scores and hundreds 
 of desperadoes who have at different times been 
 produced by the Nations, it may be sufficient to 
 give a few of the salient features of the careers 
 of the band which, as well as any, may be 
 called typical of the Indian Nations brand of 
 desperadoism — the once notorious Dalton boys. 
 
 The Dalton family lived in lower Kansas, 
 near Coffeyville, which was situated almost di- 
 rectly upon the border of the Nations. They 
 engaged in farming, and indeed two of the 
 family were respectable farmers near Coffey- 
 ville within the last three or four years. The 
 mother of the family still lives near Oklahoma 
 City, where she secured a good claim at the time 
 of the opening of the Oklahoma lands to white 
 
376 The Story of 
 
 settlement. The father, Lewis Dalton, was a 
 Kentucky man and served In the Mexican war. 
 He later moved to Jackson county, Missouri, 
 near the home of the notorious James and 
 Younger boys, and In 1851 married Adelaide 
 Younger, they removing some years later from 
 Missouri to Kansas. Thirteen children were 
 born to them, nine sons and four daughters. 
 Charles, Henry, Littleton and Coleman Dal- 
 ton were respected and quiet citizens. All the 
 boys had nerve, and many of them reached of- 
 fice as deputy marshals. Franklin Dalton was 
 killed while serving as deputy United States 
 marshal near Fort Smith, In 1887, his brother 
 Bob being a member of the same posse at the 
 time his fight was made with a band of horse 
 thieves who resisted arrest. Grattan Dalton, 
 after the death of his brother Franklin, was 
 made a deputy United States marshal, after 
 the curious but efficient Western fashion of set- 
 ting dangerous men to work at catching danger- 
 ous men. He and his posse In 1888 went after 
 a bad Indian, who. In the melee, shot Grattan 
 In the arm and escaped. Grattan later served 
 as United States deputy marshal In Muskogee 
 district, where the courts certainly needed men 
 of stern courage as executives, for they had to 
 
The Outlaw 377 
 
 deal with the most desperate and fearless class 
 of criminals the world ever knew. Robert R. 
 Dalton, better known as Bob Dalton, served on 
 the posses of his brothers, and soon learned 
 what it was to stand up and shoot while being 
 shot at. He turned out to be about the boldest 
 of the family, and was accepted as the clan 
 leader later on In their exploits. He also was 
 a deputy United States marshal at the danger- 
 ous stations of Fort Smith and Wichita, having 
 much to do with the desperadoes of the Nations. 
 He was chief of the Osage police for some time, 
 and saw abundance of violent scenes. Emmett 
 Dalton was also possessed of cool nerve, and 
 was soon known as a dangerous man to affront. 
 All the boys were -good shots, but they seemed 
 to have cared more for the Winchester than 
 the six-shooter In their exploits. In which they 
 were perhaps wise, for the rifle Is of course far 
 the surer when it is possible of use; and men 
 mostly rode In that country with rifle under leg. 
 Uncle Sam Is obliged to take such material 
 for his frontier peace officers as proves Itself 
 eflicient In serving processes. A coward may be 
 highly moral, but he will not do as a border 
 deputy. The personal character of some of the 
 most famous Western deputies would scarcely 
 
378 The Story of 
 
 bear careful scrutiny, but the government at 
 Washington is often obliged to wink at that 
 sort of thing. There came a time when It re- 
 mained difficult longer to wink at the methods 
 of the Daltons as deputies. In one case they 
 ran off with a big bunch of horses and sold them 
 in a Kansas town. On account of this episode, 
 Grattan, William, and Emmett Dalton made a 
 hurried trip to California. Here they became 
 restless, and went back at their old trade, think- 
 ing that no one even on the Pacific Slope had 
 any right to cause them fear. They held up 
 a train in Tulare county and killed a fireman, 
 but were repulsed. Later arrested and tried, 
 William was cleared, but Grattan was sentenced 
 to twenty years in the penitentiary. He escaped 
 from jail before he got to the penitentiary, and 
 rejoined Emmett at the old haunts in the Na- 
 tions, Emmett having evaded arrest in Cali- 
 fornia. The Southern Pacific railway had a 
 standing offer of $6,000 for the robbers at the 
 time they were killed. 
 
 The Daltons were now more or less obliged 
 to hide out, and to make a living as best they 
 could, which meant by robbery. On May 9, 
 1 89 1, the Santa Fe train was held up at Whar- 
 ton, Oklahoma Territory, and the express car 
 
The Outlaw 379 
 
 was robbed, the bandits supposedly being the 
 Daltons. In June of the following year another 
 Santa Fe train was robbed at Red Rock, in the 
 Cherokee strip. The 'Frisco train was robbed 
 at Vinita, Indian Territory. An epidemic of 
 the old methods of the James and Younger 
 bands seemed to have broken out in the new 
 railway region of the Southwest. The next 
 month the Missouri, Kansas and Texas train 
 was held up at Adair, Indian Territory, and a 
 general fight ensued between the robbers and 
 the armed guard of the train, assisted by citi- 
 zens of the town. A local physician was killed 
 and several officers and citizens wounded, but 
 none of the bandits was hurt, and they got away 
 with a heavy loot of the express and baggage 
 cars. At Wharton they had been less fortunate, 
 for though they killed the station agent, they 
 were rounded up and one of their men, Dan 
 Bryant, was captured, later killing and being 
 killed by United States deputy Ed. Short, as 
 mentioned in an earlier chapter. Dick Broad- 
 well joined the Dalton gang about now, and 
 they nearly always had a few members besides 
 those of their own family; their gang being 
 made up and conducted on much the same lines 
 of the James boys gang of Missouri, whose ex- 
 
380 The Story of 
 
 plolts they Imitated and used as text for their 
 bolder deeds. In fact It was the boast of the 
 leader, Bob Dalton, In the CoffeyvIUe raid, that 
 he was going to beat anything the James boys 
 ever did: to rob two banks In one town at the 
 same time. 
 
 Bank robbing was a side line of activity with 
 the Daltons, but they did fairly well at It. They 
 held up the bank at El Reno, at a time when 
 no one was In the bank except the president's 
 wife, and took $10,000, obliging the bank to 
 suspend business. By this time the whole coun- 
 try was aroused against them, as It had been 
 against the James and Younger boys. Pinker- 
 ton detectives had blanket commissions offered, 
 and railway and express companies offered re- 
 wards running Into the thousands. Each train 
 across the Indian Nations was accompanied for 
 months by a heavily armed guard concealed In 
 the baggage and express cars. Passengers 
 dreaded the journey across that country, and the 
 slightest halt of the train for any cause was 
 sure to bring to the lips of all the word of fear, 
 "the Daltons!" It seems almost incredible of 
 belief that, In these modern days of fast rail- 
 way service, of the telegraph and of rapidly in- 
 creasing settlements, the work of these men 
 
The Outlaw 381 
 
 could so long have been continued; but such, 
 none the less, was the case. The law was power- 
 less, and demonstrated its own unfitness to safe- 
 guard life and property, as so often it has in this 
 country. And, as so often has been the case, 
 outraged society at length took the law into 
 its own hands and settled the matter. 
 
 The full tale of the Dalton robberies and 
 murders will never be known, for the region 
 in which they operated was reticent, having its 
 own secrets to protect; but at last there came 
 the climax in which the band was brought into 
 the limelight of civilized publicity. They lived 
 on the border of savagery and civilization. Now 
 the press, the telegraph, the whole fabric of 
 modern life, lay near at hand. Their last bold 
 raid, therefore, in which they crossed from the 
 country of reticence into that of garrulous news 
 gathering, made them more famous than they 
 had ever been before. The raid on Coffeyville, 
 October 5, 1892, both established and ended 
 their reputation as desperadoes of the border. 
 
 The rumor got out that the Daltons were 
 down in the Nations, waiting for a chance to 
 raid the town of Coffeyville, but the dreaded 
 attack did not come off when it was expected. 
 When it was delivered, therefore, it found the 
 
382 The Story of 
 
 town quite unprepared. Bob Dalton was the 
 leader In this enterprise. Emmett did not want 
 to go. He declared that too many people knew 
 them In CoffeyvUle, and that the job would 
 prove too big for them to handle. He con- 
 sented to join the party, however, when he 
 found Bob determined to make the attempt In 
 any case. There were In the band at that time 
 Bob, Emmett, and Grattan Dalton, BUI Powers 
 and Dick Broadwell. These lay In rendezvous 
 near Tulsa, In the Osage country, two days be- 
 fore the raid, and spent the night before In 
 the timber on Onion creek, not far below town. 
 They rode Into Coffeyvllle at half-past nine 
 the following morning. The street being some- 
 what torn up, they turned aside Into an alley 
 about a hundred yards from the main street, 
 and, dismounting, tied their horses, which were 
 thus left some distance from the banks, the 
 First National and the bank of C. M. Condon 
 & Co., which were the objects of their design. 
 
 Grattan Dalton, Dick Broadwell and Bill 
 Powers stepped over to the Condon bank, which 
 was occupied at the time by C. T. Carpenter, 
 C. M. Ball, the cashier, and T. C. Babb, a book- 
 keeper. Grattan Dalton threw down his rifle 
 on Carpenter, with the customary command to 
 
The Outlaw 383 
 
 put up his hands; the others being attended to 
 by Powers and Broadwell. Producing a two- 
 bushel sack, the leader ordered Carpenter to 
 put all the cash into it, and the latter obeyed, 
 placing three thousand dollars in silver and one 
 thousand in currency in the sack. Grattan 
 wanted the gold, and demanded that an inner 
 safe inside the vault should be opened. The 
 cashier. Ball, with a shifty falsehood, told him 
 that they could not open that safe, for it was set 
 on a time lock, and no one could open it before 
 half-past nine o'clock. He told the outlaw that 
 it was now twenty minutes after nine (although 
 it was really twenty minutes of ten) ; and the 
 latter said they could wait ten minutes. He 
 was, however, uneasy, and was much of the 
 mind to kill Ball on the spot, for he suspected 
 treachery, and knew how dangerous any delay 
 must be. 
 
 It was a daring thing to do — to sit down in 
 the heart of a civilized city, in broad daylight 
 and on the most public street, and wait for a 
 time lock to open a burglar-proof safe. Daring 
 as it was, it was foolish and futile. As the rob- 
 bers stood uneasily guarding their prisoners, 
 the alarm was spread. A moment later firing 
 began, and the windows of the bank were splin- 
 
384 The Story of 
 
 tered with bullets. The robbers were trapped, 
 Broadwell being now shot through the arm, 
 probably by P. L. Williams from across the 
 street. Yet they coolly went on with their 
 work as they best could, Grattan Dalton order- 
 ing Ball to cut the string of the bag and pour 
 out the heavy silver, which would have encum- 
 bered them too much in their flight. He asked 
 If there was not a back way out, by which they 
 could escape. He was shown a rear door, and 
 the robbers stepped out, to find themselves In 
 the middle of the hottest street fight any of 
 them had ever known. The city marshal, 
 Charles T. Connolly, had given the alarm, and 
 citizens were hurrying to the street with such 
 weapons as they could find at the hardware 
 stores and In their own homes. 
 
 Meantime Bob and Emmett Dalton had held 
 up the First National Bank, ordering cashier 
 Ayres to hand out the money, and terrorizing 
 two or three customers of the bank who hap- 
 pened to be present at the time. Bob knew 
 Thos. G. Ayres, and called him by his first 
 name, "Tom,*' said he, "go Into the safe and 
 get out that money — get the gold, too." He 
 followed Ayres Into the vault, and discovered 
 two packages of $5,000 each In currency, which 
 
The Outlaw 385 
 
 he tossed Into his meal sack. The robbers here 
 also poured out the silver, and having cleaned 
 up the bank as they supposed, drove the occu- 
 pants out of the door in front of them. As 
 they got into the street they were fired upon 
 by George Cublne and C. S. Cox; but neither 
 shot took effect. Emmett Dalton stood with 
 his rifle under his arm, coolly tying up the neck 
 of the sack which held the money. They then 
 both stepped back into the bank, and went out 
 through the back door, which was opened for 
 them by W. H. Shepherd, the bank teller, who, 
 with Tom Ayres and B. S. Ayres, the book- 
 keeper, made the bank force on hand. J. H. 
 Brewster, C. H. Hollingsworth and A. W. 
 Knotts were in the bank on business, and were 
 joined by E. S. Boothby; all these being left 
 unhurt. 
 
 The firing became general as soon as the rob- 
 bers emerged from the two bank buildings. 
 The first man to be shot by the robbers was 
 Charles T. Gump, who stood not far from the 
 First National Bank armed with a shotgun. 
 Before he could fire Bob Dalton shot him 
 through the hand, the same bullet disabling his 
 shotgun. A moment later, a young man named 
 Lucius Baldwin started down the alley, armed 
 
386 The Story of 
 
 with a revolver. He met Bob and Emmett, 
 who ordered him to halt, but for some reason 
 he kept on toward them. Bob Dalton said, 
 "ril have to kill you,'' and so shot him through 
 the chest. He died three hours later. 
 
 Bob and Emmett Dalton now passed out of 
 the alley back of the First National Bank, and 
 came into Union street. Here they saw George 
 B. Cubine standing with his Winchester in his 
 hands, and an instant later Cubine fell dead, 
 with three balls through his body. Near him 
 was Charles Brown, an old man, who was also 
 armed. He was the next victim, his body fall- 
 ing near that of Cubine, though he lived for a 
 few hours after being shot. All four of these 
 victims of the Daltons were shot at distances 
 of about forty or fifty yards, and with rifles, 
 the revolver being more or less uncertain at such 
 ranges even in practiced hands. All the gang 
 had revolvers, but none used them. 
 
 Thos. G. Ayres, late prisoner in the First 
 National Bank, ran into a store near by as soon 
 as he was released, caught up a Winchester and 
 took a station near the street door, waiting for 
 the bandits to come out at that entrance of the 
 bank. Here he was seen by Bob Dalton, who 
 had gone through the alley. Bob took aim 
 
The Outlaw 387 
 
 and at seventy-five yards shot Ayres through 
 the head. Friends tried to draw his body back 
 into the store, but these now met the fire of 
 Grattan Dalton and Powers, who, with the crip- 
 pled Broadwell, were now coming out of their 
 alleyway. 
 
 T. A. Reynolds, a clerk in the same store, 
 who went to the door armed, received a shot 
 through the foot, and thus made the third 
 wounded man then in that building. H. H. 
 Isham, one of the owners of the store, aided 
 by M. A. Anderson and Charles K. Smith, 
 joined in the firing. Grattan Dalton and Bill 
 Powers were shot mortally before they had 
 gone more than a few steps from the door of 
 the Condon bank. Powers tried to get into a 
 door when he was shot, and kept his feet when 
 he found the door locked, managing to get to 
 his horse in the alley before he was killed by a 
 second shot. Grattan Dalton also kept his feet, 
 and reached cover back of a barn about seventy 
 yards from Walnut Street, the main thorough- 
 fare. He stood at bay here, and kept on firing. 
 City marshal Connolly, carrying a rifle, ran 
 across to a spot near the corner of this barn. 
 He had his eye on the horses of the bandits, 
 which were still hitched in the alley. His back 
 
388 The Story of 
 
 was turned toward Grattan Dalton. The lat- 
 ter must have been crippled somewhere In his 
 right arm or shoulder, for he did not raise 
 his rifle to his face, but fired from his hip, shoot- 
 ing Connolly down at a distance of about twenty 
 feet or so. 
 
 There was a slight lull at this point of the 
 street fight, and during this Dick Broadwell, 
 who had been wounded again In the back, 
 crawled Into concealment In a lumber yard near 
 by the alley where the horses were tied. He 
 crept out to his horse and mounted, but just 
 as he started away met the livery man, John J. 
 Kloehr, who did some of the best shooting re- 
 corded by the citizens. Kloehr was hurrying 
 thither with Carey Seaman, the latter armed 
 with a shotgun. Kloehr fired his rifle and Sea- 
 man his shotgun, and both struck Broadwell, 
 who rode away, but fell dead from his horse 
 a short distance outside the town. 
 
 Bob and Emmett Dalton, after killing Cu- 
 blne and Brown and shooting Ayres, hurried on 
 to join their companions and to get to their 
 horses. At an alleyway junction they spied 
 F. D. Benson climbing out of a window, and 
 fired at him, but missed. An instant later, as 
 Bob stepped Into full view of those who were 
 
The Outlaw 389 
 
 firing from the Isham store, he was struck by 
 a ball and badly wounded. He walked slowly 
 across the alley and sat down on a pile of stones, 
 but like his b^-^'-her Grattan, he kept his rifle 
 going, though mortally shot. He fired once 
 at Kloehr, but was unsteady and missed him. 
 Rising to his feet he walked a few paces and 
 leaned against the corner of a barn, firing two 
 more shots. He was then killed by Kloehr, 
 who shot him through the chest. 
 
 By this time Grattan Dalton was feebly try- 
 ing to get to his horse. He passed the body of 
 Connolly, whom he had killed, faced toward his 
 pursuers and tried to fire. He, too, fell before 
 Kloehr's Winchester, shot through the throat, 
 dropping close to the body of Connolly. 
 
 Emmett Dalton was now the only one of the 
 band left alive. He was as yet unwounded, 
 and he got to his horse. As he attempted to 
 mount a number of shots were fired at him, and 
 these killed the two horses belonging to Bob 
 Dalton and Bill Powers, who by this time had 
 no further use for horses. Two horses hitched 
 to an oil wagon in the street were also killed 
 by wild shots. Emmett got into his saddle, but 
 was shot through the right arm and through 
 the left hip and groin. He still clung to the 
 
390 T^he Story of 
 
 sack of money they had taken at the First 
 National Bank, and he still kept his nerve and 
 his wits even under such pressure of peril. He 
 might have escaped, but instead he rode back to 
 where Bob was lying, and reached down his hand 
 to help him up behind himself on the horse. 
 Bob was dying and told him it was no use to 
 try to help him. As Emmett stooped down to 
 reach Bob's arm, Carey Seaman fired both bar- 
 rels of his shotgun into his back, Emmett drop- 
 ping near Bob and falling upon the sack, con- 
 taining over $20,000 in cash. Men hurried up 
 and called to him to throw up his hands. He 
 raised his one unhurt arm and begged for mercy. 
 It was supposed he would die, and he was not 
 lynched, but hurried away to a doctor's office 
 near by. 
 
 In the little alley where the last scene of this 
 bloody fight took place there were found three 
 dead men, one dying man and one badly 
 wounded. Three dead horses lay near the same 
 spot. In the whole fight, which was of course 
 all over in a few moments, there were killed 
 four citizens and four outlaws, three citizens 
 and one outlaw being wounded. Less than a 
 dozen citizens did most of the shooting, of 
 which there was considerable, eighty bullet 
 
The Outlaw 391 
 
 marks being found on the front of the Condon 
 bank alone. 
 
 The news of this bloody encounter was In- 
 stantly flashed over the country, and within a 
 few hours the town was crowded with sight- 
 seers who came In by train loads. The dead 
 bandits were photographed, and the story of 
 the fight was told over and over again, not 
 always with uniformity of detail. Emmett 
 Dalton, before he was sent to the penitentiary, 
 confessed to different crimes, not all of them 
 hitherto known, which the gang had at different 
 times committed. 
 
 So ended In blood the career of as bloody a 
 band as might well be discovered In the robber 
 history of any land or time of the world. Indeed, 
 It is doubtful if any country ever saw leagues 
 of robbers so desperate as those which have 
 existed in America, any with hands so red in 
 blood. This fact is largely due to the peculiar 
 history of this country, with its rapid develop- 
 ment under swift modern methods of transpor- 
 tation. In America the advance to the west- 
 ward of the fighting edge of civilization, where^ 
 it meets and mingles with savagery, has been 
 more rapid than has ever been known in the 
 settlement of any country of the world. More- 
 
392 The Story of 
 
 over, this has taken place at precisely that time 
 when weapons of the most deadly nature have 
 been Invented and made at a price permitting 
 all to own them and many to become extremely 
 skilled with them. The temptation and the 
 means of murder have gone hand in hand. And 
 In time the people, not the organized law 
 courts, have applied the remedy when the time 
 has come for it. To-day the Indian Nations are 
 no more than a name. Civilization has taken 
 them over. Statehood has followed territorial 
 organization. Presently rich farms will make a 
 continuous sea of grain across what was once 
 a flood of crime, and the wheat will grow yel- 
 low, and the cotton white, where so long the 
 grass was red. 
 
The Outlaw 393 
 
 Chapter XXII 
 
 Desperadoes of the Cities — Great Cities Now 
 the Most Dangerous Places — City Bad Men*s 
 Contempt for Womanhood — Nine Thousand 
 Murders a Year, and Not Two Hundred Pun- 
 ished — The Reasonableness of Lynch Law, : 
 
 IT was stated early In these pages that the 
 great cities and the great wildernesses are 
 the two homes for bold crimes; but we 
 have been most largely concerned with the lat- 
 ter In our studies of desperadoes and In our 
 search for examples of disregard of the law. 
 We have found a turbulence, a self-Insistence, 
 a vigor and self-reliance in the American char- 
 acter which at times has led on to lawlessness 
 on our Western frontier. 
 
 Conditions have changed. We still revel in 
 Wild West literature, but there Is little of the 
 wild left In the West of to-day, little of the old 
 lawlessness. The most lawless time of America 
 
394 ^^^ Story of 
 
 is to-day, but the most lawless parts of America 
 /:/ are the most highly civilized parts. The most 
 dangerais section of America is not the West, 
 i but the East. 
 
 The worst men are no longer those of the 
 mountains or the plains, but of the great cities. 
 The most absolute lawlessness exists under the 
 shadow of the tallest temples of the law, and in 
 the penetralia of that society which vaunts it- 
 self as the supreme civilization of the world. 
 We have had no purpose in these pages to praise 
 any sort of crime or to glorify any manner of 
 bad deeds ; but if we were forced to make choice 
 among criminals, then by all means that choice 
 should be, must be, not the brutal murderer of 
 the cities, but the desperado of the old West. 
 The one is an assassin, the other was a warrior ; 
 the one is a dastard, the other was something of 
 a man. 
 
 A lawlessness which arises to magnitude is 
 not called lawlessness; and killing hiore than 
 murder Is called war. The great industrial cen- 
 ters show us what ruthlessness may mean, more 
 cruel and more dangerous than the worst deeds 
 of our border fighting men. As for the crim- 
 inal records of our great cities, they surpass 
 by Infinity those of the rudest wilderness an- 
 
The Outlaw 395 
 
 archy. Their nature at times would cause a 
 hardened desperado of the West to blu§h for 
 shame. 
 
 One distinguished feature of city badness is 
 the great number of crimes against women, 
 ranging from robbery to murder. Now, the 
 desperado, the bandit, the robber of the wildest 
 West never made war on any woman, rarely 
 ever robbed a woman, even when women min- 
 gled with the victims of a "stand and deliver" 
 general robbery of a stage or train. The man 
 who would kill a woman in the West could 
 never meet his fellow in fair fight again. The 
 rope was ready for him, and that right quickly. 
 
 But how is it in the great cities, under the 
 shadow of the law? Forget the crimes of in- 
 dustrialism, the sweat-shops and factories, 
 which undermine the last hope of a nation — the 
 constitution of its women — and take the open 
 and admitted crimes. One city will suffice for 
 this, and that may be the city of Chicago. 
 
 In Chicago, in the past twenty-four years, 
 very nearly two thousand murders have been 
 committed; and of these, two hundred remain 
 mysteries to-day, their perpetrators having gone 
 free and undetected. In the past year, seven- 
 teen women have been murdered in Chicago, 
 
396 The Story of 
 
 some under circumstances too horrible to men- 
 tion. In a list of fifty murders by unknown 
 parties during the last few years, the whole 
 gamut of dastardly crime has been run. The 
 slaughter list is appalling. The story of this 
 killing of women is so repellant that one turns 
 to the bloodiest deeds of Western personal com- 
 bats with a feeling of relief; and as one does so 
 one adds, *'Here at least were men." 
 
 The story of Chicago is little worse, accord- 
 ing to her population, than that of New York, 
 of Boston, of any large city. Foot up the 
 total of the thousands of murders committed 
 every year in America. Then, if you wish to 
 become a criminal statistician, compare that 
 record with those of England, France or Ger- 
 many. We kill ten persons to England's one; 
 and we kill them in the cities. 
 
 In the cities it is unlawful to wear arms, and 
 to protect one's self against armed attack is 
 therefore impossible. In the cities we have 
 policemen. Against real fighting men, the aver- 
 age policeman would be helpless. Yet, such as he 
 is, he must be the sole fence against the bloody- 
 minded who do not scruple at robbery and mur- 
 der. In the labor riots, the streets of a city 
 are avenues of anarchy, and none of our weak- 
 
The Outlaw 397 
 
 souled ofEcIals, held In the cursed thrall of poli- 
 tics, seems able to prevent it. A dozen town 
 marshals of the old stripe would restore peace 
 and fill a graveyard in one day of any strike; 
 and their peace would be permanent. A real 
 town marshal at the head of a city police force, 
 with real fighting men under him, could restore 
 peace and fill a graveyard in one month in any 
 city; and that peace would be permanent. If 
 we wished the law, we could have it. 
 
 The history of the bloodiest lawlessness of 
 the American past shows continual repetitions. 
 First, liberty is construed to mean license, and 
 license unrebuked leads on to insolence. Still 
 left unrebuked, license organizes against the 
 law, taking the form of gangs, factions, bandit 
 clans. Then in time the spirit of law arises, 
 and not the law, but the offended individuals 
 wronged by too much license, take the matter 
 into their own hands, not waiting for the courts, 
 but executing a swifter justice. It is the terror 
 of lynch law which has, in countless instances, 
 been the foundation of the later courts, with 
 their slow moving and absurdly Inefficient meth- 
 ods. In time the Inefficiency of the courts once 
 more begets impatience and contempt. The 
 people again rebel at the fact that their govern- 
 
398 The Story of 
 
 ment gives them no government, that their 
 courts give them no justice, that their peace 
 officers give them no protection. Then they 
 take matters into their hands once more, and 
 show both courts and criminals that the people 
 still are strong and terrible. 
 
 The deprecation of lynch law, and the whin- 
 ing cry that the law should be supported, that 
 the courts should pass on the punishment, is 
 in the first place the plea of the weak, and in 
 the second place, the plea of the ignorant. He 
 has not read the history of this country, and has 
 never understood the American character who 
 says lynch law is wrong. It has been the sal- 
 vation of America a thousand times. It may 
 perhaps again be her salvation. 
 
 In one way or another the American people 
 will assert the old vigilante principle that a 
 man's life, given , him by God, and a man's 
 property, earned by his own labor, are things 
 he is entitled to defend or have defended. He 
 never wholly delegates this right to any gov- 
 ernment. He may rescind his qualified delega- 
 tion when he finds his chosen servants unfaith- 
 ful or inefficient; and so have back again clean 
 his own great and imperishable human rights. 
 A wise law and one enforced is tolerable. An 
 
The Outlaw 399 
 
 unjust and impure law Is intolerable, and it Is 
 no wrong to cast off allegiance to It. If so, 
 Magna Charta was wrong, and the American 
 Revolution earth's greatest example of lynch 
 law ! 
 
 Conclusions parallel to these are expressed 
 by no less a citizen than Andrew D. White, 
 long United States Minister to Germany, who, 
 in the course of an address at a prominent uni- 
 versity of America, In the year 1906, made the 
 following bold remarks : 
 
 "There Is a well-defined criminal class in all 
 of our cities ; a class of men who make crime a 
 profession. Deaths by violence are Increasing 
 rapidly. Our record Is now larger than any 
 other country of the world. The number of 
 homicides that are punished by lynching ex- 
 ceeds the number punished by due process of 
 law. There Is nothing more nonsensical ^or 
 ridiculous than the goody-goody talk about 
 lynching. Much may be said In favor of Gold- 
 win Smith's quotation, that 'there are commu- 
 nities In which lynch law Is better than any 
 other.' 
 
 "The pendulum has swung from extreme 
 severity In the last century to extreme laxity In 
 this century. There has sprung up a certain 
 
400 The Story of 
 
 sentimental sympathy. In the word of a dis- 
 tinguished jurist, 'the taking of life for the 
 highest crime after due process of law is the 
 only taking of life which the American people 
 condemn.' 
 
 "In the next year 9,000 people will be mur- 
 dered. As I stand here to-day I tell you that 
 9,000 are doomed to death with all the cruelty 
 of the criminal heart, and with no regard for 
 home and families; and two-thirds will be due 
 to the maudlin sentiment sometimes called 
 mercy. 
 
 "I have no sympathy for the criminal. My 
 sympathy Is for those who will be murdered; 
 for their families and for their children. This 
 sham humanltarianism has become a stench. 
 The cry now is for righteousness. The past 
 generation has abolished human slavery. It is 
 for the present to deal with the problems of 
 the future, and among them this problem of 
 crime." 
 
 Against doctrine of this sort none will pro- 
 test but the politicians in power, under whose 
 lax administration of a great trust there has 
 arisen one of the saddest spectacles of human 
 history, the decay of the great American prin- 
 ciples of liberty and fair play. The criminals 
 
The Outlaw 40 1 
 
 of our city are bold, because they, if not our- 
 selves, know of this decay. They, if not 
 ourselves, know the weakness of that political 
 system to which we have, in carelessness equal- 
 ing that of the California miners of old — a 
 carelessness based upon a madness of money 
 equal to or surpassing that of the gold stam- 
 pedes — delegated our sacred personal rights to 
 live freely, to own property, and to protect each 
 for himself his home. 
 
 THE END 
 
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