Part 6

Bill Dalton was killed, Bill Doolin, Arkansan Tom, Tulsa Jack, George Newcomb, and Buck Weightman, alias, “Red Rock,” all noted outlaw leaders in time bit the dust, while Bill Raidler fell “bleeding at every pore” from a shotgun in the hands of Marshal Heck Thomas.

Tearing open his shirt and looking at his bleeding breast as full of small holes as the lid of a pepper box, Raidler exclaimed, “Heck you damned scoundrel, haven’t you any more respect for me; than to shoot me with bird shot,” “Only used them for packing, my dear boy, only packing, you will find plenty of buck shot among them,” said Heck, as he slipped the cold steel cuffs on Raidler’s wrists.

XV.

OUTLAWRY IN OKLAHOMA.

Bill Doolin, noted outlaw, was in the United States jail in Guthrie, Oklahoma. A chill, drizzling rain was falling and the night was dark. The half breed Indians and white border ruffians who had been his companions in the jail for the last two months, had grown tired of their card playing and had sullenly slunk off to their dirty bunks. Doolin had a cell of his own, but it had not yet been locked for the night and he had the freedom of the “bull pen.” Near the front of the large room was a partition of steel bars. Outside this partition was a stove, near which a deputy marshal sat reading a novel. Another deputy was pacing the floor. Doolin was thinking of a night like this when he and his men lay in waiting at Red Rock for the Santa Fe express. How the chill rain dripped from their broad hats as they held a final whispered conversation just before the glaring eye of the headlight of the express flashed on them for an instant as the train rounded a curve, then the shrill whistle. How he blessed the dark night, and how he cursed the mud, for it would leave a trail, easy for the deputy marshals to follow.

It was action now, the panting engine had stopped at the water tank, the fireman had drawn down the great nozzle of the water pipe and was filling his tender. He struck the signal match across the butt of his revolver. Another instant and his men was swarming over the tender with revolvers at the heads of engineer and fireman. No time to lose. Uncouple the express car. All aboard, and the frightened engineer is compelled to run his engine five miles farther on and slow up at a creek crossing, where there are other men and horses. A demand is made of the express messenger to open his car, his answer is a bullet through the door. Then Raidler crawls under the car and begins sending Winchester bullets through the bottom of the car at random. One of the bullets strikes the brave messenger in the head. They hear him fall with a groan. Quick, the dynamite, an explosion and the door of the express car is blown open. The pockets of the dead messenger are rifled, the key to the Wells-Fargo express box is found and next the iron chest is open. No time to count the big packages of currency and sealed bags of gold now. To the horses, and then to the Glass Mountains. For this and other crimes, death or imprisonment for life now awaited him. Oh, why did he let Bill Tighlman take him single handed at Eureka Springs where he thought he was safe in masquerading as an honest farmer from Texas.

A sudden pause in his thoughts, an idea struck Doolin, people knew they had gotten over $100,000 from the express company, and that money ought to be somewhere.

Doolin took a card from his pocket and a pencil and drew a map. Walking over to the iron grating he motioned to the guard.

“My heart hurts me tonight,” he said, “and I am afraid I am going to die. I wouldn’t mind all this so much if it wasn’t for my boy with his mother over in the Osage nation, but I hate to see that boy go the way I have. If I could find a good man I’d make him my boys’ guardian and fix him for life.”

The guard stopped and came over to the iron grating.

“It is like this,” continued Doolin. “I have got $30,000 in gold for some good man who will bring that boy up in the way he should go and be a father to him, get him interested in some profession, and make a man of him. I am done for sure and I believe I am going to die tonight, oh, how my heart hurts, why not you get my money and be a father to my boy, I believe you would do the honest thing by him, then I could die easier.”

The guard looked over at his companion to see if he had heard. No, he was still reading the novel. He looked at Doolin and nodded. Then he drew close to the iron bars.

Doolin whispered, “I will trust you,” and drew from his pocket the card on which he had drawn a map.

“Now stand close,” he said, “and see if you can understand this,--here is the Bear Creek road in Pawnee county, here the ford, here a rock, ten feet to the south of this rock dig three feet and there is $30,000.”

The guard did not quite understand and drew closer to the bars and took the card.

While he was waiting, a long thin hand reached through the grating to the handle of his six shooter and in a second he was peering down the muzzle of his own revolver in the hands of Bill Doolin.

“Keep perfectly quiet,” said the outlaw, “you know me, open that bull pen door very quietly.”

The guard silently obeyed. “Step in,” said Doolin, the guard stepped inside. The next thing and he with the novel was staring into the quick blue eye of Doolin and the ugly thing he held cocked in his hand.

“This way boys,” said Doolin, and the two guards followed him to his cell. When they were inside he locked the door, then he called for their cartridge belts and the revolver, which he with the novel still had about him.

In five minutes he was inside a heavy rain coat, had the guards’ midnight lunches stored in its pockets, a heavy Winchester in his hands and a hundred rounds of ammunition belted about him. Out into the night, and on to the street where some belated revelers’ horses were tied. He gathered up the reins of a fleet mustang and mounting into the saddle--“Richard was himself again.”

* * * * *

For two years, I had been in the government secret service. I had no visible means of support except that of a newspaper correspondent. My reports for Marshal Nix’s office always went by a circuitous route, lest I be discovered, to have had my business known would have meant death. Even Marshal Nix never knew the real source of much information which reached his office.

I thought the outlaws were making a rendezvous at the little town of Ingrim, and I determined to see for myself. Going to the office of the Daily Leader, I secured a job at very poor pay to write up some towns in Oklahoma. Suddenly, under pretext of an affection in the head I became quite deaf. I knew better than go to the town of Ingrim first, lest I might excite suspicion. So I began at Tecumseh some thirty miles from Ingrim. I stayed in the town a week, solicited subscriptions and wrote up the prospects of the place, said many flattering things of the business men in my write-up, and when the papers came, I distributed them. The people were pleased with my work, but some complained at having to talk so loud to make me understand.

When I finished with Tecumseh, I rode with the mail carrier over to Ingrim. Sure enough here were my outlaws. They loafed about the only hotel and saloon, but were always on the alert. I appeared to take no notice of anything, but kept boreing people to subscribe for my paper, interviewing merchants and writing up the town. The merchants, I discovered were glad to have the outlaws there, for they spent money like water, they paid big prices for their cartridges and bought heavy supplies of canned goods, which they sent away to be cached in the woods and hills for a time of need.

One day I was sitting alone on the hotel veranda reading, when I heard a man say to another, “I am going to see if that dam cuss is deaf or not.” I heard his cat like step approaching, and then, click, click, he cocked his revolver at the back of my head.

It was a trying moment, but I did not move, I did not dare to, for had I quickly turned my head, I would have betrayed myself and lost my life.

When he was satisfied that I was deaf as a door nail, he invited me to drink. I excused myself, and I heard him tell the other man that I did not have the sense of a muskrat.

When I left town I owed the hotel man for my last days board, which I promised to send to him, I did this for effect, and went in an opposite direction from Guthrie.

Three days later and two emigrant wagons with farmer like men driving the teams came down the long red road that leads from the north into Ingrim.

An outlaw outrider saw them and rode casually down the road. He engaged the driver of the first wagon in conversation a moment, and riding to the side of the wagon he lifted the edge of the cover with his rifle, and there saw six armed deputy marshals on the hay inside. The outlaw wheeled his horse and rode furiously back to the village, waving his broad white hat as a signal.

The marshals hurried from the wagons and the battle was on.

Twenty minutes of sharp fighting and the outlaws were fleeing from the town on swift horses leaving one of their wounded behind, while the wagons that brought the marshals, carried four of their number back to Guthrie dead.

Almost at the same hour that afternoon, another tragedy was being enacted in the dark forests of the Osage Indian Nation. Deputy Heck Thomas had tracked Bill Doolin to his lair. He was sleeping under a rude shelter of branches in the forest, when the breaking of a twig awoke him. He saw Heck Thomas alone; not fifty feet away, and knew it was a duel to the death.

Leaping behind a barricade of logs he opened fire on Thomas who had sought the shelter of a tree. The duel lasted an hour, each jeering the other. Thomas held his hat to one side of the tree and when Doolin sent a bullet through it, he sank apparently helpless to the ground. A long silence followed. Doolin again jeered the marshal. There was no answer. He came from behind his barricade to see the effect of his shot, and received a bullet through the brain.

It is worthy of mention here that when a company of Rough Riders for the Spanish war was organized in Oklahoma, a son of Marshal Tighlman and a son of Heck Thomas were among the first to enlist, and afterwards stormed the heights of San Juan hill with Colonel Roosevelt.

XVI.

A NEW LAND OF CANAAN.

It was September of 1893. The Cherokee Strip, a large area of country in the Indian Territory, was about to be offered for settlement.

Guthrie, Oklahoma, was at this time filled with homeseekers who were camped about on vacant lots, in their wagons. They were men of good intentions. There was also a horde of gamblers and petty thieves who swarmed like ravening wolves scenting their prey. Saloons and gambling houses were open day and night, and many a poor fellow fell into the hands of these legalized bandits--to awaken from the effects of drugged liquor and find themselves robbed of every dollar they possessed, and their families without a day’s provisions ahead.

Never was there an American town where morals were at a lower ebb than Guthrie was at that time. Street quarrels were frequent, and men shot each other down in cold blood for trivial offenses. There were contests over claims in Oklahoma proper, and it was no uncommon thing for a witness to be shot down after he had finished testifying in the land office. Or perhaps he was called to his door at midnight to stop a bullet, or was shot through a window while sitting at home with his family.

Highway robbery, burglary, thieving, perjury, gambling and whisky-drinking ran riot. Courtesans and harlots, with painted faces and tinseled dresses, plied their arts of conquest in open day; while city officials, not to be outdone in the practices of the hour, took all manner of bribes from all manner of men. This state of immorality generated a stench over the town that all the perfume of Arabia the Blest could not sweeten.

The Dalton gang of bandits was robbing Santa Fe trains in the Cherokee Strip, while more than one hundred and fifty United States marshals were searching for outlaws. When one was found, however, he was usually shot first and the warrant for his arrest read to the corpse.

The men assembled at Guthrie at this time were from all quarters of the United States, and represented almost every nationality. As one rider dashed up the street on a very fine horse, a gust of wind lifted his sombrero and landed it near where I stood. I picked it up and was in the act of handing it to him when he exclaimed: “Hello, Bob, you here!”

“Yes,” I replied, scanning his face for an instant before recognizing him. Then the face came back to me with pleasant memories. He was my old friend--Mark Witherspoon. The reunion was, indeed, pleasant to both of us, and it was late that night before we retired to our respective abodes.

Mark had jostled about from pillar to post, in all parts of the world; he had been in the mining camps of Australia and on the Rand in South Africa; he had grown rich several times and lost all again and again, and now he wanted an Oklahoma farm where, he concluded, he would settle down and live quietly. Just as though wild and impulsive natures like his could ever be content with a simple farming life. We agreed to make the run together and, if possible locate our farms beside each other.

When the opening day came, a blazing southern sun beat down upon the heads of more than one hundred thousand men drawn upon the line that marked the border of the new El Dorado. Most of the country on the southern border lay in high ridges, or in valleys and deep ravines, which, in some places, were 100 feet in depth, with precipitous ledges of rock on either side. The country was but sparsely covered with timber and nearly void of water at this season of the year. The few streams were impregnated with a mineral poison which had an evil effect for a long time on the systems of those who drank the water. Yet these men--many of whom had pioneered the plains of Nebraska and Kansas--were forced, by the conditions of the times, to seek new homes in this wild waste. For more than a year, more than 20,000 families had lived like rats in dugouts along the banks of the Arkansas River, to the north. To say they lived is a mistake--they only existed. Parched corn and potatoes comprised the daily diet of hundreds. The winter of 1892 had been unusually severe for that section, and scant clothing and a lack of fuel added to the bitter suffering, while innumerable mounds of yellow earth stood silent monuments to those who braved the vicissitudes of the frontier in the hope of gaining homes.

In this new promised land there were some seventy Indian allotments to be made. These were located by government officials near townsites, for personal selfish purposes.

Then came an order from the Secretary of the Interior that all who would file on lands must register. That caused men to form in ranks miles long, to await their turn to register. It caused delay, and filled the pockets of government officials who, for pay, gave preference to the men of money. For days these men stood in line--a blazing sun above, and treeless, waterless plains about. Many sickened and were carried away to die, and, when the merciful night came, the others lay down on the bare, hard ground, to dream of happy homes--and shiver in the chill autumn darkness. The towns were platted by government employees. These plats contained false reservations for parks, and were sold to the men in line at a dollar each.

When we reached the line, a mighty caravan was there waiting, stretching as far as the eye could see, east and west, to the dim horizon on either side. Men were there with their families; in white covered wagons, in light running rigs and on horseback. Among them were the broad-hatted, swarthy fellows from the pampas and chaparalls of Texas. They were there from the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. Old soldiers in the tattered blue of the Grand Army of the Republic were among the strugglers for homes. Just in front of all was another line, composed of the troops who were there to see that all kept back of the starting mark until the signal should be given. The gleam of the rifle could be seen in both lines. It was a thrilling scene; one upon which no man could look without mingled feelings of admiration and pity.

The signal for many to start to the eternal promised land came as the weary hours wore along. Worn with fatigue and exposure, and fainting from sunstroke and thirst, many fell from frantic horses that went dashing riderless over the plains. An officer rode down the line and halted near the railroad tracks. It was near noon, and an eager man took the action as a signal. There was a flash, a report. The man lay still in the sun-baked dust; a drunken soldier had taken a life and desolated a home. Some revolvers gleamed in the hands of angry Texans and in another moment the soldier lay writhing in the dust.

Just then an officer waved his sabre and the signal guns boomed down the line. Like a mighty tidal wave the dense mass of men, horses and wagons swayed for an instant and then went on with a rush. There were cries and shouts--and oaths and blasphemy from the drunken soldiers. The noise of rumbling wagons and the clatter of horses’ hoofs sounded like the distant roar of cannonading. On surged the swaying line, horsemen dashing out in front here and there. Every little distance was to be found the wreck of a wagon that had been crushed in the rush. Other wagons were stalled in ravines, horses dropped from exhaustion, throwing their riders, who lay in gullies or on the rocky sides of the mountain ridges, with mangled limbs, begging for a drop of water. But the mad fever of the rush was on all and little heed was paid to suffering.

Our horses were in fine condition and were fleet of foot and ere long we were in the lead, in a wild race with the wind. We sighted a stream of clear running water, whose banks were fringed with trees, and a valley which stretched out for miles to the north. We reached a grove and found the cornerstone that marked the dividing line of two sections. We fired our Winchesters as a signal to the others that those claims were taken, and immediately commenced throwing up earth to show that improvements were under way. Then, tired out with the excitement of the day, we sat down under the trees to rest and talk it all over, and, in the late afternoon, fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

It was dark when Mark suddenly awoke and aroused me with the shout: “Get up, for your life, get up! The plains are on fire!”

I was on my feet in an instant. The southern sky was aglow. Great tongues of flame were leaping through the inky blackness of the night, with a hiss and roar that sounded like the coming of a storm. We hurriedly mounted our frantic horses and rode swiftly into the northern darkness--whither, we knew not; our only thought was to distance the fire far enough to give us a chance to burn a space about us and thus find safety.

Suddenly I felt a falling sensation. Then there were pains in my head and mysterious, dreadful aches in my legs. Visions flitted before apparently unseeing eyes and at last I came to realize that I was lying on a cot in a tent. Mark came in and I asked him where I was.

“Never mind now,” he said gently. Tomorrow came, and the next day, and still another, but Mark remained silent. Gradually my mind became normal and I distinctly recalled the last moments of consciousness; the prairie fire, the wild ride to safety. Mark then added the closing chapter. My horse had plunged into a rocky canon, fully 20 feet in depth. His horse had scented the danger and had reared, saving him from my fate. He back-fired the grass, and, in its light, saw me lying at the bottom of the canon. Tenderly he cared for me during the night and in the morning got a doctor, who set the broken limb, and here I was convalescing.

XVII.

TOLD AROUND THE CAMPFIRE.

“You knew Cora Belle Fellows, that white girl at Cheyenne Agency, South Dakota, who married a buck Indian, eh, Bill?”

“Yep,” Bill Hawkins answered, “and I know what the results were, too.

“About a year after she had left a fashionable seminary in New York state and came among the redskins to teach them manners and the like, she surprised and shocked everybody by announcing her marriage to Chaska, a full blood Sioux, twenty-one years of age. Then her troubles began. She was frowned upon by both whites and Indians. She went with Chaska to his tepee and lived upon the coarse chuck furnished by Uncle Sam.

“Her escapade was commented upon by all the newspapers of the country at the time, and a museum man of Chicago induced her and Chaska to place themselves upon exhibition. For two years she was inspected by the public, which in the meantime had made her presents until she had a carload of furniture.

“Then she concluded to go back to the Agency and make a farmer out of Chaska, and so with the money earned in the museum, she and her Indian lord returned. She purchased land some miles from the Agency and built a house.

“The agent and myself rode out there about six months after they had gone to housekeeping. We were both curious to know how they were getting along.

“It was a sight for your whiskers. Outside sat nearly all her furniture. The covers of plush had been ripped off for Indian horse trappings, the wood was stained and weather cracked.

“The house was without doors, worn blankets being hung instead. The floors were cold and bare. In a corner upon an old mattress lay Cora Belle Fellows or Mrs. Chaska. An old squaw sat by her side, crooning some lingo over her new born kid. She did not want to talk and we went away. Chaska soon after left her and took a wife from his own tribe, leaving her to live in a tepee about the Agency like any other squaw, feeding on Uncle Sam’s grub.

“You might as well have tried to shove butter down a wildcat’s neck with a hot awl as to have tried to talk that gal out of marrying the buck.”

“Marrying is bad business, anyway, unless they are both hooked up right,” observed the cook. “There is old Ben Berkley living over on the Cottonwood. He was pretty well fixed before he married that widder. She was a spiritualist or something of the sort, and used to go off in trances and have white lights coming around until she scared old Ben nearly to death. She was always running over the country telling people’s future and leaving Ben at home to cook. He took to drinking and one day got the D. T.’s and thought a freight engine was chasing him up and down the alleys of the town, and he finally crawled under a barn to keep out of its way, when the boys rescued him. After that he would not drink any more, but poured the licker in his boots and would get as full as a tick by absorption.

“His wife had brought to the ranch a measley water Spaniel, which Ben used to amuse himself with by throwing cobs and sticks into the river and teaching the dog to swim in and get them and bring them back to him, not thinking of the great blessing it was finally to be to him.

“Ben had been blasting out a hole for a cyclone cellar with sticks of gun-cotton, when his wife took it into her head that she wanted a mess of fish.

“‘No time to fish,’ said Ben. ‘Take a stick of that dynamite and go down to the creek where the water is still and blow out a mess for yourself.’