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 extent beyond his own seeking in this county seat fight. While serving as an officer of the peace, he was shot and left for dead. No story can 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 southwestern Kansas, in what was later to be known as Stevens county, then a remote and apparently unattractive region. In 1885 a syndicate of citizens of McPherson, Kansas, had been formed for the purpose of starting a new town in southwestern Kansas. The members were leading 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. Chamberlain, J. W. Calvert, John Robertson, and 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 householders. 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 Hugoton—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 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 certain 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 conception 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 Hugoton 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 Woodsdale 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 together 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 purpose of a friendly buffalo hunt.' It was the intention 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 accidentally killed in the buffalo chase. This strange 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. Aubrey, 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 Hugoton 'posse.' The latter were taken to Garden City, and here the law was in turn set at defiance 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 organized and the Hugoton 'pull' was in the ascendency. 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. 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 expected 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 community, had slated John M. Cross as his candidate for sheriff. A rival for the nomination was Sam Robinson, who owned the hotel at Woodsdale, 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 Robinson in the position of holding real estate in Woodsdale without owning the improvements on it. Hence when the town-site commissioners 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. Hugoton bought other property of Woodsdale malcontents, leaving the buildings standing at Woodsdale and taking the citizens to themselves. The Hugoton men put up as their candidate one Dalton, and declared him elected. Wood contested the election, and finally succeeded in getting his man Cross declared as sheriff of Stevens county.

"It was now proposed to issue bonds for a 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 discussion over this bond election, Robinson got into trouble with the new sheriff, in which Robinson 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.[I] He went to Hugoton to arrest Robinson, and there was a shooting affair, in which the citizens of Hugoton protected their man. The Woodsdale town marshal, however, still retained his warrant and cherished his purpose of arresting his man.

[Footnote I: 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.]

"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 children. 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 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, Rolland 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 latter reached Springfield, Seward county, unharmed.

"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. Calvert, J. B. Chamberlain, John Jackson, John A. Rutter, Fred Brewer, William Clark, and a 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 moonrise, we came to a place in the Neutral Strip known as the 'Hay Meadows,' 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 repicketing him. I had not been lying down more than twenty minutes, when we were surprised by the 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 explained 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.

"'I know better,' reiterated Robinson. The others stood free at that moment, and Robinson 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, Hubbard 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 executioner, J. B. Chamberlain, chairman of the board of county commissioners of Stevens county, and always prominent in Hugoton matters. 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 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, indeed, 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 present listening and seeing.

"Eaton had now got out of the wagon, and he started to run towards the horses. Robinson and one or two others now turned and pursued 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 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 victims 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 apparently 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; I gave him a center shot. I don't need shoot a man twice at that distance.' Either Chamberlain 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 company.

"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 horse. It was hard for me to get into the saddle, 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 circumstances. Now, it seemed to me that he knew my plight. It is certain that at that time and afterwards he was perfectly quiet and gentle, even when I laboriously tried to get into the saddle.

"At a little distance, there was a buffalo wallow, 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 foregoing facts. Of course, we might expect a Hugoton 'posse' at any time. As a matter of fact, the same crowd who did the killing (fifteen 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.

"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 attorney, William O'Connor, made a speech, demanding 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 second night after the massacre I was taken to Woodsdale by about twenty of the Woodsdale boys, who came after me. We arrived at Woodsdale about daybreak next morning. In our night trip we could see the skyrocket signals 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 established for sharp-shooters. Guards were thrown out all around the town, and mounted scouts continued to scour the country. Hugoton, expecting that Woodsdale would make an organized attack in retaliation, was quite as fully fortified in every way. Had there been a determined 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 investigations, 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 continued to break the law—in short, agreed jointly 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, 1891, 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 number 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 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. Carpenter, smiling and apparently pleasant. Colonel Wood turned and came down towards the door, again passing close to Brennan but not speaking to him. He was almost upon the point of climbing to his seat in the buggy, when Brennan, 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 followed 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 murdered man fell heavily, literally in his wife's arms, and for the moment it was thought both were killed. Brennan drew a second revolver, 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 Theodosius Botkin, a figure of peculiar eminence in Kansas at that time. Botkin gave Brennan into the custody of the sheriff of Morton 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 impossible 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 Kansas, and was a good type of the early and adventurous pioneer.

"Whether or not suspicion attached to Judge Botkin for his conduct in this matter, he himself 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, 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 Botkin was warned by some friend. He sent out Sam Dunn, sheriff of Seward county, to discover 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 evasion, in this portion of the frontier. Judge Botkin 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 endure. 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 inhabitants of the two warring settlements wandering out over the world. The legislature, hoodwinked or cajoled heretofore, at length disorganized 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 attempting to kill myself in the Hay Meadow butchery was one which reached a considerable importance at the time. The crimes were committed 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 indictments against them. There were tried the Cooks, Chamberlain, Robinson and others of the Hugoton party, and of these six were convicted 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 undertaking. 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 remanded the cases. The men were never put on trial again, except that, in 1898, Sam Robinson, meantime pardoned out of the penitentiary in Colorado, where he had been sent for robbing the United States mails at Florissant, Colorado, returned to Texas, and was arrested on the old charge. The men convicted were C. E. Cook, Orrin Cook, Cyrus C. Freese, John Lawrence 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. Congressman 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 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 absolute 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 revenge was there. I did not take it. Chamberlain 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, who was much alarmed lest the cases might be reinstated in the year 1898, claims Quincy, Illinois, 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 whereabouts is unknown, will never be brought to trial for his deeds in the Hay Meadow butchery. He was not tried at Paris, being then in the Colorado penitentiary. His friend and partner, Bert Nobel, who was sent to the penitentiary 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."



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 touchiness. Some of the most desperate outlaws 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 white men who took naturally to the gun.

By all means the most prominent figure in the general fighting along the Southwestern 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 Coffeyville, on the border of the Indian Nations, in 1862, where soon after he died, leaving a widow and two sons. Mrs. Bonney again moved, this time to Colorado, where she married 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 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 attempted to horsewhip Billy. The boy turned up with a companion at Fort Bowie, Pima county, Arizona, and was around the reservation 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 inevitable gambler's quarrel, he killed another man. He fled across the line now into old Mexico, where, in the state of Sonora, he 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 dangerous, and his life had been one of irresponsibility 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 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 Mesilla 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 mountains, 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 point of killing him for a real or fancied grievance. 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 associates. Tunstall was killed by the Murphy faction 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 Indians 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 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 contemplation, for that was far from any settlements. Apologists of the Kid say that Morton and Baker "tried to escape," and that the Kid followed and killed them. The truth in all probability 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 assertion 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 1, 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 big fight in Lincoln was over, and the McSween 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, indeed, 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, Bernstein, August 5, 1878, on a horse-stealing expedition, 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 outlaws, 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 O'Folliard, Hendry Brown and Jack Middleton. 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 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 encounter, 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 precaution to set the hammer of the latter's revolver 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 Rudabaugh, 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 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 distributed 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 were Hudgens and his brother, Johnny Hudgens, 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 latter 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 directions. 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 country, 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 Stewart, 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. 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, 1881, he was convicted under this charge and sentenced to be hanged at Lincoln on May 13, 1881. 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 guard for the three weeks or so before his execution, 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. Ollinger 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, 1881, 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 window, later drawing Bell's revolver from its scabbard and killing him with it. This story 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, lodging 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 circumstances.

The Kid now sprang into the next room and caught up Ollinger's heavy shotgun, loaded with the very shells Ollinger had charged for him. He saw Ollinger coming across the street, and just as he got below the window at the corner of the building the Kid leaned over and 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 approach, 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 bystander 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 furnished 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 Sumner. 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 Maxwell's bedside.

Billy the Kid had very many actual friends, whom he won by his pleasant and cheerful manners and his liberality, when he had anything with which to be liberal, although that was not often. He was very popular among the Mexicans 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 is twenty-one, and the Kid is said to have declared he wanted to kill two more—Bob Ollinger 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 1860 to 1880, probably held more desperate and dangerous 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 inhabitants of that time had come thither to escape courts and officers. This environment which produced Billy the Kid brought out others 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 overbearing, very noisy and obnoxious, the sort of desperado who makes unarmed men beg and compels "tenderfeet" to dance for his amusement. 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 Socorro. He was arrested for killing his own ranch foreman, Jack Cale, a man who had befriended 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 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 expensive 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 section 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 railway tracks. The usual story says that Fowler 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 desirable. 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 shooting 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 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 jurisdiction, 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 Texarkana 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.

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 Ruidoso, twenty miles or so from Lincoln; but few of these restless characters 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 practicer 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 Capitans, 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 Chisum as a hired man. Baker was said to be connected with a good family in Virginia, who looked up the facts of his death.

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 killing the cashier.

Johnny Hurley was a brave young man, as brave as a lion. 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 Mexican 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.

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 Lincoln county, died February 8, 1904, at Roswell, where he lived for a long time. Lea was said to have been a Quantrell man in the Lawrence massacre. Much of the population of that region had a history that was never written. 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 Wilson was a gentlemanly and good-looking young fellow, who ran with Billy the Kid's gang. Wilson was arrested on a United States warrant, 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 another 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 replied 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 endeavor 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 possession of this officer, in his office in a Rio Grande 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, without 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 incident like this.

Tom O'Folliard was another noted character. 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 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. Being 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 lives. Lawlessness is sometimes less a matter of temperament than of surroundings.



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 perhaps 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 history of their own past. He came West from Texas, but it is thought that he was born farther east than the Lone Star state. He was long in the United States army, where he reached the rank of sergeant before his discharge; after which he lingered on the frontier, 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 "Buckshot" 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 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 purpose of killing Billy the Kid, and getting the reward which was offered for him. These latter things are unlikely. The probable truth is that he, being a brave man, though fully determined 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 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 Middleton, 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 constable."

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 Frank Coe. He stood near the door, outside the house. Then, as it is told by Johnnie Patten, 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 corner 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 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 Roberts was doing. His eyes were barely visible 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 coffin, 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 accuracy. 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 separately, but side by side, Brewer to the right of 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.



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 Frontier Sheriff.

The deeds of the Western sheriff have for the most part gone unchronicled, or have luridly been set forth in fiction as incidents of blood, interesting only because 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 typical 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 government, 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 Claiborne 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 management; 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 Garrett, 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.

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 Denison. 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, leaving 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, 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, perfectly 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 saying, he arose and started up stream himself.

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 you've got here," answered Garrett, 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 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 outlaws 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 sometimes Garrett arrested a bad man and got his warrant for it later, when he went to the settlements. He found a straight six-shooter the best sort of warrant, and in effect he took the matter of establishing a government in southwestern New Mexico in his own hands, and did it in his own way. He was the whole machinery of the law. Sometimes he boarded his prisoners 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, Garrett ranched it for a time. In 1884, his reputation 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; 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 revolutionized 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 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 Garrett, 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 reservation, 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, 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 movements.

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 shooting from the saddle at two or three hundred yards range, so neither man was hit. O'Folliard 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 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 ranchman 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 to the ridge on which the fortress of the outlaws 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 morning, 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, shooting 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 door. Pickett now told the gang to surrender. "That fellow will kill every man that shows outside 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 prisoners 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 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 we've done it I'll go back to my seat and you can put the irons on again. You've 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 reminiscently of the bloody scenes as we lately visited 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 '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 unwatered, 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 Maxwell'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 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 McKinney 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 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 before, 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 Mexican, and concluded to go over and cut himself off a piece of meat from the quarter at Maxwell'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.