It resulted further in a definite plan by Bill McDonald for the discouragement of cattle stealing inthe Territory, and for the capture of the most actively engaged in that industry. As set down in a foregoing chapter, the outlaws in the Cherokee Strip were not likely to be congregated in a single rendezvous, as had been the case in No-man's Land, but were scattered as individual squatters through neighborhoods more or less friendly to their business, or at least not bold enough openly to oppose it. Indeed, the back country was very sparsely settled, and the Indians and half-breed whites and negroes were not especially interested in law and order, even where they were not directly concerned in opposing these things. Along the rivers—the Cimmaron, the Canadian, the Washita and the North Fork of the Red River, the country was rugged, and the hiding places for plunder were good. The prairies were nice and level with fine land and plentiful grass. White men had no legal right of residence there, except where they were intermarried with the Indians, and those who acquired citizenship in this manner were not likely to be any more desirable than those others whose occupation was itself an infringement on the law.
"Did they raise anything there, Bill?" McDonald was asked in discussing the conditions, long afterward.
"Just raised hell!" the old Ranger answered drily.
Nearly all, however, made a pretense of agricultural employments; for after all, the country, unlike No-man's Land, was really under a regular form of government; legitimate settlement was considerable, and there was a semblance, at least, of law and order. Also, there were towns of considerable size, and railroads—the latter affording liberal returns now and then when some train was waited upon in a lonely place and the express messengers, mail agents and passengers were invited at the point of six-shooters to contribute to a highway development fund. The writer of these chapters was himself a resident of Kansas during this earlier period, and he recalls now what an uninteresting month it was when an M.K. & T. or Santa Fe or Rock Island train did not come up out of the Territory with passengers telegraphing home for money and the express and mail cars full of bullet holes.
Bill McDonald decided to break up this sort of thing, and set about it in a way suggested by his own peculiar genius. It was necessary first to identify the men who were really concerned in these various employments, for in a country where all were "settlers," even if unofficial ones, it was not worth while working at hap-hazard and bothering men whose only offense might be that of squatting. Investigation must be conducted openly and yet in a way to avoid suspicion. His gentle manner and seemingly inoffensive personality suited him for just such an undertaking, and he prepared and "made up" carefully for the part.
Returning to Quanah and Wanderer's Creek, hebought a "paint horse" (a spotted pony); an old tenderfoot saddle, such as a plainsman would never use, and a book with pretty pictures of fruit in it—a regular nurseryman's plate-book—the kind of a book fruit-tree salesmen always carry. Then dressed as unlike an officer, or a cow-man, or a Texan as possible, with these properties he set out—to all appearances a genial, garrulous, easy-going tree-man, inviting orders and confidences—willing to sit around all day and whittle and swap knives and yarns, and to express any kind of interest or sympathy necessary to encourage a man to tell his business ventures and those of his neighbors.
It was a pleasant excursion, enough. No fruit-tree man had been through that section before—none ever had dared, or perhaps thought it worth while, to go. McDonald's excursion proved that profit awaited the seller of trees who should first make that wilderness his territory. He had expected not much in the way of sales, for he did not imagine that men engaged in driving off and slaughtering other men's cattle, and in waylaying trains and robbing banks would have any special taste for horticulture. This was an error of judgment. Most of these bad men had been fairly good boys at home at some time in the past, and the sight of those luminous plates presenting fruit of extravagant size and coloring, made their mouths fairly water at the thought of its cultivation by the doorway of their own dug-outs or sod houses or log cabins. Theyturned the pages lovingly, and lingered over the wonderful plums and pears and peaches, and as they turned they talked and somehow almost without realizing it they told a great many things about themselves and neighbors which no well-trained and properly constructed outlaw should tell, even to a sympathetic and simple-hearted fruit-tree man who wrote down the orders and listened and chuckled at some of the yarns, while he encouraged further confidences.
He would drift around presently to his customer's former place of residence, and to the reason for his leaving. It was easy enough for an alert tree-man to detect a lack of complete frankness in the replies, especially if the reason had "something about a cow or horse" in it, that being the usual first admission that the isolation of the Strip had been found congenial for other reasons than those connected with its soil and climate. The tree-man did not hesitate to give a generous return for any such confidences, inventing on the spot some of his own for the purpose. The number and character of crimes he confessed to having been accused of in the States would be worth recording in this history if they could be remembered now. But, alas, like other gay bubbles, they were blown only to charm for the moment, and once vanished cannot be recalled. The tree-man would then fall to abusing laws in general and the men who enforced them, and end by declaring that he was mightily in love with that particularsection and would stay where there was little or no chance of meeting any of those obnoxious officials, if the boys would consider him one of them and all stand together in time of trouble. Talk like this would open the door for anything. The rest of the interview was likely to run something as follows:
Picture: Two men seated on a log, or down on the grass cowboy style, in front of a dug-out; one the slim, mild-looking tree-man; the other a burly person, very dirty, hairy and unkempt, bent over a large book of gay pictures which the tree-man leans forward to explain. Nearby, two horses are grazing, the "paint-hoss" with the old tenderfoot saddle and saddle-bags; the other a very good looking animal, often saddled and bridled for prompt use.
"By gum," nods the big burly individual, staring at a picture of such peaches as grow only in paradise, "eating peaches like them would be like holdin' up the Santa Fe express."
"That's what," assents the salesman gayly, "regular picnic all the time. I s'pose you fellers in here have money to throw at the birds after that kind of a job."
"Well, not so much after all. Too many have to have a piece out of it. Everybody wants to help. It has to be a pretty big basket of money to cut in two more'n twice and leave enough to pay."
The salesman shows a sympathetic interest.
"Of course," he agrees, "it's too bad to spoil agood bunch of money by making little piles of it. I guess you have to have a good many though for a job like that."
"No, twocando it, an' there ain't no need of more'n three. One to take care of the engineer, another to pull down on the passengers and the other man to go through 'em. It's plum easy. They give up like sinners at a camp-meetin', and the messengers and mail fellers come down pretty easy, too. If they don't we put a few shots through their cars and that fetches 'em."
"But you had to kill the messenger in that Rock Island job, last fall."
"Well, I wasn't in that mess—that was another outfit. Them boys are huntin' trouble and 'll find it some day, good an' plenty. When I put a job through, the' ain't nobody going to get killed unless they commit reg'lar suicide. You ought to come down here an' go in withme. You've got a persuadin' way about you that would make a man give up anything he had and thank you for takin' it. It 'ud pay yeh better, I reckon, than ridin' a paint-hoss over the country, peddlin' trees. That reminds me—you c'n give me six o' them peaches, an' a few o' them pears an' plums an' a couple o' cherry-trees and some grape-vines—the big yaller ones—Niagaries, I think you said they was."
And this was the drift of more than one conversation between the Cherokee agriculturists and the genial tree-man who certainly did have a "persuadin' way" in making a man give up anything he had, in the way of information. No one could dream that this inoffensive mild-eyed pilgrim on a paint-hoss could ever make trouble in that wilderness of lawless living and of desperate men.
So for several weeks the tree-man on his paint-horse with his old tenderfoot saddle and his picture-book loitered up through the Strip and on over into the Territory, on the surface taking orders for spring delivery, and beneath it all locating the different communities of offenders; the individuals of the same; stolen cattle and horses, and securing data of particular crimes. He ended his canvass at Guthrie, a busy frontier point on the Santa Fe, with twenty-five hundred dollars worth of orders for trees—trees which might be bearing to this day if the spring deliveries had been made as planned.
XIV
The Day for "Deliveries"
THE TREE-MAN TURNS OFFICER AND SINGLE-HANDED WIPES OUT A BAD GANG
ButMcDonald was ready now for deliveries of a different sort—deliveries of the purchasers themselves, into the hands of the law. As a preliminary step he swore out warrants for eight men—the chief operators in a very bad community located along a small creek between Guthrie and Kingfisher—about fifteen miles west of the latter. He then went with his warrants to a deputy marshal at Guthrie and invited his co-operation in making the arrests. The Guthrie deputy looked at him with curiosity, wondering perhaps if this circuit-riding Texas person was in his right mind. Clearly the fame of Bill McDonald had not yet penetrated into darkest Oklahoma. Then, when he had looked over Bill Jess's credentials, and perhaps felt his pulse, he said:
"If you can get a company of soldiers to go along I might undertake that job with you. You don't know that Sand Creek crowd—I do. No two men nor ten men could go up against that outfit and get back alive. Bring a company of regulars over here, if you want to undertake that campaign."
McDonald argued, and related what he had done in No-man's Land, but to no purpose. A sudden charge might work, over there, the deputy said, where the gangs were bunched, and were surprised before they were awake enough to fight. But it was different over here. The bad men were scattered a mile or so apart and while you might get the drop on one, there 'd be a lot more left to get the drop on you, and you'd be full of lead before sunrise. No-siree, nothing less than soldiers, and plenty of them, would do that job.
McDonald went about the town trying to enlist volunteers. He realized that a scattered gang would require time to corral, and that its members would be likely to be awake and busy, before he got them all in. He did not want a company of soldiers, for such a force would scare the gang and accomplish nothing; but he did want a few quick fearless men for this work. Finally he wired U.S. Marshal Walker at Topeka, Kansas, to come on first train. Walker came, and McDonald explained the situation.
"I've got these men located, and warrants for their arrest," he said, "and now I can't get your deputies or anybody else to give me a hand on the job. It ain't just the sort of a thing I want to do alone, for we ought to get to several of these men's houses simultaneous like, an' I thought you might be able to persuade these boys to come along."
"Certainly," said Walker, "that's all right—they don't know who you are. I'm satisfied fromwhat U.S. Marshal Knight, of Dallas, has written me that you know what you want to do, and how to go at it. I'll get the men together and explain the situation."
They collected about a dozen deputies and posse-men, and Walker explained as agreed. It was no use. The men declared that no small force could go into the Sand Creek neighborhood and come out alive, and nothing short of a squad of trained soldiers would be of any use. McDonald looked them over scornfully. Then he turned to Walker.
"If I had as sorry a lot of men as that," he said, "I'd discharge them on the spot. I'll go out there alone, if I can get a man with nerve enough to drive a hack, and I'll bring back a load of criminals, too."
This was regarded as a bluff. Walker returned to Topeka, and Bill McDonald's fruit-tree expedition began to look like a failure. McDonald, however, was not the sort of a person to whom the words "bluff" and "failure" were likely to apply. He discovered a man presently who agreed to drive a hack, provided he would be asked to do no fighting, and would be allowed to remain out of range.
"If you ever get 'em to the hack and tied, I'll haul 'em," he said, but it was clear that he expected to haul home a dead deputy marshal, instead.
They set out long before daybreak, next morning, with a big three-seater—McDonald with an extra horse—and drove to the home of what was considered the most desperate of the Sand Creek gang—a very hard looking customer who lived with his wife in a dug-out in a small clearing. When they had arrived within about two hundred yards of the place, the driver declared that he was satisfied with his position and did not think it necessary by the terms of his contract to go any closer. It was full early, barely daybreak, and everything was very still. McDonald lost no time, therefore, for a whinny of the horses might rouse the occupants of the dug-out, and with his Winchester cocked stepped across the little clearing and without ceremony pushed open the door. As he did so a woman stepped directly in front of him, calling out a warning to some one behind her. In the dimness of the place McDonald saw a man on a bed in the corner reaching for a gun which lay on the mattress near him. It was no time for manners. With a quick sweep of his gun the officer pushed the woman aside and covered the man on the bed, before he could bring his weapon to bear.
"Drop it," he said. "Drop it or you're a dead man!"
There was no mistaking the sincerity of that order. The mild fruit-tree peddler, was merged completely into the resolute officer with eyes of steel and a crisp voice that uttered words of unmistakable meaning. The gun fell upon the bed. McDonald stepped forward and slipping hand-cuffs on his prisoner, ordered him to start for the hack and to make no suspicious movements. Arriving at theawaiting vehicle he invited him to step in and be shackled.
"First delivery," he said to the astonished driver. "We'll go on now and make the rest."
The next hut was perhaps a mile further along, and the sun was getting up when they arrived. As they approached, they saw the occupant standing in the doorway. He saw them about the same time, and suspected trouble. His horse was hitched to a mesquite tree, and making for it he mounted and fled. McDonald was mounted also and gave chase. The race continued for perhaps half a mile when the officer realized that his man had the better horse and would presently get into the brakes and escape. He dismounted quickly, therefore, and taking careful aim began to shoot at the ground near the flying horse in such a manner that the bullet striking the earth would go singing by, very close to the ears of the fugitive. He had long since discovered that a bullet singing in that way, close to a man's ears has an impressive and convincing sound. A man hearing a bullet sing by like that would be willing to bet any reasonable sum that the next one would hit him, especially when the command, "Halt! or I'll get you, next time," came with it. With the second shot the disturbed rider brought his horse up suddenly, dismounted and made motions of surrender. McDonald signaled him to approach, still keeping him covered. He came up in good order, and was marched toward the hack, the driver of whichheaded in that direction, now that the danger was over.
It was thought that the sound of the shooting might have aroused the neighborhood by this time, and the thief-hunters worked more cautiously. There was no need, however. Gun-fire was of too frequent occurrence to create alarm in that locality, and the sense of immunity from the law had become too chronic to be lightly disturbed. The desperadoes had been left unmolested so long that they had become established in their security and careless of intrusion. Two men were at breakfast at the next place, and deputy Bill's Winchester covered them before they fairly realized that they had a morning visitor. These two were hand-cuffed together and marched to the hack. The driver by this time had picked up a good deal of courage and remained only a few yards behind. As for the outlaws, they were inclined to be sociable, and with the true Western American spirit discerned a certain humor in the situation.
"Hello, Jim, you been buying fruit trees too?" was the greeting of one of the men already loaded as the hand-cuffed pair came in. "What did you get, peaches or pears?"
"You go to hell, will you? You'll get a tree with a rope on it before you get out of this mess."
"That's all right—you must have bought sour grapes, I reckon, the way you talk."
"No, his got frost-bit. They'll be all right in thespring. My apples got a little case of dry-rot, too. I wonder how Buck Dillon 'll like them blue plums o' his'n."
McDonald, always good-natured with his prisoners, joined in the bantering.
"I'm delivering," he said, "I brought in a nice pair, this time," as he loaded his double capture into the hack. Truly no situation can entirely destroy the breezy Western point of view.
The next house lay across quite a stretch of prairie and the hack and its contents were discovered before the approach was near enough for effective action. McDonald on horseback immediately charged, but the outlaw suspected the nature of his visitor and mounting his horse raced away, emptying his six-shooter at his pursuer. Riding, and shooting backward disturbed his aim and his bullets flew wild. McDonald also began shooting, to bring him to a halt, not to kill. As the outlaw uncased his Winchester, however, the officer decided that it was time to bring matters to a focus. Dropping to the ground he knelt and set some bullets singing close to the ear of the fugitive. At first this only had the effect of making him sink his spurs into the pony, but at the third crack of the gun and just as Deputy Bill was taking careful aim for a shot that would be likely to save the cost of prosecution the rider dropped his gun back into the scabbard, and leaped to the ground.
"Well, you've got me," he called as he came up.
"Hello, Joe, what you been buyin'? Prickly pears I reckon," was the greeting from the hack as he came nearer—the latter half of the remark due to a trickle of blood on the man's ear where the last bullet had sung its warning song a trifle too close.
"Must a struck a stone and glanced a little," commented Bill Jess as he looked at it. "I aim to make 'em miss just about three inches. They sing nicer when they don't really hit. That either glanced off of a stone or else it's mighty sorry shooting. Dad-slap it, that sorter makes me ashamed of myself. Oh, well, get in an' make yourself comfortable. I want to get along."
The boy who had been "born with a gun in his hand" as we say, and could pick cherries with a rifle was humiliated by anything that resembled bad marksmanship. Still, it was good enough under the circumstances, and was justified by the result.
That was a busy day. His favorite hour for working (daybreak) was over, now, but matters were going too well to knock off on that account. There were at least three more of this gang, and he would get as many as he could.
He got them all in fact, and one extra—a bad man who happened to be visiting his brother at a bad time. The houses being a good way apart, and the work being done rapidly and with such system and neatness, the alarm had no time to spread. Deputy Bill knew the exact location of each house and of course used more caution in making the approachesas the day advanced. He stalked his game like the true hunter that he was, creeping up unnoticed until he had it covered, keeping the hack well out of view, though by this time the driver had lost all concern, except that of eagerness to see the fun, and was disappointed as were the captured fruit-tree buyers when kept out of view.
The hack went into Kingfisher next morning with every seat full and the driver sitting on the knees of two prisoners. The Sand Creek gang—one of the toughest gangs in the Territory—in the space of a single day and by a single man had been retired from active business.
From Kingfisher, their captor wired U.S. Marshal Walker at Topeka that he had his men and would proceed with them to Wichita, Kansas, as soon as he had rested a little. Within a few days the men were being distributed to the various points where they were wanted for an assortment of crimes. When McDonald and his driver returned to Guthrie, the men he had invited to assist had a downcast look. They had heard the news of the Sand Creek gang. They had heard also from Mr. Walker. Their excuses were many and various, and to a man they offered to join the next expedition.
"No," said Bill Jess, drily, "you fellows are a little too slow. My deliveries in this section are all made."
XV
Cleaning up the Strip
DEPUTY BILL GETS "STOOD OFF," BUT MAKES GOOD. BILL COOK AND "SKEETER." "A HELL OF A COURT TO PLEAD GUILTY IN"
TheCherokee Strip campaign was not allowed to languish. An outlaw community about twenty-five miles north of Kingfisher, and seven miles west of Hennessey, on Turkey Creek, was raided next. In the course of his tree selling, McDonald had fallen in with a man who was peddling stolen beef. He had learned that this man was operating for the Turkey Creek gang, and that the beef he was selling was really the property of the Cherokee Strip Livestock Association, which, it may be mentioned, at that time had a lease on the Cherokee grazing lands for which they paid an annual rental of one hundred thousand dollars.
McDonald now went over to Kingfisher and established headquarters; took the beef peddler to Wichita, Kansas, put him in jail, and got on friendly terms with him. Then he gave his prisoner some good fatherly advice about bad company and the usual rewards of becoming the tool of lawless men. The result was a general confession and turningof State's evidence. The peddler of beef lodged information as to the identity of his employers; the exact nature of their business; the hiding place of their stolen cattle, and the locality of a deep water-hole where they had sunk the hides in order to get rid of the brands and ear-marks. McDonald returned to Kingfisher, next morning, swore out warrants for the men named, and with a deputy marshal, who declared himself willing to go, set out for Turkey Creek. They went in a hack as usual and arrived before daylight at the house of one Charlie Tex, where they thought it likely they might find most of the men wanted. When they entered, however, they found only a man in bed, who declared he had just arrived in that country; that there was nobody at home, and that he knew nothing of the owner's whereabouts. They took him along, however, and proceeded to another house not far away, but found it also empty. The officers now concluded that the men had in some manner got wind of their coming and were hiding in the bottoms. They followed a way down the creek, breaking through to the prairie again, not far from the Tex house. As they did so they noticed the man with them apparently trying to signal in that direction. Then they became aware that several men with Winchesters were walking leisurely along the top of the grassy hill, either unaware of the presence of the officers, or indifferent to it.
McDonald and his associate, satisfied that thesewere the men wanted, set out up the hill, briskly. Their companion discouraged this movement, insisting that they would all certainly be killed if they molested that crowd. They continued to advance, however, and presently the men with the Winchesters, without appearing to have noticed the deputies, dropped leisurely back behind the hill-top. McDonald now started running, straight up the hill, while his brother deputy set out in a sort of diagonal flank movement around it. In a moment or two he had apparently reached a place where he could see the retreating men, for he called out:
"Hey, Mack, they're right over the hill. They'll get you sure."
McDonald was too interested to stop, now. He raced to the top of the rise, his gun presented, ready for shooting, expecting to see the flash of guns as he broke the sky-line. Instead, he saw the men running for Tex's dug-out, and noticed that still another fellow was already there, pacing about, like a picket, with a gun.
McDonald did not take time to guess at their plans, but kept straight after them, supposing his companion-in-law was following. The men did not pause when they reached the house, but made for a half-built log stable, which formed a sort of pen, and leaping into it put their guns through the spaces between the logs and yelled at McDonald to stop, swearing they would kill him if he came any further.
A brave man is not necessarily a rash man, andto establish bravery it is not necessary to throw oneself in front of a moving train or to charge alone a half-finished log stable full of outlaws who poke their Winchesters through the cracks at you and call you names. McDonald discovered now that his partner was not with him, or anywhere in the neighborhood, and he concluded to stop and negotiate. One might get an outlaw or two through the cracks, but on the whole it didn't seem the part of wisdom to play the game in that way.
He checked his speed when he was about sixty yards from the fort, though he continued to advance in a leisurely walk, talking persuasively meantime.
"Now you fellers better have some sense," he said. "You're going up against the United States law, and even if you killed me it wouldn't make any difference. I've got a posse coming that would be right down on you anyhow. Besides you'd have the United States army after you, and they'd take you and hang you for murder. I only want two out of your bunch anyway, this time; that's all I got warrants for, and maybe none of you are the right ones. You'd better come out and let me look you over."
The men swore they would do nothing of the sort, and if he came a step further they would kill him.
McDonald slackened his pace a bit—some nervous man's gun might go off by accident. He could talk very well from where he was.
"Oh, pshaw!" he said. "You fellers wouldn't kill a kitten. Six of you men behind breastworksto get away from one. Come out where I can look at you. What kind of men are you, anyway?"
"Where's your partner?" called the outlaws.
"You see him, way up yonder, don't you?" Bill Jess said quaintly—"on that hill. I haven't got a rope on him; I couldn't bring him along unless he'd come. You-all are actin' mighty sorry the way you're doin'. Come out of there now, and quit this foolishness."
The outlaws repeated their refusal and their warning that if he came another step they would shoot him dead. McDonald took out his watch.
"Well, boys," he said, "if you want to make a fight you might as well get at it. It's time for my men to be here. Your partner I got yesterday said you'd likely try to start something, so I come fixed for such fellows as you. Come, let's see what you can do."
McDonald waved his hand as if signaling to his companion half a mile in the rear and made a start toward the log fort. Before he had taken two steps, out of it piled the six outlaws and broke "lickety brindle" for the creek bottom, like a bunch of frightened steers. McDonald ran after them and saw them leap on their horses that they had tethered in the bushes and go tearing down the creek, without stopping to look behind. Evidently they did not doubt for a moment that the deputy had a posse, waiting nearby, for they would not be likely to believe that he had dared to face them alone unlessassistance was close at hand. Deputy Bill, on his part was not sorry to see them go, for they had him at a serious disadvantage, and his only backing had weakened.
His companion was at the hack when he returned. The one man they had taken in charge had disappeared. Bill Jess made a few choice remarks and they set out for Kingfisher by way of Hennessey.
The following night as McDonald came out of a drug-store in Kingfisher, several shots were fired at him from the darkness. He pulled his six-shooter immediately and emptied it at the flash of the guns, running toward them as he did so. He heard retreating footsteps, but did not follow, as he discovered that he had left his cartridge belt in the hotel.
He was satisfied that the attack had been made by some of the Turkey Creek gang of the day before, trying to get rid of him, and resolved to delay no further in putting them out of business. He enlisted a man whom he knew, one Charley Meyers, and two other young men anxious for adventure, and next morning struck the trail which led, as they expected, in the direction of Turkey Creek. They followed it rapidly and toward evening came upon their game. There was no parleying this time. McDonald headed his force and they charged with a rush. Three of the men threw down their arms and surrendered—the others fired some scattering shots as they ran, and they must have kept on running, forthey troubled that country no more. The Turkey and Sand Creek gangs no longer existed.[2]
It was while McDonald was at Kingfisher that he came in contact with Bill Cook and one "Skeeter," both of whom were later to become notorious in matters connected with the looting of banks and trains. The deputy was making some purchases in a store one evening when Cook attempted to ride his horse in the front door. McDonald grabbed the animal's bridle and set him back on his haunches, and before Cook could draw his gun—had him covered and under arrest. Immediately Cook's "side-partner," Skeeter, came up swearing vengeance, and was also suddenly disarmed and landed in jail. The incident closed there, but a sort of sequel was to come along a good many years later, as we shall see presently.
Meanwhile the work of "delivery" by the erstwhile tree-man was not delayed. Following the backward track he gathered up one undesirable citizen after another, until by the end of the season he had established official relations with no less thanfifty of his former customers, and the rest had concluded not to wait. The story of the work of that year alone would fill a volume if fully told, but the telling is not necessary. Having planned a campaign along special lines it is only needful to give one or two examples of Bill McDonald's work to see what the rest would be in that particular field. Each field of labor was different and called for different treatment—requiring as much genius to conceive the method as bravery and presence of mind to carry it out. We have now seen what he accomplished in reclaiming a land so lost that it was called No-man's Land, and in cleaning up a strip of country infested by desperadoes supposed to be invincible. We have seen that he could do these things with thoroughness and despatch and with little bloodshed. The old manner of going in with a big posse and engaging in a general fight in which men were killed on both sides and nothing of value accomplished he had rendered obsolete. Men politically and personally opposed to Bill McDonald have referred to him in print and in spoken word as bloodthirsty, and a desperado. Certainly the reader who has followed these chapters thus far will find it hard to agree with such opinions. That he was fearless almost to the point of rashness we may believe, but that he ever wantonly shed blood, or, with all his opportunities, deliberately took human life will be harder to demonstrate.
"I never was a killer," he said once. "Somefellows seem to want to kill, every chance they get, and in a business like mine there's plenty of chances. But I never did want to kill a man, and I never did it when there was any other way to take care of his case."
It may not be out of place here to refer to the method of disarming men which McDonald used. The author has been asked how this sudden and efficient action was performed. His reply is that it is just about as hard to explain as those sleight-of-hand tricks which depend on deftness and exactness of motion—the result of a natural ability combined with long practice. Bill McDonald was born "as quick as a cat," and disarming became his special sleight-of-hand trick. He could locate a man's weapon and could daze and disarm him with a sudden movement that even he himself could not convey in words, and it was this performance that saved the lives of many men, good and bad, and often-times his own.
It was some six years after the Kingfisher incident that McDonald was to renew relations with the "Cook-Skeeter" outfit. He had become Ranger Captain meantime and was engaged in some work in North Texas when he heard of a suspicious gang, heavily armed, camped in a vacant house in the neighborhood of Bellvue, in Clay County. Unable to go himself, he sent his sergeant, J.L. Sullivan, his nephew, W.J. McCauley and another ranger named Bob McClure, to investigate. Before theRangers reached the house a picket discovered them and set out to give warning to his associates. The Rangers overtook and captured him, but by this time they had been discovered by the occupants of the shanty who began firing through the cracks in the walls.
The Rangers promptly returned the fire and charged, shooting as they came on. The fire became very hot, but McCauley, who had many of the characteristics of his "Uncle Bill," kicked in the door, though the bullets were coming through it from the other side. The outlaws now took refuge in the loft and began shooting down through the floor, the Rangers shooting straight up from below. The Rangers would seem to have had the best luck in this blind warfare for one of the men above was wounded; another had his gun shot from his hand, and a third had his hat shot through. One of them came to the opening, presently, and offered his six-shooter as a sign of surrender. Four were captured, including the aforenamed "Skeeter," but Bill Cook, though a member of the gang, was absent at the time, and escaped. The captured men were taken to Wichita Falls and one of them, a young fellow named Turner, turned State's evidence, through McDonald's persuasive probing, and detailed their plan for robbing the Fort Worth and Denver, next day, giving a list of their crimes. Skeeter and the others were taken to the United States courts at Fort Smith for trial, and pleaded guilty. Skeeter was giventhirty years and upon hearing the verdict made his now famous remark:
"Well, this is a hell of a court for a man to plead guilty in."
FOOTNOTES:[2]Somewhat later when McDonald's work, as Ranger Captain, was confined to Texas, another gang did rendezvous in this section—the gang headed by the Dalton boys (formerly deputy marshals); and for a period terrorized the surrounding country. Their crimes were daring and bloody and their end was sudden and violent. They were shot, one after another by a brave and accurate liveryman as they came out of a bank they had been looting, in daylight, in Coffeyville, Kansas. According to Bill Dalton two of the Daltons were United States deputy marshals and lived near Hennessey at the time McDonald was selling trees in that section.
FOOTNOTES:
[2]Somewhat later when McDonald's work, as Ranger Captain, was confined to Texas, another gang did rendezvous in this section—the gang headed by the Dalton boys (formerly deputy marshals); and for a period terrorized the surrounding country. Their crimes were daring and bloody and their end was sudden and violent. They were shot, one after another by a brave and accurate liveryman as they came out of a bank they had been looting, in daylight, in Coffeyville, Kansas. According to Bill Dalton two of the Daltons were United States deputy marshals and lived near Hennessey at the time McDonald was selling trees in that section.
[2]Somewhat later when McDonald's work, as Ranger Captain, was confined to Texas, another gang did rendezvous in this section—the gang headed by the Dalton boys (formerly deputy marshals); and for a period terrorized the surrounding country. Their crimes were daring and bloody and their end was sudden and violent. They were shot, one after another by a brave and accurate liveryman as they came out of a bank they had been looting, in daylight, in Coffeyville, Kansas. According to Bill Dalton two of the Daltons were United States deputy marshals and lived near Hennessey at the time McDonald was selling trees in that section.
XVI
Texas Ranger Service and its Origin
THE MASSACRE OF FORT PARKER. CYNTHIA ANN PARKER'S CAPTURE. RANGERS, AND WHAT THEY ARE FOR. THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR REQUIREMENTS
Theearly history of Texas was written in blood and fire. Her counties preserve the names of her martyrs. Parker, Coleman, Crockett, Fannin, Travis, Bowie and a hundred others have the map for their monument; their names are given daily utterance by those for whom their deeds have little meaning.
In the beginning, after the Indian tribes—friendly at first—became hostile, the warfare was almost solely with the savages. For a full half century every settler who built his campfire on the frontier did so at the risk of his property and his scalp. Those who established homes and settlements must have been a daring race indeed, for raids upon horses and herds were always imminent and massacres were as regular as the seasons.
We have already mentioned in these chapters the name of Chief Quanah Parker (still living) for whom the town of Quanah, Texas, was named. Quanah Parker's mother was Cynthia Ann Parker,a little white girl captured by the Tehaucano Indians, during a raid on what was known as the Austin Colony, in 1836. A brief story of that raid will serve as an example of a thousand others of a similar sort. The Austin Colony settled in what is now Grimes County,[3]and consisted of something more than a score of persons, including women and children. The Indians who dwelt in the neighborhood seemed friendly enough until a small party of unknown settlers came along and attempted to steal their horses. Immediate trouble was the result and the loss of Tehaucano friendship for the entire settlement. When the reader considers what follows, I believe I shall be forgiven for hoping that those newcomers who stirred up the first trouble received the sort of a reward which only an Indian would know how to confer.
As the Austin Colony consisted chiefly of the Parker family, a rude fortification which they erected was called Fort Parker, a name that to-day still suggests something of shuddering horror to those who have heard its history.
It was a fair May morning when that history was made. The early risers noticed that a body of restless Indians had collected within about four hundred yards of the fort. A white flag was hoisted by the savages to signify their peaceable intentions,and a warrior approached as if for conference. Benjamin Parker, commander of the fort, went out to meet him. He came back presently with the word that he believed the Indians intended to fight. He returned, however, to the hostile camp, where he was at once set upon and literally chopped to pieces by the savages, who then with wild yells and bloodcurdling war-whoops charged on the fort. Some of the inmates had already left the stockade. Others were trying to escape. John Parker and wife and a Mrs. Kellogg were overtaken a mile away. Parker was killed and scalped, his wife was speared and Mrs. Kellogg was made captive. Other members of the colony were butchered right and left, and mutilated in the barbarous fashion which seems to give an Indian joy. Silas Parker was brutally killed and his two children, one of whom was the little girl, Cynthia Ann, were carried away. A Mrs. Plummer—daughter of Rev. James W. Parker—attempted to escape, carrying her little son in her arms. A huge painted savage, begrimed with dust and blood overtook her, felled her with a hoe, and seizing her by the hair dragged her, still clinging to her child, back amid the butchery and torture of her friends. She and the others who were living were beaten with clubs and lashed with rawhide thongs. That night such of the captives as remained alive, and these included three children, were flung face down in the dust, their hands bound behind their backs while the Indians, waving bloody scalps and shrieking, danced about them and beat them with their bows until the prisoners were strangling with their own blood. Later, they took the infant child of Mrs. Plummer and slowly choked it before her eyes. When it was not quite dead they flung it again and again into the air and let it fall on the stones and earth. Then they tied a rope around its neck and threw its naked body into the hedges of prickly pear, from which they would jerk it fiercely with demoniacal yells. Finally they fastened the rope attached to its neck to the pommel of a saddle and rode round and round in a circle until the body of the child was literally in shreds. The poor fragments were then thrown into the mother's lap. For some reason, the little girl, Cynthia Ann Parker, received better treatment, and lived. She grew up an Indian, forgot her own race and tongue, married a chief and became the mother of another chief, Quanah, surnamed Parker, to-day a friend of the white race.
It was the massacre of Fort Parker and events of a similar nature that resulted in the organization of the Texas Rangers. The Rangers were at first a semi-official body, locally enlisted and commanded, with regulations and duties not very clearly defined. Their purpose, however, was not in doubt. It was to defend life and property, and their chief qualifications were to be able to ride and shoot and stand up against the warfare of bloodthirsty savages.
"Exterminate the Indians" became a watchword in those days, and the warfare that ensued and continued for forty years, can be compared with nothing in history unless it be with the fierce feuds of the ancient Scottish clans.
Early in 1836 Texas fought for and gained her independence, the only State in the Union to achieve such a triumph. On the following year the Texas congress recognized the Ranger movement and authorized several persons to raise Ranger companies to scour the country and annihilate marauding bands. Indians and low class Mexicans ("greasers") often consorted, and the work, desperate and bloody, continued along the ever widening and westering frontier up to within a period easily remembered to-day by men not beyond middle age. Many names of those early Rangers have been preserved in Texas annals and in local song and traditions, and it would take many volumes to recount their deeds. Jack Hays, James and Resin Bowie, "Big-foot" Wallace, Kit Ackland, Tom Green "Mustang" Grey, of whom the song says:
"At the age of sixteenHe joined that jolly bandAnd marched from San AntonioOut to the Rio Grand,"——
these and a hundred others are names that thrilled the Texan of that elder day and they are still repeated and linked with tales of wild warfare and endurance that are hardly surpassed in the world's history of battle. A.J. Sowell, himself a Ranger in the early seventies, when Indian outbreaks werestill frequent and disastrous, speaking of the Ranger equipment says:
"We had to furnish our own horses, clothing and six-shooters. The State furnished us carbines, cartridges, provisions, etc., and we got fifty dollars a month."[4]
It will be seen from the foregoing how different the Ranger service and regulations were from those of either the federal or state troops. Unlike the army they wore no uniform, and they provided, for the most part, their own equipment. They differed from State and county officials in that they were confined to no county or portion of the State, but could "range" wherever their service was needed and with little or no direction from headquarters until their mission was accomplished. It will be clearly seen that men constituting such a band must be not only brave, and quick and accurate with fire-arms, but must be men of good character and high, firm principle as well. It is the moral qualification more than any other that has given the Ranger organization its efficiency and power. A force, however small, composed of men who can shoot straight and are brave, and who believe in the right, is well-nigh invincible. The Rangers, originally organized for a great and sacred purpose, the defense of homes, went forth like knights inspired by lofty motives and high resolves, and during whatever change that has come in the aspect of their dutiesthe tradition of honor seems to have been preserved. Indeed they have been from the beginning not unlike the knights of old who rode forth without fear and without reproach to destroy evil and to redress wrong.
Speaking further of Ranger equipment Sowell says:
"In the first place he wants a good horse; strong saddle, double-girted; a good carbine (this was before the day of Winchesters); pistol and plenty of ammunition. He generally wears rough clothing, either of buckskin or strong durable cloth and a broad-brimmed hat of the Mexican style; thick over-shirt, top boots[5]and spurs, and a jacket or short coat so that he can use himself with ease in the saddle."
And the author adds:
"A genuine Texas Ranger will endure cold, hunger and fatigue, almost without a murmur, and will stand by a friend and comrade in the hour of danger and divide anything he has got from a blanket to his last crumb of tobacco."
So much for the Ranger and his origin. As the years went by and the Indian was conquered or driven away, the Ranger's work changed, but his personality remained the same. The Ranger ofseventy years ago is the Ranger of to-day—only, his duties have altered. Long before the conquest of the savages a new element of disorder had entered the field. The desperado who had stirred up the first Indian troubles had survived and increased, to plunder his own race. The new and sparsely settled land invited every element of lawlessness and every refugee of crime. Local authorities would not or could not contend with them. It was for the Rangers, now much reduced in numbers, to solve the problem of destroying the disturber in their midst as they had driven the savage enemy from their frontiers. They were made peace officers, and became a mounted constabulary, their duties being to quell disorders, to prevent crime and to bring criminals to justice. It was new work—less romantic than the wild Indian warfare of the frontier; work full of new dangers and what was still worse it was work which instead of inviting the encouragement and enthusiasm of a community, was of a sort to incur its displeasure, for the desperadoes of a neighborhood were either the heroes or the terrors of it, and in either case to molest them was likely to prove unpopular. So it was, during this new order of things, that the Ranger service had to contend not only with the offenders but sometimes with the very people whom they were hoping to protect. This made the work hard and discouraging, as work always is hard and discouraging when it is done amid enemies who wear the guise of friends. How wellthey have succeeded is told in the official reports. W.H. Mabry, Adjutant General of Texas in 1896, says in his report for that year, referring to the Rangers:
"This branch of the service has been very active and has done incalculable good in policing the sparsely settled sections of the State where the local officers, from the very nature of the conditions, could not afford adequate protection. Including the meanderings of the Rio Grande we have about 3,000 miles of frontier line. Part of this borders on a foreign country, with different customs, law and language. Only a river fordable at most any point intervenes. But for the Ranger force, specially equipped for continued rapid movements, this border line would be the rendezvous for criminals of nearly every description and class."
General Mabry then sets down the fact that the Ranger service has increased the State revenues by something like four hundred thousand dollars for the year through the protection of leased frontier State lands which otherwise could not be inhabited and would yield no return in either rental or taxes.
In concluding he adds: "It is true that the frontier force does not and could not cover all this territory, but the fact that they exist and are scouting over every foot they can travel prevents organized bands from being established along this border line.... They are circumscribed by no county limits; can easily and rapidly move from one section to anotherand criminals do not care to invite their pursuit. Specially equipped for continued rapid motion, they take up the trail and follow it with a persistency of the sleuth hound, until the criminal is either run out of the country, captured or killed.
"In every train robbery which has occurred in Texas, the robbers have been either captured or killed, whenever it was possible to carry the Rangers to the scene, so they could take the trail. The broad expanse of sparsely settled territory in this State would offer easy opportunity for such crimes, if it were not for the protection given by our mobile and active Ranger force."