Outside of this long list of the bandit gang's deeds of outlawry, they were continually in smaller undertakings of a similar nature. Once they took away ten thousand dollars in cash at the box office of the Kansas City Fair, this happening September 26, 1872, in a crowded city, with all the modern machinery of the law to guard its citizens. Many acts at widely separated parts of the country were accredited to the Younger or the James boys, and although they cannot have been guilty of all of them, and, although many of the adventures accredited to them in Texas, Mexico, California, the Indian Nations, etc., bear earmarks of apocryphal origin, there is no doubt that for twenty years after the close of the civil war they made a living in this way, their gang being made up of perhaps a score of different men in all, and usually consisting of about six to ten men, according to the size of the undertaking on hand.
Meantime, all these years, the list of homicides for each of them was growing. Jesse James killed three men out of six who attacked his house one night, and not long after Frankand he are alleged to have killed six men in a gambling fight in California. John and Jim Younger killed the Pinkerton detectives Lull and Daniels, John being himself killed at that time by Daniels. A little later, Frank and Jesse James and Clel Miller killed detective Wicher, of the same agency, torturing him for some time before his death in the attempt to make him divulge the Pinkerton plans. The James boys killed Daniel Askew in revenge; and Jesse James and Jim Anderson killed Ike Flannery for motives of robbery. This last set the gang into hostile camps, for Flannery was a nephew of George Shepherd. Shepherd later killed Anderson in Texas for his share in that act; he also shot Jesse James and for a long time supposed he had killed him.
The full record of these outlaws will never be known. Their career came to an end soon after the heavy rewards were put upon their heads, and it came in the usual way, through treachery. Allured by the prospect of gaining ten thousand dollars, two cousins of Jesse James, Bob and Charlie Ford, pretending to join his gang for another robbery, became members of Jesse James' household while he was livingincognitoas Thomas Howard. On themorning of April 3, 1882, Bob Ford, a mere boy, not yet twenty years of age, stepped behind Jesse James as he was standing on a chair dusting off a picture frame, and, firing at close range, shot him through the head and killed him. Bob Ford never got much respect for his act, and his money was soon gone. He himself was killed in February, 1892, at Creede, Colorado, by a man named Kelly.
THE OLD FRITZ RANCHTHE OLD FRITZ RANCH
A BORDER FORTRESSA BORDER FORTRESS
Jesse James was about five feet ten inches in height, and weighed about one hundred and sixty-five pounds. His hair and eyes were brown. He had, during his life, been shot twice through the lungs, once through the leg, and had lost a finger of the left hand from a bullet wound. Frank James was slighter than his brother, with light hair and blue eyes, and a ragged, reddish mustache. Frank surrendered to Governor Crittenden himself at Jefferson City, in October, 1882, taking off his revolvers and saying that no man had touched them but himself since 1861. He was sentenced to the penitentiary for life, but later pardoned, as he was thought to be dying of consumption. At this writing, he is still alive, somewhat old and bent now, but leading a quiet and steady life, and showing no disposition toreturn to his old ways. He is sometimes seen around the race tracks, where he does but little talking. Frank James has had many apologists, and his life should be considered in connection with the environments in which he grew up. He killed many men, but he was never as cold and cruel as Jesse, and of the two he was the braver man, men say who knew them both. He never was known to back down under any circumstances.
The fate of the Younger boys was much mingled with that of the James boys, but the end of the careers of the former came in more dramatic fashion. The wonder is that both parties should have clung together so long, for it is certain that Cole Younger once intended to kill Jesse James, and one night he came near killing George Shepherd through malicious statements Jesse James had made to him about the latter. Shepherd met Cole at the house of a friend named Hudspeth, in Jackson county, and their host put them in the same bed that night for want of better accommodations. "After we lay down," said Shepherd later, in describing this, "I saw Cole reach up under his pillow and draw out a pistol, which he put beside him under the cover. Not to be taken unawares,I at once grasped my own pistol and shoved it down under the covers beside me. Were it to save my life, I couldn't tell what reason Cole had for becoming my enemy. We talked very little, but just lay there watching each other. He was behind and I on the front side of the bed, and during the entire night we looked into each other's eyes and never moved. It was the most wretched night I ever passed in my life." So much may at times be the price of being "bad." By good fortune, they did not kill each other, and the next day Cole told Shepherd that he had expected him to shoot on sight, as Jesse James had said he would. Explanations then followed. It nearly came to a collision between Cole Younger and Jesse James later, for Cole challenged him to fight, and it was only with difficulty that their friends accommodated the matter.
The history of the Younger boys is tragic all the way through. Their father was assassinated, their mother was forced to set fire to her own house and destroy it under penalty of death; three sisters were arrested and confined in a barracks at Kansas City, which during a high wind fell in, killed two of the girls and crippled the other. John Younger was a murdererat the age of fourteen, and how many times Cole Younger was a murderer, with or without his wish, will never be known. He was shot three times in one fight in guerrilla days, and probably few bad men ever carried off more lead than he.
The story of the Northfield bank robbery in Minnesota, which ended so disastrously to the bandits who undertook it, is interesting as showing what brute courage, and, indeed, what fidelity and fortitude may at times be shown by dangerous specimens of bad men. The purpose of the robbery was criminal, its carrying out was attended with murder, and the revenge for it came sharp and swift. In all the annals of desperadoes, there is not a battle more striking than this which occurred in a sleepy and contented little village in the quiet northern farming country, where no one for a moment dreamed that the bandits of the rumored bloody lands along the Missouri would ever trouble themselves to come. The events immediately connected with this tragedy, the result of which was the ending of the Younger gang, were as hereinafter described.
Bill Chadwell, alias Styles, a member of the James boys gang, had formerly lived in Minnesota.He drew a pleasing picture of the wealth of that country, and the ease with which it could be obtained by bandit methods. Cole Younger was opposed to going so far from home, but was overruled. He finally joined the others—Frank and Jesse James, Clel Miller, Jim and Bob Younger, Charlie Pitts and Chadwell. They went to Minnesota by rail, and, after looking over the country, purchased good horses, and prepared to raid the little town of Northfield, in Rice county. They carried their enterprise into effect on September 7, 1876, using methods with which earlier experience had made them familiar. They rode into the middle of the town and opened fire, ordering every one off the streets. Jesse James, Charlie Pitts and Bob Younger entered the bank, where they found cashier J. L. Haywood, with two clerks, Frank Wilcox and A. E. Bunker. Bunker started to run, and Bob Younger shot him through the shoulder. They ordered Haywood to open the safe, but he bluntly refused, even though they slightly cut him in the throat to enforce obedience. Firing now began from the citizens on the street, and the bandits in the bank hurried in their work, contenting themselves with such loose cash as they found in thedrawers and on the counter. As they started to leave the bank, Haywood made a motion toward a drawer as if to find a weapon. Jesse James turned and shot him through the head, killing him instantly. These three of the bandits then sprang out into the street. They were met by the fire of Doctor Wheeler and several other citizens, Hide, Stacey, Manning and Bates. Doctor Wheeler was across the street in an upstairs room, and as Bill Chadwell undertook to mount his horse, Wheeler fired and shot him dead. Manning fired at Clel Miller, who had mounted, and shot him from his horse. Cole Younger was by this time ready to retreat, but he rode up to Miller, and removed from his body his belt and pistols. Manning fired again, and killed the horse behind which Bob Younger was hiding, and an instant later a shot from Wheeler struck Bob in the right elbow. Although this arm was disabled Bob shifted his pistol to his left hand and fired at Bates, cutting a furrow through his cheek, but not killing him. About this time a Norwegian by the name of Gustavson appeared on the street, and not halting at the order to do so, he was shot through the head by one of the bandits, receiving a wound from which he died a fewdays later. The gang then began to scatter and retreat. Jim Younger was on foot and was wounded. Cole rode back up the street, and took the wounded man on his horse behind him. The entire party then rode out of town to the west, not one of them escaping without severe wounds.
As soon as the bandits had departed, news was sent by telegraph, notifying the surrounding country of the robbery. Sheriffs, policemen and detectives rallied in such numbers that the robbers were hard put to it to escape alive. A state reward of $1,000 for each was published, and all lower Minnesota organized itself into a determined man hunt. The gang undertook to get over the Iowa line, and they managed to keep away from their pursuers until the morning of the 13th, a week after the robbery. The six survivors were surrounded on that day in a strip of timber. Frank and Jesse James broke through, riding the same horse. They were fired upon, a bullet striking Frank James in the right knee, and passing through into Jesse's right thigh. None the less, the two got away, stole a horse apiece that night, and passed on to the Southwest. They rode bareback, and now and again enforced a horse tradewith a farmer or livery-stable man. They got down near Sioux Falls, and there met Doctor Mosher, whom they compelled to dress their wounds, and to furnish them horses and clothing. Later on their horses gave out, and they hired a wagon and kept on. Their escape seems incomprehensible, yet it is the case that they got quite clear, finally reaching Missouri.
Of the other bandits there were left Cole, Jim and Bob Younger and Charlie Pitts; and after these a large number of citizens followed close. In spite of the determined pursuit, they kept out of reach for another week. On the morning of September 21st, two weeks after the robbery, they were located in the woods along the Watonwan river, not far from Madelia. Sheriff Glispin hurriedly got together a posse and surrounded them in a patch of timber not over five acres in extent. In a short time more than one hundred and fifty men were about this cover; but although they kept up firing, they could not drive out the concealed bandits. Sheriff Glispin called for volunteers; and with Colonel Vaught, Ben Rice, George Bradford, James Severson, Charles Pomeroy and Captain Murphy moved into the cover. As they advanced, Charlie Pitts sprang out fromthe brush, and fired point blank at Glispin. At the same instant the latter also fired and shot Pitts, who ran a short distance and fell dead. Then Cole, Bob and Jim Younger stood up and opened fire as best they could, all of the men of the storming party returning their fire. Murphy was struck in the body by a bullet, and his life was saved by his pipe, which he carried in his vest pocket. Another member of the posse had his watch blown to pieces by a bullet. The Younger boys gave back a little, but this brought them within sight of those surrounding the thicket, so they retreated again close to the line of the volunteers. Cole and Jim Younger were now badly shot. Bob, with his broken right arm, stood his ground, the only one able to continue the fight, and kept his revolver going with his left hand. The others handed him their revolvers after his own was empty. The firing from the posse still continued, and at last Bob called out to them to stop, as his brothers were all shot to pieces. He threw down his pistol, and walked forward to the sheriff, to whom he surrendered. Bob always spoke with respect of Sheriff Glispin both as a fighter and as a peace officer. One of the farmers drew up his gun to kill Bob afterhe had surrendered, but Glispin told him to drop his gun or he would kill him.
It is doubtful if any set of men ever showed more determination and more ability to stand punishment than these misled outlaws. Bob Younger was hurt less than any of the others. His arm had been broken at Northfield two weeks before, but he was wounded but once, slightly in the body, out of all the shots fired at him while in the thicket. Cole Younger had a rifle bullet in the right cheek, which paralyzed his right eye. He had received a .45 revolver bullet through the body, and also had been shot through the thigh at Northfield. He received eleven different wounds in the fight, or thirteen bad wounds in all, enough to have killed a half dozen men. Jim's case seemed even worse, for he had in his body eight buckshot and a rifle bullet. He had been shot through the shoulder at Northfield, and nearly half his lower jaw had been carried away by a heavy bullet, a wound which caused him intense suffering. Bob was the only one able to stand on his feet.
Of the two men killed in town, Clel Miller and Bill Chadwell, the former had a long record in bank robberies; the latter, guide in theill-fated expedition to Minnesota, was a horse thief of considerable note at one time in lower Minnesota.
The prisoners were placed in jail at Faribault, the county seat of Rice county, and in a short time the Grand Jury returned true bills against them, charging them with murder and robbery. Court convened November 7th, Judge Lord being on the bench. All of the prisoners pleaded guilty, and the order of the court was that each should be confined in the state penitentiary for the period of his natural life.
The later fate of the Younger boys may be read in the succinct records of the Minnesota State Prison at Stillwater:
"Thos. Coleman Younger, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, from Rice county under a life sentence for the crime of Murder in the first degree. Paroled July 14, 1901. Pardoned Feb. 4, 1903, on condition that he leave the State of Minnesota, and that he never exhibit himself in public in any way."James Younger, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, from Rice county under a life sentence for the crime of Murder in the first degree. Paroled July 13, 1901. Shot himself with a revolverin the city of St. Paul, Minn., and died at once from the wound inflicted on Oct. 19, 1902."Robt. Younger, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, from Rice county under a life sentence for the crime of Murder in the first degree. He died Sept. 16, 1889, of phthisis."
"Thos. Coleman Younger, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, from Rice county under a life sentence for the crime of Murder in the first degree. Paroled July 14, 1901. Pardoned Feb. 4, 1903, on condition that he leave the State of Minnesota, and that he never exhibit himself in public in any way.
"James Younger, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, from Rice county under a life sentence for the crime of Murder in the first degree. Paroled July 13, 1901. Shot himself with a revolverin the city of St. Paul, Minn., and died at once from the wound inflicted on Oct. 19, 1902.
"Robt. Younger, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, from Rice county under a life sentence for the crime of Murder in the first degree. He died Sept. 16, 1889, of phthisis."
The James boys almost miraculously escaped, traveled clear across the State of Iowa and got back to their old haunts. They did not stop, but kept on going until they got to Mexico, where they remained for some time. They did not take their warning, however, and some of their most desperate train robberies were committed long after the Younger boys were in the penitentiary.
In view of the bloody careers of all these men, it is to be said that the law has been singularly lenient with them. Yet the Northfield incident was conclusive, and was the worst setback ever received by any gang of bad men; unless, perhaps, that was the defeat of the Dalton gang at Coffeyville, Kansas, some years later, the story of which is given in the following chapter.
Bad Men of the Indian Nations—A Hotbed of Desperadoes—Reasons for Bad Men in the Indian Nations—The Dalton Boys—The Most Desperate Street Fight of the West.
What is true for Texas, in the record of desperadoism, is equally applicable to the country adjoining Texas upon the north, long known under the general title of the Indian Nations; although it is now rapidly being divided and allotted under the increasing demands of an ever-advancing civilization.
The great breeding ground of outlaws has ever been along the line of demarcation between the savage and the civilized. Here in the Indian country, as though in a hotbed especially contrived, the desperado has flourished for generations. The Indians themselves retained much their old savage standards afterthey had been placed in this supposedly perpetual haven of refuge by the government. They have been followed, ever since the first movement of the tribes into these reservations, by numbers of unscrupulous whites such as hang on the outskirts of the settlements and rebel at the requirements of civilization. Many white men of certain type married among the Indians, and the half-breed is reputed as a product inheriting the bad traits of both races and the good ones of neither—a sweeping statement not always wholly true. Among these also was a large infusion of negro blood, emanating from the slaves brought in by the Cherokees, and added to later by negroes moving in and marrying among the tribes. These mixed bloods seem to have been little disposed toward the ways of law and order. Moreover, the system of law was here, of course, altogether different from that of the States. The freedom from restraint, the exemption from law, which always marked the border, here found their last abiding place. The Indians were not adherents to the white man's creed, save as to the worst features, and they kept their own creed of blood. No man will ever know how many murders have been committed in these fair and pleasantsavannahs, among these rough hills or upon these rolling grassy plains from the time William Clark, the "Red Head Chief," began the government work of settling the tribes in these lands, then supposed to be far beyond the possible demands of the white population of America.
Life could be lived here with small exertion. The easy gifts of the soil and the chase, coupled with the easy gifts of the government, unsettled the minds of all from those habits of steady industry and thrift which go with the observance of the law. If one coveted his neighbor's possessions, the ready arbitrament of firearms told whose were the spoils. Human life has been cheap here for more than half a hundred years; and this condition has endured directly up to and into the days of white civilization. The writer remembers very well that in his hunting expeditions of twenty years ago it was always held dangerous to go into the Nations; and this was true whether parties went in across the Neutral Strip, or farther east among the Osages or the Creeks. The country below Coffeyville was wild and remote as we saw it then, although now it is settling up, is traversed by railroads, and is slowly passing into the hands of whitemen in severalty, as fast as the negroes release their lands, or as fast as the government allows the Indians to give individual titles. In those days it was a matter of small concern if a traveler never returned from a journey among the timber clad mountains, or the black jack thickets along the rivers; and many was the murder committed thereabouts that never came to light.
In and around the Indian Nations there have also always been refugees from the upper frontier or from Texas or Arkansas. The country was long the natural haven of the lawless, as it has long been the designated home of a wild population. In this region the creed has been much the same even after the wild ethics of the cow men yielded to the scarcely more lawful methods of the land boomer.
Each man in the older days had his own notion of personal conduct, as each had his own opinions about the sacredness of property. It was natural that train robbing and bank looting should become recognized industries when the railroads and towns came into this fertile region, so long left sacred to the chase. The gangs of such men as the Cook boys, the Wickcliffe boys, or the Dalton boys, were natural and logical products of an environment. That thisshould be the more likely may be seen from the fact that for a decade or more preceding the great rushes of the land grabbers, the exploits of the James and Younger boys in train and bank robbing had filled all the country with the belief that the law could be defied successfully through a long term of years. The Cook boys acted upon this basis, until at length marshals shot them both, killed one and sent the remnants of the other to the penitentiary.
Since it would be impossible to go into any detailed mention of the scores and hundreds of desperadoes who have at different times been produced by the Nations, it may be sufficient to give a few of the salient features of the careers of the band which, as well as any, may be called typical of the Indian Nations brand of desperadoism—the once notorious Dalton boys.
The Dalton family lived in lower Kansas, near Coffeyville, which was situated almost directly upon the border of the Nations. They engaged in farming, and indeed two of the family were respectable farmers near Coffeyville within the last three or four years. The mother of the family still lives near Oklahoma City, where she secured a good claim at the time of the opening of the Oklahoma lands to whitesettlement. The father, Lewis Dalton, was a Kentucky man and served in the Mexican war. He later moved to Jackson county, Missouri, near the home of the notorious James and Younger boys, and in 1851 married Adelaide Younger, they removing some years later from Missouri to Kansas. Thirteen children were born to them, nine sons and four daughters. Charles, Henry, Littleton and Coleman Dalton were respected and quiet citizens. All the boys had nerve, and many of them reached office as deputy marshals. Franklin Dalton was killed while serving as deputy United States marshal near Fort Smith, in 1887, his brother Bob being a member of the same posse at the time his fight was made with a band of horse thieves who resisted arrest. Grattan Dalton, after the death of his brother Franklin, was made a deputy United States marshal, after the curious but efficient Western fashion of setting dangerous men to work at catching dangerous men. He and his posse in 1888 went after a bad Indian, who, in the melée, shot Grattan in the arm and escaped. Grattan later served as United States deputy marshal in Muskogee district, where the courts certainly needed men of stern courage as executives, for they had todeal with the most desperate and fearless class of criminals the world ever knew. Robert R. Dalton, better known as Bob Dalton, served on the posses of his brothers, and soon learned what it was to stand up and shoot while being shot at. He turned out to be about the boldest of the family, and was accepted as the clan leader later on in their exploits. He also was a deputy United States marshal at the dangerous stations of Fort Smith and Wichita, having much to do with the desperadoes of the Nations. He was chief of the Osage police for some time, and saw abundance of violent scenes. Emmett Dalton was also possessed of cool nerve, and was soon known as a dangerous man to affront. All the boys were good shots, but they seemed to have cared more for the Winchester than the six-shooter in their exploits, in which they were perhaps wise, for the rifle is of course far the surer when it is possible of use; and men mostly rode in that country with rifle under leg.
Uncle Sam is obliged to take such material for his frontier peace officers as proves itself efficient in serving processes. A coward may be highly moral, but he will not do as a border deputy. The personal character of some of the most famous Western deputies would scarcelybear careful scrutiny, but the government at Washington is often obliged to wink at that sort of thing. There came a time when it remained difficult longer to wink at the methods of the Daltons as deputies. In one case they ran off with a big bunch of horses and sold them in a Kansas town. On account of this episode, Grattan, William, and Emmett Dalton made a hurried trip to California. Here they became restless, and went back at their old trade, thinking that no one even on the Pacific Slope had any right to cause them fear. They held up a train in Tulare county and killed a fireman, but were repulsed. Later arrested and tried, William was cleared, but Grattan was sentenced to twenty years in the penitentiary. He escaped from jail before he got to the penitentiary, and rejoined Emmett at the old haunts in the Nations, Emmett having evaded arrest in California. The Southern Pacific railway had a standing offer of $6,000 for the robbers at the time they were killed.
The Daltons were now more or less obliged to hide out, and to make a living as best they could, which meant by robbery. On May 9, 1891, the Santa Fé train was held up at Wharton, Oklahoma Territory, and the express carwas robbed, the bandits supposedly being the Daltons. In June of the following year another Santa Fé train was robbed at Red Rock, in the Cherokee strip. The 'Frisco train was robbed at Vinita, Indian Territory. An epidemic of the old methods of the James and Younger bands seemed to have broken out in the new railway region of the Southwest. The next month the Missouri, Kansas and Texas train was held up at Adair, Indian Territory, and a general fight ensued between the robbers and the armed guard of the train, assisted by citizens of the town. A local physician was killed and several officers and citizens wounded, but none of the bandits was hurt, and they got away with a heavy loot of the express and baggage cars. At Wharton they had been less fortunate, for though they killed the station agent, they were rounded up and one of their men, Dan Bryant, was captured, later killing and being killed by United States deputy Ed. Short, as mentioned in an earlier chapter. Dick Broadwell joined the Dalton gang about now, and they nearly always had a few members besides those of their own family; their gang being made up and conducted on much the same lines of the James boys gang of Missouri, whose exploitsthey imitated and used as text for their bolder deeds. In fact it was the boast of the leader, Bob Dalton, in the Coffeyville raid, that he was going to beat anything the James boys ever did: to rob two banks in one town at the same time.
Bank robbing was a side line of activity with the Daltons, but they did fairly well at it. They held up the bank at El Reno, at a time when no one was in the bank except the president's wife, and took $10,000, obliging the bank to suspend business. By this time the whole country was aroused against them, as it had been against the James and Younger boys. Pinkerton detectives had blanket commissions offered, and railway and express companies offered rewards running into the thousands. Each train across the Indian Nations was accompanied for months by a heavily armed guard concealed in the baggage and express cars. Passengers dreaded the journey across that country, and the slightest halt of the train for any cause was sure to bring to the lips of all the word of fear, "the Daltons!" It seems almost incredible of belief that, in these modern days of fast railway service, of the telegraph and of rapidly increasing settlements, the work of these mencould so long have been continued; but such, none the less, was the case. The law was powerless, and demonstrated its own unfitness to safeguard life and property, as so often it has in this country. And, as so often has been the case, outraged society at length took the law into its own hands and settled the matter.
The full tale of the Dalton robberies and murders will never be known, for the region in which they operated was reticent, having its own secrets to protect; but at last there came the climax in which the band was brought into the limelight of civilized publicity. They lived on the border of savagery and civilization. Now the press, the telegraph, the whole fabric of modern life, lay near at hand. Their last bold raid, therefore, in which they crossed from the country of reticence into that of garrulous news gathering, made them more famous than they had ever been before. The raid on Coffeyville, October 5, 1892, both established and ended their reputation as desperadoes of the border.
The rumor got out that the Daltons were down in the Nations, waiting for a chance to raid the town of Coffeyville, but the dreaded attack did not come off when it was expected. When it was delivered, therefore, it found thetown quite unprepared. Bob Dalton was the leader in this enterprise. Emmett did not want to go. He declared that too many people knew them in Coffeyville, and that the job would prove too big for them to handle. He consented to join the party, however, when he found Bob determined to make the attempt in any case. There were in the band at that time Bob, Emmett, and Grattan Dalton, Bill Powers and Dick Broadwell. These lay in rendezvous near Tulsa, in the Osage country, two days before the raid, and spent the night before in the timber on Onion creek, not far below town. They rode into Coffeyville at half-past nine the following morning. The street being somewhat torn up, they turned aside into an alley about a hundred yards from the main street, and, dismounting, tied their horses, which were thus left some distance from the banks, the First National and the bank of C. M. Condon & Co., which were the objects of their design.
Grattan Dalton, Dick Broadwell and Bill Powers stepped over to the Condon bank, which was occupied at the time by C. T. Carpenter, C. M. Ball, the cashier, and T. C. Babb, a bookkeeper. Grattan Dalton threw down his rifle on Carpenter, with the customary command toput up his hands; the others being attended to by Powers and Broadwell. Producing a two-bushel sack, the leader ordered Carpenter to put all the cash into it, and the latter obeyed, placing three thousand dollars in silver and one thousand in currency in the sack. Grattan wanted the gold, and demanded that an inner safe inside the vault should be opened. The cashier, Ball, with a shifty falsehood, told him that they could not open that safe, for it was set on a time lock, and no one could open it before half-past nine o'clock. He told the outlaw that it was now twenty minutes after nine (although it was really twenty minutes of ten); and the latter said they could wait ten minutes. He was, however, uneasy, and was much of the mind to kill Ball on the spot, for he suspected treachery, and knew how dangerous any delay must be.
It was a daring thing to do—to sit down in the heart of a civilized city, in broad daylight and on the most public street, and wait for a time lock to open a burglar-proof safe. Daring as it was, it was foolish and futile. As the robbers stood uneasily guarding their prisoners, the alarm was spread. A moment later firing began, and the windows of the bank were splinteredwith bullets. The robbers were trapped, Broadwell being now shot through the arm, probably by P. L. Williams from across the street. Yet they coolly went on with their work as they best could, Grattan Dalton ordering Ball to cut the string of the bag and pour out the heavy silver, which would have encumbered them too much in their flight. He asked if there was not a back way out, by which they could escape. He was shown a rear door, and the robbers stepped out, to find themselves in the middle of the hottest street fight any of them had ever known. The city marshal, Charles T. Connolly, had given the alarm, and citizens were hurrying to the street with such weapons as they could find at the hardware stores and in their own homes.
Meantime Bob and Emmett Dalton had held up the First National Bank, ordering cashier Ayres to hand out the money, and terrorizing two or three customers of the bank who happened to be present at the time. Bob knew Thos. G. Ayres, and called him by his first name, "Tom," said he, "go into the safe and get out that money—get the gold, too." He followed Ayres into the vault, and discovered two packages of $5,000 each in currency, whichhe tossed into his meal sack. The robbers here also poured out the silver, and having cleaned up the bank as they supposed, drove the occupants out of the door in front of them. As they got into the street they were fired upon by George Cubine and C. S. Cox; but neither shot took effect. Emmett Dalton stood with his rifle under his arm, coolly tying up the neck of the sack which held the money. They then both stepped back into the bank, and went out through the back door, which was opened for them by W. H. Shepherd, the bank teller, who, with Tom Ayres and B. S. Ayres, the bookkeeper, made the bank force on hand. J. H. Brewster, C. H. Hollingsworth and A. W. Knotts were in the bank on business, and were joined by E. S. Boothby; all these being left unhurt.
The firing became general as soon as the robbers emerged from the two bank buildings. The first man to be shot by the robbers was Charles T. Gump, who stood not far from the First National Bank armed with a shotgun. Before he could fire Bob Dalton shot him through the hand, the same bullet disabling his shotgun. A moment later, a young man named Lucius Baldwin started down the alley, armedwith a revolver. He met Bob and Emmett, who ordered him to halt, but for some reason he kept on toward them. Bob Dalton said, "I'll have to kill you," and so shot him through the chest. He died three hours later.
Bob and Emmett Dalton now passed out of the alley back of the First National Bank, and came into Union street. Here they saw George B. Cubine standing with his Winchester in his hands, and an instant later Cubine fell dead, with three balls through his body. Near him was Charles Brown, an old man, who was also armed. He was the next victim, his body falling near that of Cubine, though he lived for a few hours after being shot. All four of these victims of the Daltons were shot at distances of about forty or fifty yards, and with rifles, the revolver being more or less uncertain at such ranges even in practiced hands. All the gang had revolvers, but none used them.
Thos. G. Ayres, late prisoner in the First National Bank, ran into a store near by as soon as he was released, caught up a Winchester and took a station near the street door, waiting for the bandits to come out at that entrance of the bank. Here he was seen by Bob Dalton, who had gone through the alley. Bob took aimand at seventy-five yards shot Ayres through the head. Friends tried to draw his body back into the store, but these now met the fire of Grattan Dalton and Powers, who, with the crippled Broadwell, were now coming out of their alleyway.
T. A. Reynolds, a clerk in the same store, who went to the door armed, received a shot through the foot, and thus made the third wounded man then in that building. H. H. Isham, one of the owners of the store, aided by M. A. Anderson and Charles K. Smith, joined in the firing. Grattan Dalton and Bill Powers were shot mortally before they had gone more than a few steps from the door of the Condon bank. Powers tried to get into a door when he was shot, and kept his feet when he found the door locked, managing to get to his horse in the alley before he was killed by a second shot. Grattan Dalton also kept his feet, and reached cover back of a barn about seventy yards from Walnut Street, the main thorough-fare. He stood at bay here, and kept on firing. City marshal Connolly, carrying a rifle, ran across to a spot near the corner of this barn. He had his eye on the horses of the bandits, which were still hitched in the alley. His backwas turned toward Grattan Dalton. The latter must have been crippled somewhere in his right arm or shoulder, for he did not raise his rifle to his face, but fired from his hip, shooting Connolly down at a distance of about twenty feet or so.
There was a slight lull at this point of the street fight, and during this Dick Broadwell, who had been wounded again in the back, crawled into concealment in a lumber yard near by the alley where the horses were tied. He crept out to his horse and mounted, but just as he started away met the livery man, John J. Kloehr, who did some of the best shooting recorded by the citizens. Kloehr was hurrying thither with Carey Seaman, the latter armed with a shotgun. Kloehr fired his rifle and Seaman his shotgun, and both struck Broadwell, who rode away, but fell dead from his horse a short distance outside the town.
Bob and Emmett Dalton, after killing Cubine and Brown and shooting Ayres, hurried on to join their companions and to get to their horses. At an alleyway junction they spied F. D. Benson climbing out of a window, and fired at him, but missed. An instant later, as Bob stepped into full view of those who werefiring from the Isham store, he was struck by a ball and badly wounded. He walked slowly across the alley and sat down on a pile of stones, but like his brother Grattan, he kept his rifle going, though mortally shot. He fired once at Kloehr, but was unsteady and missed him. Rising to his feet he walked a few paces and leaned against the corner of a barn, firing two more shots. He was then killed by Kloehr, who shot him through the chest.
By this time Grattan Dalton was feebly trying to get to his horse. He passed the body of Connolly, whom he had killed, faced toward his pursuers and tried to fire. He, too, fell before Kloehr's Winchester, shot through the throat, dropping close to the body of Connolly.
Emmett Dalton was now the only one of the band left alive. He was as yet unwounded, and he got to his horse. As he attempted to mount a number of shots were fired at him, and these killed the two horses belonging to Bob Dalton and Bill Powers, who by this time had no further use for horses. Two horses hitched to an oil wagon in the street were also killed by wild shots. Emmett got into his saddle, but was shot through the right arm and through the left hip and groin. He still clung to thesack of money they had taken at the First National Bank, and he still kept his nerve and his wits even under such pressure of peril. He might have escaped, but instead he rode back to where Bob was lying, and reached down his hand to help him up behind himself on the horse. Bob was dying and told him it was no use to try to help him. As Emmett stooped down to reach Bob's arm, Carey Seaman fired both barrels of his shotgun into his back, Emmett dropping near Bob and falling upon the sack, containing over $20,000 in cash. Men hurried up and called to him to throw up his hands. He raised his one unhurt arm and begged for mercy. It was supposed he would die, and he was not lynched, but hurried away to a doctor's office near by.
In the little alley where the last scene of this bloody fight took place there were found three dead men, one dying man and one badly wounded. Three dead horses lay near the same spot. In the whole fight, which was of course all over in a few moments, there were killed four citizens and four outlaws, three citizens and one outlaw being wounded. Less than a dozen citizens did most of the shooting, of which there was considerable, eighty bulletmarks being found on the front of the Condon bank alone.
The news of this bloody encounter was instantly flashed over the country, and within a few hours the town was crowded with sightseers who came in by train loads. The dead bandits were photographed, and the story of the fight was told over and over again, not always with uniformity of detail. Emmett Dalton, before he was sent to the penitentiary, confessed to different crimes, not all of them hitherto known, which the gang had at different times committed.
So ended in blood the career of as bloody a band as might well be discovered in the robber history of any land or time of the world. Indeed, it is doubtful if any country ever saw leagues of robbers so desperate as those which have existed in America, any with hands so red in blood. This fact is largely due to the peculiar history of this country, with its rapid development under swift modern methods of transportation. In America the advance to the westward of the fighting edge of civilization, where it meets and mingles with savagery, has been more rapid than has ever been known in the settlement of any country of the world. Moreover,this has taken place at precisely that time when weapons of the most deadly nature have been invented and made at a price permitting all to own them and many to become extremely skilled with them. The temptation and the means of murder have gone hand in hand. And in time the people, not the organized law courts, have applied the remedy when the time has come for it. To-day the Indian Nations are no more than a name. Civilization has taken them over. Statehood has followed territorial organization. Presently rich farms will make a continuous sea of grain across what was once a flood of crime, and the wheat will grow yellow, and the cotton white, where so long the grass was red.
Desperadoes of the Cities—Great Cities Now the Most Dangerous Places—City Bad Men's Contempt for Womanhood—Nine Thousand Murders a Year, and Not Two Hundred Punished—The Reasonableness of Lynch Law.
It was stated early in these pages that the great cities and the great wildernesses are the two homes for bold crimes; but we have been most largely concerned with the latter in our studies of desperadoes and in our search for examples of disregard of the law. We have found a turbulence, a self-insistence, a vigor and self-reliance in the American character which at times has led on to lawlessness on our Western frontier.
Conditions have changed. We still revel in Wild West literature, but there is little of the wild left in the West of to-day, little of the old lawlessness. The most lawless time of Americais to-day, but the most lawless parts of America are the most highly civilized parts. The most dangerous section of America is not the West, but the East.
The worst men are no longer those of the mountains or the plains, but of the great cities. The most absolute lawlessness exists under the shadow of the tallest temples of the law, and in the penetralia of that society which vaunts itself as the supreme civilization of the world. We have had no purpose in these pages to praise any sort of crime or to glorify any manner of bad deeds; but if we were forced to make choice among criminals, then by all means that choice should be, must be, not the brutal murderer of the cities, but the desperado of the old West. The one is an assassin, the other was a warrior; the one is a dastard, the other was something of a man.
A lawlessness which arises to magnitude is not called lawlessness; and killing more than murder is called war. The great industrial centers show us what ruthlessness may mean, more cruel and more dangerous than the worst deeds of our border fighting men. As for the criminal records of our great cities, they surpass by infinity those of the rudest wilderness anarchy.Their nature at times would cause a hardened desperado of the West to blush for shame.
One distinguished feature of city badness is the great number of crimes against women, ranging from robbery to murder. Now, the desperado, the bandit, the robber of the wildest West never made war on any woman, rarely ever robbed a woman, even when women mingled with the victims of a "stand and deliver" general robbery of a stage or train. The man who would kill a woman in the West could never meet his fellow in fair fight again. The rope was ready for him, and that right quickly.
But how is it in the great cities, under the shadow of the law? Forget the crimes of industrialism, the sweat-shops and factories, which undermine the last hope of a nation—the constitution of its women—and take the open and admitted crimes. One city will suffice for this, and that may be the city of Chicago.
In Chicago, in the past twenty-four years, very nearly two thousand murders have been committed; and of these, two hundred remain mysteries to-day, their perpetrators having gone free and undetected. In the past year, seventeen women have been murdered in Chicago,some under circumstances too horrible to mention. In a list of fifty murders by unknown parties during the last few years, the whole gamut of dastardly crime has been run. The slaughter list is appalling. The story of this killing of women is so repellant that one turns to the bloodiest deeds of Western personal combats with a feeling of relief; and as one does so one adds, "Here at least were men."
The story of Chicago is little worse, according to her population, than that of New York, of Boston, of any large city. Foot up the total of the thousands of murders committed every year in America. Then, if you wish to become a criminal statistician, compare that record with those of England, France or Germany. We kill ten persons to England's one; and we kill them in the cities.
In the cities it is unlawful to wear arms, and to protect one's self against armed attack is therefore impossible. In the cities we have policemen. Against real fighting men, the average policeman would be helpless. Yet, such as he is, he must be the sole fence against the bloody-minded who do not scruple at robbery and murder. In the labor riots, the streets of a city are avenues of anarchy, and none of our weak-souledofficials, held in the cursed thrall of politics, seems able to prevent it. A dozen town marshals of the old stripe would restore peace and fill a graveyard in one day of any strike; and their peace would be permanent. A real town marshal at the head of a city police force, with real fighting men under him, could restore peace and fill a graveyard in one month in any city; and that peace would be permanent. If we wished the law, we could have it.
The history of the bloodiest lawlessness of the American past shows continual repetitions. First, liberty is construed to mean license, and license unrebuked leads on to insolence. Still left unrebuked, license organizes against the law, taking the form of gangs, factions, bandit clans. Then in time the spirit of law arises, and not the law, but the offended individuals wronged by too much license, take the matter into their own hands, not waiting for the courts, but executing a swifter justice. It is the terror of lynch law which has, in countless instances, been the foundation of the later courts, with their slow moving and absurdly inefficient methods. In time the inefficiency of the courts once more begets impatience and contempt. The people again rebel at the fact that their governmentgives them no government, that their courts give them no justice, that their peace officers give them no protection. Then they take matters into their hands once more, and show both courts and criminals that the people still are strong and terrible.
The deprecation of lynch law, and the whining cry that the law should be supported, that the courts should pass on the punishment, is in the first place the plea of the weak, and in the second place, the plea of the ignorant. He has not read the history of this country, and has never understood the American character who says lynch law is wrong. It has been the salvation of America a thousand times. It may perhaps again be her salvation.
In one way or another the American people will assert the old vigilante principle that a man's life, given him by God, and a man's property, earned by his own labor, are things he is entitled to defend or have defended. He never wholly delegates this right to any government. He may rescind his qualified delegation when he finds his chosen servants unfaithful or inefficient; and so have back again clean his own great and imperishable human rights. A wise law and one enforced is tolerable. Anunjust and impure law is intolerable, and it is no wrong to cast off allegiance to it. If so, Magna Charta was wrong, and the American Revolution earth's greatest example of lynch law!