station, the several stores and half a dozen houses that constituted
the little town. A couple of young country yokels, eighteen or twenty
years of age, met me at the train with a buck-board. There was just
snow enough drifting to make the roads almost impassable here and
there, but not enough for sleighing, so that the trip was not the
pleasantest I had ever experienced.
“It was supper time before I had finished with the wounded man, and I
was as hungry as a Sioux Indian on a long trail in the Bad Lands. I was
very glad to participate in the humble but abundant meal.
“Supper over, I was informed that there was just time to catch the
south bound train--then to the buckboard and miserable roads again; the
gawky country boys who had met me at the train still doing the honors.
When we arrived at the station, what was my disgust to learn that my
train was fully two hours late.
“The prospect of spending the entire evening at a little tumble
down way station waiting for a belated train was too uninviting for
adequate description. As the storm was increasing every moment and the
fierce wind was piling up the snow drifts higher and higher across the
railroad tracks, there was no certainty that the expected train would
come at all. My prospects for getting home that night were certainly
dubious--locomotives stalled in snow drifts were sufficiently familiar
to me to make me decidedly uneasy.
“My friends, the country boys, seeing my predicament, offered to stay
with me until the train came, and although I protested feebly against
their discommoding themselves to such an extent, I inwardly rejoiced
when they showed their sincerity by insisting on remaining. Alas!
had I but known the horrible thing that was soon to happen, I should
have returned to their home with them rather than to have allowed the
poor fellows to indulge their whole-souled notions of courtesy and
hospitality.
“A cheery fire was burning in the stuffy little drum stove in the
center of the common waiting room, and being pretty well chilled after
our long, weary ride, I huddled up as close to it as I could without
igniting my clothing. The two young farmers meanwhile inaugurated a
playful wrestling bout which answered well in lieu of the fire in
starting up their circulation.
“In one corner of the room was a curtained recess, containing the
station master’s bed, to which the owner had apparently retired early,
as evidenced by the brassy, nasally whistling snores which from time
to time rent the air of the stuffy apartment, making the environment
rather cheerful and homelike.
“I had been warming myself before the fire for fully an hour--the
country lads had grown tired of their rough play and had seated
themselves on a rough bench in the corner of the room, where they were
nodding and occasionally snoring an intermittent, shrill falsetto
accompaniment to the station master’s ruder and less musical bass. I
had just discovered that I myself was growing sleepy and was about to
seat myself with my back to the wall, yield to the pressure of fatigue
and join the sleeping chorus when I was brought back to earth in a very
unceremonious fashion.
“‘Hands up, there!’
“I turned slowly and gazed sleepily in the direction of the voice. The
two country youths awoke with a start and sat staring, more stupidly
than I if possible, in the same direction.
“‘Hands up, there, and be d--d quick about it!’
“I began to comprehend, and my hands, impelled by a will which for the
time being was more masterly than my own, raised themselves, almost
automatically, straight up in the air in the most orthodox fashion
known to the annals of highway robbery. The country boys rose slowly to
their feet and mechanically followed suit.
“The sleep-fog and the psychic confusion of surprise gradually cleared
away, and I saw the tableau clearly--so clearly that, ‘an’ I should
live a thousand years I’d not forget it’.
“Standing in the open door of the little station were two tough
looking men. The taller of the two, the owner of the voice that had so
unmusically and ruthlessly aroused us, was a man considerably over six
feet in height, raw-boned, broad-shouldered, big-hatted, and roughly
dressed, with a coarse red beard that evidently was much the worse for
wear in regions where barbers are a scarce commodity. His eyes were of
that cold steely grey color which makes one think twice before running
counter to the wishes of the man to whom they belong.
“The ruffian held in either hand a cow boy’s pet, a long barreled
Colt’s 45--the kind our fathers loved; the kind that has made American
history, and especially the ‘bad men’ who adorn its pages.
“Say, old man, did you ever have a healthy, well favored, full
stomached Colt’s 45 pointed at you in real earnest? Well, if you
haven’t you can’t appreciate how I felt. I didn’t have to see that
the hammers of those particular guns were raised to the proper angle
and ready for business; it was also entirely unnecessary to waste any
valuable time in speculating as to whether they were loaded or not. I
actually _felt_ that those guns were at full cock and loaded to the
muzzle--‘chock a block’. The muzzles of the weapons were more capacious
than I had believed it possible for pistols to be, and deep down in
each of their yawning throats I fancied I could see a huge conical
ball, ready for flight in my direction. It was as though I were tied
hand and foot and laid upon the track at the mouth of a railroad tunnel
from which an express train was thundering down upon me at the rate of
a mile a minute.
“Not knowing anything of the desperado’s power of self-control my own
self-possession was hard to maintain--I imagined that his fingers were
a little trembly, as though he were tempted to pull the trigger and
have done with it, but was struggling with himself in the effort to
restrain the savage impulse. I mentally resolved that I would neither
do nor say anything which should disturb his poise or ruffle his
equanimity.
“Ugh! I could actually hear the rush of the displaced air and impelling
gases as the bullets started from their hiding places in the breeches
of those mighty pistols and, swifter than lightning, flew toward me.
I even fancied I could feel the impact of the cruel missiles with my
flesh, and the moist warmth of the escaping blood as they rent my skin
and muscles.
“Our hands being elevated to an angle which was satisfactory to the
spokesman of the bandits, he turned to his companion and said:
“‘Go through ’em, Bob, and hustle it up. The train’ll be here before
we can say Jack Robinson. Take that feller with the whiskers an’
spectacles first. Easy, now, gents; take your medicine, and don’t you
bat an eye--if you don’t want a hole plugged through ye big enough for
a cat to crawl into without bloodyin’ her whiskers.’
“The fellow who was officiating as lieutenant for the gentleman with
the artillery was a tough-looking proposition for his inches, but such
a little runt that even the moral suasion of the 45’s did not blunt the
edge of my humiliation when he proceeded to ‘go through’ me.
“But the ignominy and shame of my embarrassing position had not yet
reached the climax. I was raging inwardly and wishing that I could have
a fair field and no favor with either or both of the bandits--I used to
be pretty handy myself, you know--but I did not lose my self-control
during the dextrous and speedy search of my person. A pair of walloping
big guns is a great inhibitor of the warlike spirit.
“I had not collected my fee in the gunshot case, hence the process
of ‘going through’ me was not very productive of spoils. My pockets
were as empty of cash as those of a lamb after a busy day on ‘Change.
A Waterbury watch, about two dollars in small change, a not very
elaborate set of surgical instruments, a jack-knife, a bunch of
keys, my wife’s photograph, and an annual pass on the St. Paul road
constituted my available assets.
“The robber was simply furious when he took account of stock. Dashing
the stuff upon the floor he ripped out:
“‘D--n you for a no account cuss, anyhow! I’ll just give you one for
luck.’
“With this the ruffian suddenly caught me by the shoulders and,
wheeling me to the right about, kicked me full upon the pride center!
What little weight the fellow had was in that kick and I recollect that
the hurt to my anatomy and the still greater injury to my self-respect
was not unmingled with surprise. I never before knew how hard such a
little chap could kick. It was like a blow from a hydraulic ram. It
jarred me so that a plate with several false upper teeth was dislodged
from my mouth, and fell upon the floor.
“The kick the bandit had given me was alone sufficient to impel me to
do murder--my breed does not placidly submit to blows--but the betrayal
of a secret which I had guarded carefully, even from my wife, was the
last straw in my burden of humiliation. I could take a bite of crow,
but I could not bolt him, beak, claws, feathers and all. So enraged was
I that I completely forgot the man behind the guns.
“In the rear of the stove was a shelf upon which stood numerous things
essential to even a bachelor’s housekeeping. Among these various
properties a brace of old fashioned flat irons caught my eye. I rushed
to the shelf, grabbed an iron and hurled it at my enemy’s head, just
missing him by a hair’s breadth.
“Whether because he was taken by surprise or not, I do not know, but
the bandit made no attempt to draw a weapon. He stood with mouth agape,
stupidly gazing at me until, having missed my aim with the iron, I
rushed at him like an infuriated bull; he then aroused himself to the
emergency and clinched for safety, and we went to the floor together,
the highwayman underneath. As I went down I caught a glimpse of the
station agent with a six shooter in his hand, peering cautiously
out between the curtains of the partition behind which he had been
sleeping, apparently seeking an opportunity for a pot shot.
“With the downfall of the nearer robber the country boys regained their
power of motion--and alas! forgot those awful guns and rushed awkwardly
to my assistance.
“The desperado with the guns came into action simultaneously with the
farmer lads. There were two shots, so close together that there seemed
to be but one report! The two unfortunate youths fell dead across us
two who were struggling upon the floor, their blood spouting over me
in hot gushes. They fell with their full weight crushing me, so inertly
that I was compelled to heave them off with my shoulders and elbows.
“The murder of those poor boys brought me to my senses, and then came
an acute realization of the imminence of my own danger--I well knew at
whom the next shot would be fired. With the realization of my danger
my furious anger vanished; I regained my usual presence of mind and my
thinking apparatus began to work again.
“Putting in practice a trick well known on the wrestling mat, I
threw one arm around the neck of my foe, choking him into absolute
helplessness. With the other arm I rolled him over like a trussed
Christmas turkey, so that his body was between me and the danger of a
salute from the 45’s. As I turned him over a shot rang out. The ball
narrowly escaped putting an end to the battle. It was a lucky shot for
me in more ways than one--it not only missed me, but struck the stove,
ricocheted and smashed the hanging-lamp with which the room was dimly
lighted. There was now no light save from the open door of the stove.
“The man with the guns, still bent upon assisting his friend and
incidentally exterminating me, at once came to close quarters. Standing
over our struggling forms, he endeavored to put a shot where it would
do his cause the most good. He shot twice, but fired wide, so great was
his fear of hitting his confederate.
“Never was my mind or muscle more active. I thought of the station
master and his six shooter. ‘My God! Will he never fire?’ I exclaimed
mentally. Meanwhile I twisted my helpless foe about like a bundle of
rags. From side to side I rolled him--always with a view to keeping his
body between me and danger. Suddenly there was a blinding flash, fairly
in my face--and then came oblivion!
“How long I lay insensible I have no means of knowing. When I recovered
consciousness I found myself lying where I had fallen when I went to
the floor with the highwayman. Beside me, so near that I could touch
them with my hand, lay the dead bodies of my late companions. I could
just discern their rigid outlines in the dim light from the stove.
“As my senses grew more acute I became aware of an intense burning pain
in the left side of my head, and felt a stream of warm fluid which I
at once recognized as blood, trickling freely down my face. I touched
the painful spot with my fingers, and knew at once what had happened--I
had been shot through the temple! The serious nature of the injury
would have suggested itself to the merest tyro. You may imagine how I
felt, knowing as you do the extensive experience I had had with gunshot
wounds. There did not seem to be one chance in a hundred that the ball
had failed to penetrate my brain. Realizing this, I was only too well
aware of the probably desperate character of my wound.
“I tried to rise, and after several painful efforts succeeded in
raising myself on my elbow, only immediately to fall helplessly back
to the floor again. As I lay there half dazed, and fearfully exhausted
from the shock and loss of blood, I realized in a hazy sort of way that
there was nothing to do but await the coming of assistance.
“I recalled in a confused fashion the vision of the station master
and his gun, and wondered what had become of him and why he had not
fired at the bandits during the fight. That he had fled from the scene
of battle did not occur to me. It subsequently transpired, however,
that the gallant fellow was too frightened to fire at the desperadoes
and that, after several attempts to muster up courage enough to pull
the trigger on them, he had dropped his weapon and fled incontinently
through a rear window.
“I finally became apathetic and indifferent as to my fate--an
experience by no means unusual to persons who have suffered from
shock and great loss of blood--and lapsed into almost complete
unconsciousness.
“How long I lay there upon the floor in my half dead condition is a
matter for conjecture. I was finally aroused to full consciousness
by the sound of voices and the noise of many feet at the door of the
station. I heard some one say:
“‘I don’t think they both got away, boys. I only seen one feller run.
Perhaps one o’ them men they was holdin’ up got one of ’em; there was a
hull lot o’ shootin’ goin’ on.’
“‘We’d better go kind o’ careful, then,’ said another. ‘If there’s any
of ’em in there, they may have just one kick left in ’em.’
“In my confused state of mind the significance of what I heard was
entirely lost upon me. I knew only that help was at hand and felt that
I must get to it.
“Struggling to my feet by a mighty effort I tottered to the door
through which the feeble rays of a lantern in the hands of one of the
crowd were gleaming. Reaching the door, I stumbled over the threshold
and fairly fell into the arms of several men who were apparently too
startled to follow the example of the rest of the crowd, which had
scattered the instant my form appeared in the doorway.
“I was immediately thrown to the ground and pinned there by a big
strapping fellow, who in his excitement very nearly finished the
bandit’s work by squeezing what little breath I had remaining
completely out of me.
“‘I’ve got him, boys!’ cried the man, who I afterward learned was the
station master. The crowd recovered its nerve, returned to action and
proceeded to inspect the capture, apparently losing all interest in
further investigation of conditions inside the station.
“In the crowd were several women, who, with the curiosity and
enterprise characteristic of the “weaker” sex in mobs, succeeded in
pushing themselves in front of the men. As the man with the lantern
turned the light full upon me, there was a cry from one of the women.
“‘That’s him, that’s the big robber! I seen him through the winder of
our house when they passed by. I’d know him anywhere!’
“I began to realize that I was in danger and, fully aroused, endeavored
to make myself heard. My efforts were futile, however, and I merely
received a choking for my pains.
“‘Let’s string him up, boys; it’ll save the county a lot of expense!’
shouted some one.
“‘Hang him! Hang him!’ chorused the crowd.
“‘Somebody get a rope!’ cried the man who was kneeling on my chest.
“‘Take him to a telegraph pole!’ cried another.
“I was half dragged, half carried to the nearest telegraph pole and
assisted to my feet beneath it. A rope was speedily found and tied
about my neck. A boy was ordered to climb the pole with the other end
of the rope and pass it over the arm that supports the wires.
[Illustration: “A ROPE WAS SPEEDILY FOUND AND TIED ABOUT MY NECK”]
“My situation would not have been so bad if I had lost the power of
thinking and with it the capacity for mental suffering. My mind was
never so acute as at that moment but, with the treatment the bandits
had given me and the mauling and choking I had since received at the
hands of that ignorant mob, I had absolutely lost my power of
speech. But think!--My God! man, of what did I not think, as I stood
there in the shadow of death at the hands of a lot of ignorant farmers
and railroad hands who were about to offer me up on the altar of their
own cowardice and brutality? A mob feels but it does not reason. I had
seen enough of mobs to know that only a miracle could save me.
“It is a trite observation that in the mind of one standing on the
margin of the Valley of Shadows, as I was at that awful moment, all
the events of his past life pass in swift review. So rapidly does one
impression follow another, that one’s previous experiences form a
single composite picture like that of the biograph, or the pictures
that dreams paint upon the brain. Such was my own experience in a
general way, but one feature of the mental life review which my
terrible experience brought me was most peculiar and horrifying.
“For several years before I graduated in medicine, I occupied a
position in the coroner’s office in the city of C----. In the
performance of my official duties I was compelled to witness a number
of executions. Among others was that of a certain wife murderer. The
sheriff, usually expert in such matters, made a bungle of this man’s
case. The noose slipped and he slowly strangled to death! The unhappy
event made a most powerful impression upon my youthful mind, but I
little thought of the mental rehearsal of the awful scene that was in
store for me.
“Standing out in bold relief from the rest of the picture of my past
life that was displayed before my mental vision as the mob completed
its preparations for hanging me, was the frightful scene enacted on the
gallows at the execution of the wife murderer in the jail yard of C----.
“The most peculiar feature of it all was that it was I, and not that
wife murderer whose death throes I saw in my mind’s eye. Horrible
beyond conception were that awful choking, the agonized struggle for
breath, the tumultuous spasms of the diaphragm, the twitchings of the
muscles and the frightful roaring in the ears which I experienced as
the murderer slowly died of strangulation. As the limbs of the dying
man in the mental picture spasmodically flexed and extended themselves,
I felt all of the agonizing pains experienced by sufferers from lock
jaw or strychnine poisoning.
“And this was not all. My chest was encircled as with a band of iron.
Closer and closer drew the band until it seemed as if my diaphragm
must tear clear across its breadth in the fearful effort to get oxygen
into my lungs. I saw brilliant, glittering points and shafts of light
dancing before my eyes. I seemed to be growing delirious and vainly
tried to speak, the result being a queer sort of gibberish. Worst of
all, the black death hood seemed suddenly to become transformed into a
mask of transparent glass, through which I could see my own purpling,
swollen features, with the bulging, blackened lips and protruding
tongue and turgid, popping eye balls, in which I could see the horror
of impending death reflected. Oh, it was horrible! horrible!
“As the struggling body in the picture swayed back and forth from the
initial tipping movement imparted by the falling of the drop, my real
body seemed to oscillate back and forth like a pendulum. Once, when
the picture body struck with cruel impact a corner post of the gallows
tree, an acute, agonizing pain shot through me from head to foot. Then
the swaying movement ceased and the body spun round and round like a
top at the end of the fatal cord, so rapidly that the fuzzy threads of
the hemp stood out like a coating of fur upon the rope. I grew dizzy
and nauseated. Dizzier and dizzier I grew; louder and yet louder grew
the roaring in my ears, until I became unconscious and--all was over.
“Then came the most incomprehensible thing of all. I recovered
consciousness and saw crowding around the dead body upon the scaffold
the lookers on at the execution, and the coroner’s jury, with myself at
its head. Standing beside the corpse was Dr. Cartwright, the coroner’s
physician. Watch in hand, with his fingers on the wrist of the corpse
seeking for signs of the life that had forever departed, the doctor
slowly counted the minutes required by law.
“And then I saw the body lowered into the coffin and taken away!
“All that I have described to you took place very rapidly. I was not
conscious of any appreciable interval between the time of my conveyance
from the station by the mob and the final act of the execution which my
memory had painted for me.
“While the drama of the hanging was being played in my mind, the
preparations for a more tangible execution under the auspices of Judge
Lynch were going on.
“The boy with the rope ‘shinned’ up the telegraph pole like a young
monkey. Arriving at the first cross arm of the pole, he passed the
rope over it and threw the loose end down to the expectant crowd of
bloodthirsty savages below.
“When the free end of the rope struck the ground, the entire crowd,
with the exception of two or three men who were holding me, rushed for
it, and fought for holds upon it. Each was more than willing to do his
share in the killing of their helpless victim.
“The falling of the rope’s end and the mad rush of the crowd to secure
it broke the spell in which I was bound and I regained my voice
sufficiently to indistinctly mumble my name. A few seconds more and my
death by strangulation would have been more than a mental picture--it
would have been a grim reality! One of my guards had sufficient
sense--or curiosity, I don’t know which, nor do I care so long as it
served me well--to call a halt in the ceremonies.
“‘Hold on, boys! Wait a minute--let’s hear what this feller’s tryin’ to
say. We’ve got plenty of time to hear his spiel.’
“Most of the crowd came reluctantly back to listen. The more
ravenously bloodthirsty of the mob still held on to the rope and
waited impatiently for the continuation of the pleasure party. As the
brutes crowded around me I managed to introduce myself a little more
coherently.
“‘Go on, what yer givin’ us?’ said the man who had halted the
execution; ‘He says he’s a doctor, boys’.
“‘Here, let’s have a look at that feller,’ cried a voice from somewhere
in the crowd. A man pressed forward and confronted me.
“‘Gimme that lantern.’
“The lantern was handed to him, and holding it close to my face he
looked at me earnestly for a moment. I in turn, as you may surmise,
stared quite as hard at him. We recognized each other simultaneously!
“‘Dan Williams,’ I stammered weakly, recognizing an old patient of
mine, a railroad hand whose leg I had saved after it had been condemned
to amputation.
“‘Good God! Doc. Fairweather, is that you?’
“I was saved! I shall always believe that the majority of the mob felt
aggrieved at both Dan and myself by the mutual recognition that had
saved my life by such a narrow margin. The rope was dropped, however,
albeit grudgingly, and my neck released from its gruesome embrace.