A STRANGE AND STARTLING DREAM WHICH PROVED TRUE--ALEX RAMSEY AND HIS
HONORABLE CAREER IN HAYES CITY--PURSUIT OF A PAIR OF
HORSE-THIEVES--HIS WIFE'S FOREBODINGS--HER TERRIBLE VISION OF HER
HUSBAND'S MURDER WHILE ASLEEP.
Detectives, as a rule, are devoid of superstition. They have sufficient
offer of assistance from mediums and fortune tellers, and of other persons
who profess to read the future, but they find that they do better, as a
rule, when they depend solely upon the material facts which form their
staple. They rely generally upon their own eyes and ears and shrewdness of
mind to accomplish their work. As a rule, in fact, they are disbelievers
in all that is supernatural or that comes from so-called second sight. But
occasionally they see occurrences which they consider strange, to say the
least. Gen. Cook does not call to mind any story in which clairvoyance or
spiritualism has played any important part in the capture of a criminal,
but he relates a reminiscence concerning the death of a fellow detective
and member of the Rocky Mountain Detective Association, which is so very,
very strange as to deserve a place in this record, especially as the
circumstances are thoroughly authenticated. The story, regardless of this
feature, is sufficiently thrilling to justify its publication here, but
when this is added, the interest is increased tenfold. Indeed, there are
few occurrences related in history which combine to such an extent the
thrilling elements of official life with the mysterious features of the
spiritual realm.
The story deals with Alex Ramsey and his wife, and is located at Hayes
City, Kan., the time being the fall of 1875. Ramsey was at that time a man
about thirty-three years of age, and was as fine a specimen of manhood as
is met with in a day's journey. He was a thoroughly western man in all
things--in manners, frankness and courage, as well as in stature. He was
ever a hail fellow, genial with his friends, liberal to a fault, and as
brave as a lion when duty called him to action. He was a good detective,
excelling especially in his dealings with desperate characters. He had, a
few years before the date of this story, married a confiding,
impressionable little woman down in the Missouri valley, who loved him
with all the strength of a woman's nature. She depended upon him
implicitly, believed in his prowess in all matters, and really worshiped
him. Soon after their marriage they removed to Hayes City, near the
Colorado line and then the terminus of the Kansas Pacific railroad--a
live, bustling town, full of life and abounding in the rough characters
who accompany the building of railroads in the West.
Ramsey had not long been in Hayes when his courage as well as his many
manly qualities came to be known to the people of the place, as he
frequently had occasion to aid in handling the violent spirits who
congregated there. Hence it came about that when the people of that place
came to want an executive officer in whom they could trust, they selected
Ramsey. Gen. Cook, as chief of the Rocky Mountain Detective Agency, heard
of this man, and in 1871 invited him to become a member of his
association. The offer was accepted, and Ramsey became one of the most
active of the officers of the organization, always conducting himself so
as to win the approbation and maintain the confidence of his chief. Ramsey
had served one term as sheriff of his county, and in the summer of 1875
was reëlected, virtually without opposition. Being in Denver soon after
the reëlection, he told Gen. Cook that he was the first sheriff who had
ever lived to be elected to a second term in Hayes City, his three
predecessors having been killed before the expiration of their respective
terms of office. "I have gone through one siege," he said, "and I am going
to try it again. The chances are that I shall be killed, but I will take
the chances."
It was in October following his visit to Denver that Mr. Ramsey was called
upon to go in pursuit of a couple of horse thieves. A character well known
on the frontier in those days as "Dutch Pete," and known by no other name,
accompanied by a pal whose name is not known at all, one night made a
raid upon a band of horses belonging to a man living in Colorado, and
stampeded thirty-five head of them. When the owner awoke the next morning
he found his animals gone, and was able to ascertain that the thieves had
taken their booty in the direction of Smoky Hill or the Republican river.
His first impulse, as he afterwards explained, was to pursue them himself,
but remembering the skill and courage of Ramsey in running down such
characters, he changed his mind, and went to Hayes City and put the case
in his hands.
Mr. Ramsey cheerfully took charge of the matter, securing Frank Shepherd,
a friend in whom he had confidence, as an assistant in the work before
him, and kissing his wife an affectionate farewell, he rode off in company
with Shepherd, going towards Smoky Hill with the intention of cutting off
the retreat of the thieves. The two officers started off thoroughly armed
and well mounted. Their horses galloped away in spirit, as if anxious to
lessen the distance between the officers and their game.
Mrs. Ramsey watched the horsemen as long as she could see them, gazing
even into the blank horizon after they had disappeared as if to feast her
eyes as long as possible upon the manly form of her husband, so full of
life and hardy manhood. She had been used to having him placed in
positions of danger, and so great was her confidence in her husband's
superiority over other people in courage and coolness, that she had come
to have but little fear for his personal welfare when out on an expedition
like this upon which he was now starting. But, some how, she seemed to
feel an unusual desire on this occasion to have Mr. Ramsey not go,
although she did not say so to him, for she knew that he would attend to
his duty in spite of any forebodings of hers, which he would consider
foolish, womanish fear. But she gazed longer and earnestly after him, and
at last when she knew that he had gone for good, had turned to go in the
house, exclaiming, "Oh, pshaw! this is foolish. I know he will come back.
He always does, doesn't he?"
She thus dismissed the matter from her mind as completely as she could,
and went about her household duties, making herself as busy as possible
during the day and as far into the night as she could find anything to do.
As a consequence of this over exertion Mrs. Ramsey slept soundly upon
going to bed. Everybody about the house had retired either before or at
the time that she did, and all were by midnight busy with their dreams.
They were, however, at this hour startled into a thorough state of
wakefulness by a scream which rent the air, and which came from the
direction of the room of Mrs. Ramsey.
The entire household was astir in a moment, and all rushed pell-mell into
Mrs. Ramsey's apartments. They found her out of bed in her night clothes,
and her two children, one of them a mere baby, clinging to her. She was
talking in an incoherent manner at the top of her voice and the children,
thoroughly frightened at their mother's manner, were crying loudly. The
inmates of the house succeeded in a few moments in quieting the woman
down, and at last procured an explanation from her. "Such a horrid--horrid
dream!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I know it's true! I saw it--just as plain as
day--plainer than I see you--just as real and terrible as if I had been
there. I just know that Alex is dead. I didn't want him to go. I tried to
the last to see him. I never in my life so longed to beg him not to go. I
wish I had. I believe he would have stayed with me. But poor, poor fellow,
I shall never see him again, except in death."