dazed, overwhelmed by the suddenness and vigor of the onslaught.
Heretofore, attacks--always made by a posse--had begun with scouting
and skirmish and ended with a running fight, usually at long range.
The plan of two mere deputies coming straight upon them and demanding
sudden and complete surrender was wholly new. As before remarked, there
was something about it terribly convincing--almost supernatural.
McDonald kept the men covered, now, while Burson secured their weapons.
Then, hand-cuffed and shackled, they were marched to the big hack,
crowded into it and driven fifty miles to Higgins; thence by rail to
the United States Commissioner at Wichita Falls.
McDonald, as usual, was sociable enough with his prisoners, once
secure, and delivered to them his customary homily, as they drove along.
"I just want to show you fellows, up here, how easy it is to take
you," he said affably. "You-all have got the notion that you can run
this country your own way, and that there ain't any officers that can
come up here and make you behave. Now, you-all are mightily mistaken.
I'm going to put every one of you fellows in jail and a lot more like
you. You know well enough it ain't right to act like you-all have been
doing--driving off other men's cattle and robbing trains and shooting
men that you had the drop on. You might know you'd get into trouble.
The United States has made laws against such business as that, and them
laws cover this country the same as anywhere else and every one of your
kind up in here is going to find it out."
The gang was landed safely in Wichita Falls. Some of them were
eventually convicted; the rest either became better citizens or sought
quieter territory for their industries. The cleaning up of No-man's
Land had begun.
The work of active reform was not allowed to languish. News of the
first successful raid traveled quickly, and State Senator Temple
Houston--son of Governor Sam Houston--notified McDonald that the
Sheriff of Hansford County was in need of assistance to cope with a bad
gang which had a rendezvous just across the border from Hansford, in
No-man's Land. These bandits had been carrying on the usual business of
horse and cattle stealing, and general highway robbery. Unlike some of
the officials, the sheriff of Hansford, though not noted for reckless
bravery, was in no way in league with the thieves and desired only
their extermination. His jurisdiction, however, extended no farther
than the Texas line, and thus far no State or federal officer had
rendered any assistance. As a result, the band, becoming very bold, had
pitched their camp just over the line, and had defied arrest, declaring
they would shoot the first man that stepped across.
When Bill McDonald got the word from Senator Houston, he immediately
sent over for Lon Burson and then proceeded to Canadian, Hemhill
County, where Houston lived. Here they learned more fully what work
was cut out for them, and presently continued their journey over into
Hansford, where, from the sheriff, they secured the names of the
offenders, as far as possible, and a partial list of their misdeeds.
Complaints were now filed against six men, the usual commodious hack
was secured; also, a light buggy for possible side excursions, and
McDonald and Burson, accompanied by the sheriff as a guide, drove
through the gray of early morning, to the line which divided Hansford
County from No-man's Land.
Arriving at the border, the sheriff pointed out where the robber den--a
log building--was located, not more than eight hundred yards beyond.
Then he said he would wait there until they got back.
"Come right along with us," said McDonald, "we need you to identify the
men."
But the officer said. "No," that the men knew him, and it might alarm
them if they saw him coming. Besides, he had no authority over there.
"Never mind that," urged McDonald, "I'll risk the consequences, and
I'll make you one of a deputy's posse, which fixes your authority all
right."
But the sheriff still said "No," that he didn't care for any more
authority than he had--that anything new in that line might make him
proud. He said he thought he would enjoy sitting there in the hack
where he would have a good view of what happened to them when they
tackled that outfit.
McDonald and Burson, therefore, set out in the light buggy, driving
leisurely across the intervening space. Arriving near the log-house,
they discovered that five men were up, and sitting sleepily on the
ground in front of their cabin, their Winchesters leaning against the
wall behind them. Evidently they did not look for any attack, and even
when they saw the approaching buggy, their wits were not sufficiently
collected to suspect that these might be officers; nor could they
realize that any two men in a buggy would drive over to attempt their
capture. In another instant they were covered.
"Get up from there and throw up your hands!" was the word of greeting
they received. "And don't try to touch them guns. The first man that
tries it I'll kill him."
The five men rose--it was polite to do so--also, they refrained from
offering any discourtesy in the matter of the guns. McDonald now called
the roll of the names he wanted, and curious as it may seem, each man
answered to his name. One man of the six wanted, being missing, the
officers proceeded to hand-cuff and shackle the five captured men,
and marched them back to the hack, where the sheriff of Hansford was
waiting.
Of course the sheriff didn't believe it was true. He had had such
dreams before and thought he would wake up, presently, at home, in bed.
When he convinced himself at last that he was not asleep, he offered
to aid in the search for the sixth man. He was well acquainted with
the Territory trails, and McDonald decided to send Burson to Hansford
with the hack-load and to proceed with the buggy and the sheriff after
Number Six of the gang who, it appeared, had a place of his own some
twenty miles away.
Number Six was out looking after his cattle--about thirty in
number--the result of industry--when McDonald and the sheriff of
Hansford arrived, and not expecting official guests, was unprepared.
He had, in fact, "no more gun than a rabbit," as Deputy Bill said
afterward, and his capture was child's play. That night the gang
complete set out for Wichita Falls, to be tried later in the United
States Court at Dallas.
Raids followed each other rapidly. One gang of cattle thieves after
another was gathered in, and took up the march for Dallas and trial.
Outlawing in No-man's Land became an unpopular occupation. Men of more
legitimate enterprise began to wonder if the time was not coming, by
and by, when they could do business on or within the borders of that
territory without the protection of a company of soldiers. The fame of
Bill McDonald was on every man's tongue, and those who had not seen
him, especially the outlaws still at large, usually conceived him to
be a very terrible person: large, bushy, heavy of voice and fierce of
mien. Yet he was just the opposite of all these things. He was slender,
quiet, blue-eyed, and gentle of voice--only, he had that gift of
command--that look, and that manner of speech with law-breakers which
they did not disobey. The time came presently in No-man's Land when his
name alone and a rumor that he was coming was sufficient to cause a
gang to contemplate emigration. Perhaps they believed he bore a charmed
life, and it was useless to resist him. If so, they were hardly to be
blamed for such a conviction.
XII
Some of the Difficulties of Reform
"FRONTIER" LAW AND PRACTICE. CAUGHT IN A NORTHER IN NO-MAN'S LAND
It is neither necessary nor possible to give a full history of all the
raids that during the brief period of little more than a year broke up
organized lawlessness in that stray corner of the nation and redeemed
an abandoned land. The general plan was the same in all. The early
morning hour; the hack and the Winchester; the surprise attack, and
the pleasant drive home with the guests duly hand-cuffed and shackled;
these were features common to each episode. Though conducted against
desperate men, it was a bloodless warfare. Nobody was killed--scarcely
a gun was fired. Bill McDonald's career was not to be always like that.
There was to be shooting enough and blood-letting too, but the No-man's
Land campaign was peculiar in the absence of these customary attributes
of border warfare.
Yet there are one or two aspects of the happenings of that period which
may not be overlooked here. As before suggested, the administrators of
the law were not always to be relied upon. Some of them were actually
in league with the law-breakers; others were honest enough, but afraid
of them. But there was still another sort, who being both honest and
courageous lacked information. Sometimes this resulted in curious
complications which were annoying and discouraging to an officer.
Often, the results were rather humorous in their nature. The following
is an illustration of frontier jurisprudence.
McDonald had heard of a cow thief in No-man's Land who was working
on his own hook--a sporadic case, as one might say--and went over to
arrest him. He descended upon him in an unexpected moment, and though
the outlaw strenuously protested that it being Sunday the law of arrest
did not hold good, Deputy Bill conveyed him across the border and down
into Roberts County where the cattle had been stolen and where there
was a justice of the peace--it being hardly worth while to take a
single prisoner to Wichita Falls. McDonald's idea was that the justice
would have authority to bind his prisoner over until such time as the
grand jury of that district should meet and indict him in regular form.
Now, Roberts County was a wild desolate place in those days. There was
no town anywhere about, and few people. There had been no previous call
for administration of the law of any sort, and up to that time no case
had come before this justice of the peace. On the arrival of McDonald
with his prisoner, his honor convened court with a sort of a helpless
look. His office was merely a title, so far as he was concerned, and
the wide realm of the law was to him an unexplored country. He had a
copy of the "Revised Statutes," however, which he now took down and
examined, perhaps for the first time. With McDonald's help he found
the section which related to cattle stealing, and the penalty. Regular
procedure, with indictments and trial by jury were as nothing to him.
He only knew that he had been elected to his office, and that his duty
was to administer the law as laid down. He read the law as pointed out,
and assumed a judicial severity.
"You own up that you stole them cattle?" he said to the prisoner.
The prisoner nodded.
"Then as justice of the peace of this county I hereby send you to the
penitentiary for ten years."
McDonald gasped.
"Judge," he said, "I don't believe that's quite regular."
"Why; ain't that the law?"
"Well, yes, but you see he's entitled to trial, an' mebbe it would be
just as well to bind him over under a good heavy bond, and if he can't
raise it send him to jail over in Canadian until the grand jury meets.
Of course I only mention that as being the usual way of doing things."
The justice looked a little disappointed.
"Why, yes, of course, if you want it that way," he said, "but the man's
guilty and I thought you'd like to put the thing through as quick and
easy as possible, and save expense. Oh, well, any way to suit you.
I'll make his bond heavy enough, anyway." He paused to think, perhaps
trying to imagine a sum large enough for a man who had plead guilty
to the heinous crime of cattle stealing. "I'll put him under a heavy
bond--a _good heavy bond_--I'll make it three hundred dollars!"
It will be seen that an official who was given to inspirations such as
these could become a trial, even with the best intentions in the world;
and there were others who added arrogance to their ignorance, and
connivance at crime. Nor were the raids into No-man's Land altogether
pleasure excursions even though Deputies Bill McDonald and Lon Burson,
with their headlong tactics and general disregard of death, had things
pretty much their own way when it came to the final show-down. There
were long wearying journeys in a trailless land and long night vigils
when bone and muscle and nerve were racked and the whole body cried
out for sleep. The onset might be swift and reckless, once begun, but
the preparation for that moment was cautious and slow and often beset
with difficulties. The few dwellers in No-man's Land really desirous
of getting rid of the outlaws, were afraid to reveal their anxiety, to
give anything resembling information, or even to offer shelter to the
officers. They knew that to manifest any interest on the side of law
and order would incur the enmity of the gangs and bring down reprisal
swift and bloody. McDonald and Burson realized this, and, however
severe the conditions of weather and weariness, faced them, rather than
impose any risk upon men whose only offense was to dwell among very bad
neighbors.
At one time the deputies were after a gang of five men, wanted for
murder and theft, and were driving from Higgins into No-man's Land,
with hack and team, their saddles loaded in behind, as usual. It
was late in the year, now, and suddenly in the swift Texas fashion
a norther came down, with piercing wind and fine driving snow. If
the reader has never seen a Texas norther, or a Dakota blizzard, he
will hardly understand their predicament. The wind leaps up in a wild
gale almost in an instant; the air from being balmy takes on a sudden
bitterness that wrings the body and numbs the heart and pinches the
very soul. Then the snow comes, fine and blinding--sharp and hard as
glass. No living being was ever created that could survive long in the
face of a storm like that. Cattle know when a norther is coming and
find shelter in canyons, or gather into thick bunches in the open,
their heads to the center. Birds speed away to the south, ahead of it,
or find shelter in hollows and crannies until the demon has passed by.
A storm like that always means death. The Texas norther and the Dakota
blizzard have strewn the prairies with bones.
McDonald and Burson in the face of such a tempest tried to press on,
hoping to find a shelter of some sort--anything that would break the
terrible wind. But everywhere was only the wide prairie, level as the
sea and lost now in the swirling drift. Night was coming on rapidly,
and unless a place for camp was found soon, their case would be
hopeless, indeed. It seemed to them that they had drifted for hours,
battling against the norther--though it probably was less than one
hour--when they came upon some stacks of prairie hay, which indicated
the habitation of men. Without seeking further, they made for the
shelter of the stacks, burrowed themselves and their horses into them,
allowing the latter to feed liberally from the hay. There they remained
all night and until the afternoon of the next day, the men without
food. The storm abated then, and the officers undiscouraged, pressed
on, reaching the outlaw camp late in the afternoon, instead of at their
favorite morning hour.
The surprise was quite as complete, however, for the last thing that
those bandits expected was that two officers should suddenly appear
out of that white devastation to take them to jail. They were too much
astonished to attempt resistance and were on their way to Wichita Falls
that night, following the road which earlier in the year so many of
their kind had taken.
Indeed it was this capture at the end of 1888 that marked about the
close of the heaviest work in that particular section. The year's
crusade had demonstrated that No-man's Land was not big enough to
hold a band of cow thieves and two deputies like Bill McDonald and
Lon Burson at the same time. It was no encouragement to a band of
hard-working outlaws, just as they had got their plant established and
things well under way to be suddenly pounced down upon and put out
of business by two men who had no regard for the customary rules of
fighting, but just rushed right in with a lot of impertinent orders and
an assortment of hand-cuffs and always had a big hack ready to start at
a moment's notice for Wichita Falls.
"What is the use?" one of the freebooters is said to have complained,
"A fellow no more than gets started when these dam' fools come in and
upset everything."
What _was_ the use? Such of the No-man's Land fraternity as still
remained unhung and out of jail set out for other fields of labor. Some
of them located in the more barren districts of New Mexico and Arizona.
Some of them settled in the further places of what was then known as
the Cherokee Strip, where they joined with congenial spirits in that
territory, and pretending to be engaged in agriculture--for they were
in a more settled country--Indian country--continued their old business
at the new stand. These we shall meet again presently, for if they had
said good-by to Bill McDonald, he had not said good-by to them. It
would require new tactics to deal with the new conditions--to identify
the outlaw in the pretended agriculturist, and to get evidence for his
conviction. It would require the development of another talent in Bill
McDonald's make-up, and that talent was ready for cultivation, as we
shall see.
XIII
Captain Bill as a Tree-man
THE LOST DROVE OF LAZARUS. A PILGRIM ON A "PAINT HOSS". A NEW WAY OF
GETTING INFORMATION IN THE "STRIP"
Meanwhile, the ranch on Wanderer's Creek had suffered. Compelled to be
absent most of the time, McDonald was unable to give his herd personal
protection, and now and again bunches of his cattle were driven off
by outlaws from across the border. His brave wife, facing the problem
of the wilderness with only a few hired helpers, did her best, but
was not always able to prevent these raids. The thieves would seem to
have taken especial delight in watching for the times when Deputy Bill
was absent and then descending on his herds, mainly for the booty, no
doubt, but also by way of retaliation. It was a dangerous thing for
them to do, and though they were certain to pay for it in the end; the
double temptation of profit and revenge was not to be resisted.
But while the ranch did not prosper, its owner was in no immediate
danger of bankruptcy. With his success in breaking up the gangs in
Hardeman and adjoining counties, and in No-man's Land, McDonald's fame
had grown amazingly. As a thief-taker he was regarded as a past-master.
That an outlaw could neither intimidate nor elude him, and that when he
was feeling well he could whip any number of them single-handed, before
breakfast, was the current belief. The Cattle-men's Association--a
combination of law abiding ranchmen, one of the strongest organizations
ever known--invited his special attention to their herds and
contributed a monthly acknowledgement of one hundred and fifty dollars,
which with his numerous fees made his income an ample one--often as
large as five hundred dollars a month--sometimes double this amount.
Among the members of the association was Sam Lazarus, who was with Bull
Turner when he was shot by the Brookens, and who came into town on the
whiffletrees, undamaged, but a good deal shaken up as to nerves. Soon
after McDonald's arrangement with the cattlemen, Lazarus was sending a
herd of perhaps a thousand head into Kansas, driving them across the
Territory. Pat Wolforth, whose name may also be recalled in connection
with the Brookens, was in charge of this herd, and when just beyond the
Territory line, in a very lonely district, met with misfortune. One
evening near nightfall the cattle suddenly became frightened, doubtless
through some device of the outlaws, and Wolforth and his men found it
impossible to control them. A general stampede followed and Lazarus's
cattle were scattered over the prairies and through the fastnesses of
the Strip--a prey to the spoilers lying in wait on every hand. It was
a heavy disaster and there seemed little hope of much in the way of
recovery. The spring round-up might gather in a few stragglers, but for
the most part the herds of Lazarus were believed to be beyond all hope
of restoration.
Bill McDonald took no such view of the situation. With Pat Wolforth
he immediately visited the scene of the stampede, and began looking
for cattle with the "Diamond-tail" brand, such being the symbol of
the Lazarus herd. It was a ticklish undertaking. Some of the cattle
had been butchered, and these of course were lost. Others had been
absorbed by the herds of men who though not regularly engaged in cow
stealing were in nowise particular as to whose cows they got and
welcomed anything that browsed unguarded on the range. Still others had
been collected in "pockets"--small gullies or canyons--where they were
retired from general circulation, guarded, as a rule, by one or two
ostensible cowboys.
McDonald began by prevailing upon the honest ranchmen in that section
to join at once in a general round-up by which means a great number of
cattle could be collected and distributed to their rightful owners.
The result was fairly satisfactory and a good many of Lazarus's cattle
were recovered, though not always without disputes and a display of
fire-arms, especially where the brands had been grown over by the long
winter-coat of hair. Such cases were settled first and tried afterward.
In other words, McDonald and Wolforth possessed themselves of the
cattle and then at their leisure "picked the brand," which is the range
idiom for picking the hair from around the brand with a pocket-knife,
so the brand may be seen. If the brand proved to be other than that of
the Lazarus herd, the cattle were turned over to their true owners.
When the round-up was over the cow-hunters took up the search in other
directions.
It mattered little to McDonald and Wolforth where they found the
Diamond-tail brand--they took the cattle, peaceably if possible,
forcibly if necessary. They conducted the campaign with an enthusiasm
and vigor which did not invite argument. Large herds they searched
without ceremony and if any cattle of their brand were found, they were
"cut out" with few formalities and with scant courtesy. When they came
upon bunches of the Diamond-tail brand in secluded places, they did not
pause to present any credentials except their Winchesters which they
carried always ready for instant action, and set out at once with the
cattle; also, sometimes, with the astonished cowboys as well. It was
a sudden and energetic procedure and resulted in the recovery of the
greater number of the lost drove of Lazarus.
It resulted further in a definite plan by Bill McDonald for the
discouragement of cattle stealing in the 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.