than betray his trust. Some few moments—it seemed ages to the bewildered
and terror-stricken lookers-on—were spent in Heywood’s struggling to break
from the murderous villain and gain his liberty.
At length he broke away, and regaining his feet, ran toward the door
crying
“MURDER!”
The man at once struck him with a pistol and knocked him down, and,
dragging him to the safe door, commanded him to open it. But the intrepid
clerk stolidly refused, when the villain shot at him, but did not hit him.
Evidently the shot was intended rather to intimidate him than injure, but
the scoundrel had reckoned without his host, for the effect was lost upon
Heywood.
But upon the discharge of the pistol Bunker made a start for the back door
and ran for dear life, one of the robbers pursuing and firing, the shot
taking effect in the shoulder. Bunker, however, reached the street (Water
street) and ran to Dr. Coombs’ office.
During the whole of this time four or five men were riding up and down the
street, shooting in every direction, and keeping up an incessant fusilade.
One of the men outside came riding up furiously and called for the men to
leave the bank.
“THE GAME’S UP.”
he said, “and we are beaten.”
The three men in the bank then sprang over the counter and rushed to the
door, and Heywood staggered to the chair, but, as the last one was getting
over the counter, with one hand on the cashier’s desk, he turned round and
deliberately fired. Heywood fell senseless to the floor! The man then
sprang on the rail and out at the front door, and he (Wilcox) cleared out
of the back door into Manning’s hardware store.
Wilcox was not sure whether the ruffian struck Heywood when the latter
staggered to the cashier’s chair, and he did not stop to see if he was
dead when he fell. He said the reason he did not try to get out or help
Heywood was that one of the men stood over him with a pistol in his hand.
Mr. Allen said he saw three men cross the bridge and go toward the bank.
They were all big, powerful men, well dressed. One had sandy
side-whiskers, shaved chin and blue eyes. Another, wore a black mustache,
and was a slight but tall man, and better dressed than the others. The
third man was heavy set, with curly brown hair, and beard of about one
week’s growth. They had tied their horses and talked a while, when another
came up, and he went into the bank. Mr. Allen then waited half a minute,
and then walked up to the bank to see what was up.
“As I got to the back door,” he says, “one man came out and grabbed me by
the collar, and said ‘you son of a——, don’t holler,’ drawing a revolver. I
got out and made tracks as fast as I could, two shots feeing fired after
me.”
Mr. Ben Henry says that he was first attracted to the strangers by seeing
the horses tied, and he went up to one and was examining the saddle, when
one of the men came up and said,
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking at this saddle,” was the reply “I want an article like that, and
thought perhaps I could strike a bargain with the owner.”
Drawing a pistol, the fellow cried out:
“Now you git’” And he _did_ “git,” but as he walked away a bullet came
hissing by his head and struck a wall close by. Henry deliberately picked
up the ball and put it in his pocket, but made long strides for home.
It appeared that the object of the men on the street was at first only to
keep people back from the bank, and not a desire to murder
indiscriminately, but when they found that the Northfield people would not
scare worth a cent, and that real work was before them, they showed all
the