The Story of the Outlaw by Emerson Hough (read aloud .txt) 📕

From a painting by John W. Norton PLUMMER'S MEN HOLDING UP THE BANNACK STAGE (See page 119)From a painting by John W. Norton
PLUMMER'S MEN HOLDING UP THE BANNACK STAGE (See page 119)

PREFACE

In offering this study of the American desperado, the author constitutes himself no apologist for the acts of any desperado; yet neither does he feel that apology is needed for the theme itself. The outlaw, the desperado—that somewhat distinct and easily recognizable figure generally known in the West as the "bad man"—is a character unique in our national history, and one whose like scarcely has been produced in any land other than this. It is not necessary to promote absurd and melodramatic impressions regarding a type properly to be called historic, and properly to be handled as such. The truth itself is thrilling enough, and difficult as that frequently has been of discovery, it is the truth which has been sought herein.

A thesis on the text of disregard for law might well be put to better use than to serve merely as exciting reading, fit to pass away an idle hour. It might, and indeed it may—if the reader so shall choose—offer a foundation for wider arguments than those suggested in these pages, which deal rather with premises than conclusions. The lesson of our dealings with our bad men of the past can teach us, if we like, the best method of dealing with our bad men to-day.

There are other lessons which we might take from an acquaintance with frontier methods of enforcing respect for the law; and the first of these is a practical method of handling criminals in the initial executive acts of the law. Never were American laws so strong as to-day, and never were our executive officers so weak. Our cities frequently are ridden with criminals or rioters. We set hundreds of policemen to restore order, but order is not restored. What is the average policeman as a criminal-taker? Cloddy and coarse of fiber, rarely with personal heredity of mental or bodily vigor, with no training at arms, with no sharp, incisive quality of nerve action, fat, unwieldy, unable to run a hundred yards and keep his breath, not skilled enough to kill his man even when he has him cornered, he is the archetype of all unseemliness as the agent of a law which to-day needs a sterner upholding than ever was the case in all our national life. We use this sort of tools in handling criminals, when each of us knows, or ought to know, that the city which would select twenty Western peace officers of the old type and set them to work without restrictions as to the size of their imminent graveyards, would free itself of criminals in three months' time, and would remain free so long as its methods remained in force.

As for the subject-matter of the following work, it may be stated that, while attention has been paid to the great and well-known instances and epochs of outlawry, many of the facts given have not previously found their way into print. The story of the Lincoln County War of the Southwest is given truthfully for the first time, and after full acquaintance with sources of information now inaccessible or passing away. The Stevens County War of Kansas, which took place, as it were, but yesterday and directly at our doors, has had no history but a garbled one; and as much might be said of many border encounters whose chief use heretofore has been to curdle the blood in penny-dreadfuls. Accuracy has been sought among the confusing statements purporting to constitute the record in such historic movements as those of the "vigilantes" of California and Montana mining days, and of the later cattle days when "wars" were common between thieves and outlaws, and the representatives of law and order,—themselves not always duly authenticated officers of the law.

No one man can have lived through the entire time of the American frontier; and any work of this kind must be in part a matter of compilation in so far as it refers to matters of the past. In all cases where practicable, however, the author has made up the records from stories of actual participants, survivors and eye-witnesses; and he is able in some measure to write of things and men personally known during twenty-five years of Western life. Captain Patrick F. Garrett, of New Mexico, central figure of the border fighting in that district in the early railroad days, has been of much service in extending the author's information on that region and time. Mr. Herbert M. Tonney, now of Illinois, tells his own story as a survivor of the typical county-seat war of Kansas, in which he was shot and left for dead. Many other men have offered valuable narratives.

In dealing with any subject of early American history, there is no authority more incontestable than Mr. Alexander Hynds, of Dandridge, Tennessee, whose acquaintance with singular and forgotten bits of early frontier history borders upon the unique in its way. Neither does better authority exist than Hon. N. P. Langford, of Minnesota, upon all matters having to do with life in the Rocky Mountain region in the decade of 1860-1870. He was an argonaut of the Rockies and a citizen of Montana and of other Western territories before the coming of the days of law. Free quotations are made from his graphic work, "Vigilante Days and Ways," which is both interesting of itself and valuable as a historical record.

The stories of modern train-robbing bandits and outlaw gangs are taken partly from personal narratives, partly from judicial records, and partly from works frequently more sensational than accurate, and requiring much sifting and verifying in detail. Naturally, very many volumes of Western history and adventure have been consulted. Much of this labor has been one of love for the days and places concerned, which exist no longer as they once did. The total result, it is hoped, will aid in telling at least a portion of the story of the vivid and significant life of the West, and of that frontier whose van, if ever marked by human lawlessness, has, none the less, ever been led by the banner of human liberty. May that banner still wave to-day, and though blood be again the price, may it never permanently be replaced by that of license and injustice in our America.

CONTENTS CHAPTER     PAGE I The Desperado 1 II The Imitation Desperado 14 III The Land of the Desperado 22 IV The Early Outlaw 35 V The Vigilantes of California 74 VI The Outlaw of the Mountains 98 VII Henry Plummer 105 VIII Boone Helm 127 IX Death Scenes of Desperadoes 137 X Joseph A. Slade 145 XI The Desperado of the Plains 154 XII Wild Bill Hickok 167 XIII Frontier Wars 187 XIV The Lincoln County War 196 XV The Stevens County War 227 XVI Biographies of Bad Men 256 XVII The Fight of Buckshot Roberts 284 XVIII The Man Hunt 292 XIX Bad Men of Texas 313 XX Modern Bad Men 340 XXI Bad Men of the Indian Nations 371 XXII Desperadoes of the Cities 393

ILLUSTRATIONS   FACING PAGE Plummer's Men Holding Up the Bannack Stage Frontispiece The Scene of Many Little Wars 12 Types of Border Barricades 36 The Scene of Many Hangings 138 How the Rustler Worked 164 Wild Bill Hickok's Desperate Fight 172 John Simpson Chisum 198 Men Prominent in the Lincoln County War 218 The "Women in the Case" 222 The McSween Store and Bank 240 Billy the Kid 258 "The Next Instant He Fired and Shot Ollinger Dead" 272 Pat F. Garrett 294 A Typical Western Man-Hunt 302 The Old Chisum Ranch 330 The Old Fritz Ranch 358 A Border Fortress 358 "Afterward" 398

Chapter I

The Desperado—Analysis of His Make-up—How the Desperado Got to Be Bad and Why—Some Men Naturally Skillful with Weapons—Typical Desperadoes.

Energy and action may be of two sorts, good or bad; this being as well as we can phrase it in human affairs. The live wires that net our streets are more dangerous than all the bad men the country ever knew, but we call electricity on the whole good in its action. We lay it under law, but sometimes it breaks out and has its own way. These outbreaks will occur until the end of time, in live wires and vital men. Each land in the world produces its own men individually bad—and, in time, other bad men who kill them for the general good.

There are bad Chinamen, bad Filipinos, bad Mexicans, and Indians, and negroes, and bad white men. The white bad man is the worst bad man of the world, and the prize-taking bad man of the lot is the Western white bad man. Turn the white man loose in a land free of restraint—such as was always that Golden Fleece land, vague, shifting and transitory, known as the American West—and he simply reverts to the ways of Teutonic and Gothic forests. The civilized empire of the West has grown in spite of this, because of that other strange germ, the love of law, anciently implanted in the soul of the Anglo-Saxon. That there was little difference between the bad