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

Here, then, were two rival kings. Each at times had occasion for a beef contract. The result is obvious to anyone who knows the ways of the remoter West in earlier days. The times were ripe for trouble. Murphy bought stolen beef, and furnished bran instead of flour on his Indian contracts, as the government records show. His henchmen held the Chisum herds as their legitimate prey. Thus we now have our stage set and peopled for the grim drama of a bitter border war.

The Pecos war was mostly an indiscriminate killing among cow men and cattle thieves, and it cost many lives, though it had no beginning and no end. The Texas men, hard riders and cheerful shooters for the most part, came pushing up the Pecos and into the Bonito cañon. Among these, in 1874, were four brothers known as the Harold boys, Bill, Jack, Tom and Bob, who had come from Texas in 1872. Two of them located ranches on the Ruidoso, being "staked" therein by Major Murphy, king for that part of the countryside. The Harold boys once undertook to run the town of Lincoln, and a foolish justice ordered a constable to arrest them. One Gillam, an ex-sheriff, told the boys to put on their guns. On that night there were killed Gillam, Bill Harold, Dave Warner and Martinez, the Mexican constable. The dead body of Martinez was lying in the street the next morning with a deep cross cut on the forehead. From that time on for the next five years, it was no uncommon thing to see dead men lying in the streets of Lincoln. The Harold boys had sworn revenge.

There was a little dance in an adobe one night at Lincoln, when Ben Harold and some Texas men from the Seven Rivers country rode up. They killed four men and one woman that night before they started back to Seven Rivers. From that time on, it was Texas against the law, such as the latter was. No resident places the number of the victims of the Harold war at less than forty or fifty, and it is believed that at least seventy-five would be more correct. These killings proved the weakness of the law, for none of the Harold gang was ever punished. As for the Lincoln County War proper, the magazine was now handsomely laid. Only the spark was needed. What would that naturally be? Either an actual law court, or else—a woman! In due time, both were forthcoming.

The woman in the case still lives to-day in New Mexico, sometimes spoken of as the "Cattle Queen" of New Mexico. She bears now the name of Mrs. Susan E. Barber. Her maiden name was Susan E. Hummer, the name sometimes spelled Homer, and she was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Susan Hummer was a granddaughter of Anna Maria Spangler-Stauffer. The Spangler family is a noble one of Germany and very old. George Spangler was cup-bearer to Godfrey, Chancellor of Frederick Barbarossa, and was with the latter on the Crusade when Barbarossa was drowned in the Syrian river, Calycadmus, in 1190. The American seat of this old family was in York county, Pennsylvania, where the first Spanglers settled in 1731. It was from this tenacious and courageous ancestry that there sprang this figure of a border warfare in a region wild as Barbarossa's realm centuries ago.

On August 23, 1873, in Atchison, Kansas, Susan Hummer was married to Alexander A. McSween, a young lawyer fresh from the Washington university law school of St. Louis. McSween was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and was educated in the first place as a Presbyterian minister. He was a man of good appearance, of intelligence and address, and of rather more polish than the average man. He was an orator, a dreamer, and a visionary; a strange, complex character. He was not a fighting man, and belonged anywhere in the world rather than on the frontier of the bloody Southwest. His health was not good, and he resolved to journey to New Mexico. He and his young bride started overland, with a good team and conveyance, and reached the little placita of Lincoln, in the Bonito cañon, March 15, 1875. Outside of the firm of Murphy, Riley & Dolan, there were at that time but one or two other American families. McSween started up in the practice of law.

There appeared in northern New Mexico at about this time an Englishman by the name of J. H. Tunstall, newly arrived in the West in search of investment. Tunstall was told that there was good open cattle range to be had in Lincoln county. He came to Lincoln, met McSween, formed a partnership with him in the banking and mercantile business, and, moreover, started for himself, and altogether independently, a horse and cattle ranch on the Rio Feliz, a day's journey below Lincoln. Now, King Murphy, of Lincoln county, found a rival business growing up directly under his eyes. He liked this no better than King Chisum liked the little cow men on his flanks in the Seven Rivers country. Things were ripening still more rapidly for trouble. Presently, the immediate cause made its appearance.

There had been a former partner and friend of Major Murphy in the post-tradership at Fort Stanton, Colonel Emil Fritz, who established the Fritz ranch, a few miles below Lincoln. Colonel Fritz having amassed a considerable fortune, concluded to return to Germany. He had insured his life in the American Insurance Company for ten thousand dollars, and had made a will leaving this policy, or the greater part of it, to his sister. The latter had married a clerk at Fort Stanton by the name of Scholland, but did not get along well with her husband. Heretofore no such thing as divorce had been known in that part of the world; but courts and lawyers were now present, and it occurred to Mrs. Scholland to have a divorce. She sent to Mr. McSween for legal counsel, and for a time lived in the McSween house.

Now came news of the death, in Germany, of Colonel Emil Fritz. His brother, Charlie Fritz, undertook to look up the estate. He found the will and insurance policy had been left with Major Murphy; but Major Murphy, accustomed to running affairs in his own way, refused to give up the Emil Fritz will, and forced McSween to get a court order appointing Mrs. Scholland administratrix of the Fritz estate. Not even in that capacity would Major Murphy deliver to her the will and insurance policy when they were demanded, and it is claimed that he destroyed the will. Certainly it was never probated. Murphy was accustomed to keep this will in a tin can, hid in a hole in the adobe wall of his store building. There were no safes at that time and place. The policy had been left as security for a loan of nine hundred dollars advanced by a firm known as Spiegelberg Brothers. Few ingredients were now lacking for a typical melodrama. Meantime the plot thickened by the failure of the insurance company!

McSween, in the interest of Mrs. Scholland, now went East to see what could be done in the collection of the insurance policy. He was able finally, in 1876, to collect the full amount of ten thousand dollars, and this he deposited in his own name in a St. Louis bank then owned by Colonel Hunter. He had been obliged to pay the Spiegelbergs the face of their loan before he could get the policy to take East with him. He wished to be secured against this advancement and reimbursed as well for his expenses, which, together with his fee, amounted to a considerable sum. Moreover, the German Minister enjoined McSween from turning over any of this money, as there were other heirs in Germany. Major Murphy owed McSween some money. Colonel Fritz also died owing McSween thirty-three hundred dollars, fees due on legal work. Yet Murphy demanded the full amount of the insurance policy from McSween again and again. Murphy, Riley & Dolan now sued out an attachment on McSween's property, and levied on the goods in the Tunstall-McSween store. The "law" was now doing its work; but there was a very liberal interpretation put upon the law's intent. As construed by Sheriff William Brady, the writ applied also to the Englishman Tunstall's property in cattle and horses on the Rio Feliz ranch; which, of course, was high-handed illegality. McSween's statement that he had no interest in the Feliz ranch served no purpose. Brady and Murphy were warm friends. The lawyer McSween had accused them of being something more than that—allies and conspirators. McSween and Tunstall bought Lincoln county scrip cheap; but when they presented it to the county treasurer, Murphy, it was not paid, and it was charged that he and Brady had made away with the county funds. That was never proved, for, as a matter of fact, no county books were ever kept! McSween started the first set ever known there.

At this time there was working for Tunstall on the Feliz ranch the noted desperado, Billy the Kid, who a short time formerly had worked for John Chisum. The latter at this stage of the advancing troubles, appears rather as a third party, or as holding one point of a triangle, whose other two corners were occupied by the Murphy and McSween factions.

Whether or not it was a legal posse which went out to serve the attachment on the Tunstall cattle—or whether or not a posse was necessary for that purpose—the truth is that a band of men, on February 13th, 1878, did go out under some semblance of the law and in the interests of the Murphy people's claim. Some state that William S. Morton, or "Billy" Morton, was chosen by Sheriff Brady as his deputy and as leader of this posse. Others name different men as leaders. Certainly, the band was suited for any desperate occasion. With it was one Tom Hill, who had killed several men at different times, and who had been heard to say that he intended to kill Tunstall. There was also Jesse Evans, just in from the Rio Grande country, and, unless that were Billy the Kid, the most redoubtable fighter in all that country. Evans had formerly worked for John Chisum, and had been the friend of Billy the Kid; but these two had now become enemies. Others of the party were William M. Johnson, Ham Mills, Johnnie Hurley, Frank Baker, several ranchers still living in that country, and two or three Mexicans. All these rode across the mountains to the Ruidoso valley on their way to the Rio Feliz. They met, coming from the Tunstall ranch, Tunstall himself in company with his foreman, Dick Brewer, John Middleton and Billy the Kid. When the Murphy posse came up with Tunstall, he was alone. His men were at the time chasing a flock of wild turkeys along a distant hillside. When called upon to halt, Tunstall did so, and then came up toward the posse. "You wouldn't hurt me, boys, would you?" he said, as he approached leading his horse. When within a few yards, Tom Hill said to him, "Why, hello, Tunstall, is that you?" and almost with the words fired upon him with his six-shooter and shot him down. Some say that Hill shot Tunstall again, and a young Mexican boy called Pantilon beat in his skull with a rock. They put Tunstall's