Chapter XV: Cleaning up the Strip

DEPUTY BILL GETS "STOOD OFF," BUT MAKES GOOD. BILL COOK AND "SKEETER." "A HELL OF A COURT TO PLEAD GUILTY IN"

The Cherokee Strip campaign was not allowed to languish. An outlaw community about twenty-five miles north of Kingfisher, and seven miles west of Hennessey, on Turkey Creek, was raided next. In the course of his tree selling, McDonald had fallen in with a man who was peddling stolen beef. He had learned that this man was operating for the Turkey Creek gang, and that the beef he was selling was really the property of the Cherokee Strip Livestock Association, which, it may be mentioned, at that time had a lease on the Cherokee grazing lands for which they paid an annual rental of one hundred thousand dollars.

McDonald now went over to Kingfisher and established headquarters; took the beef peddler to Wichita, Kansas, put him in jail, and got on friendly terms with him. Then he gave his prisoner some good fatherly advice about bad company and the usual rewards of becoming the tool of lawless men. The result was a general confession and turning of State's evidence. The peddler of beef lodged information as to the identity of his employers; the exact nature of their business; the hiding place of their stolen cattle, and the locality of a deep water-hole where they had sunk the hides in order to get rid of the brands and ear-marks. McDonald returned to Kingfisher, next morning, swore out warrants for the men named, and with a deputy marshal, who declared himself willing to go, set out for Turkey Creek. They went in a hack as usual and arrived before daylight at the house of one Charlie Tex, where they thought it likely they might find most of the men wanted. When they entered, however, they found only a man in bed, who declared he had just arrived in that country; that there was nobody at home, and that he knew nothing of the owner's whereabouts. They took him along, however, and proceeded to another house not far away, but found it also empty. The officers now concluded that the men had in some manner got wind of their coming and were hiding in the bottoms. They followed a way down the creek, breaking through to the prairie again, not far from the Tex house. As they did so they noticed the man with them apparently trying to signal in that direction. Then they became aware that several men with Winchesters were walking leisurely along the top of the grassy hill, either unaware of the presence of the officers, or indifferent to it.

McDonald and his associate, satisfied that these were the men wanted, set out up the hill, briskly. Their companion discouraged this movement, insisting that they would all certainly be killed if they molested that crowd. They continued to advance, however, and presently the men with the Winchesters, without appearing to have noticed the deputies, dropped leisurely back behind the hill-top. McDonald now started running, straight up the hill, while his brother deputy set out in a sort of diagonal flank movement around it. In a moment or two he had apparently reached a place where he could see the retreating men, for he called out:

"Hey, Mack, they're right over the hill. They'll get you sure."

McDonald was too interested to stop, now. He raced to the top of the rise, his gun presented, ready for shooting, expecting to see the flash of guns as he broke the sky-line. Instead, he saw the men running for Tex's dug-out, and noticed that still another fellow was already there, pacing about, like a picket, with a gun.

McDonald did not take time to guess at their plans, but kept straight after them, supposing his companion-in-law was following. The men did not pause when they reached the house, but made for a half-built log stable, which formed a sort of pen, and leaping into it put their guns through the spaces between the logs and yelled at McDonald to stop, swearing they would kill him if he came any further.

A brave man is not necessarily a rash man, and to establish bravery it is not necessary to throw oneself in front of a moving train or to charge alone a half-finished log stable full of outlaws who poke their Winchesters through the cracks at you and call you names. McDonald discovered now that his partner was not with him, or anywhere in the neighborhood, and he concluded to stop and negotiate. One might get an outlaw or two through the cracks, but on the whole it didn't seem the part of wisdom to play the game in that way.

He checked his speed when he was about sixty yards from the fort, though he continued to advance in a leisurely walk, talking persuasively meantime.

"Now you fellers better have some sense," he said. "You're going up against the United States law, and even if you killed me it wouldn't make any difference. I've got a posse coming that would be right down on you anyhow. Besides you'd have the United States army after you, and they'd take you and hang you for murder. I only want two out of your bunch anyway, this time; that's all I got warrants for, and maybe none of you are the right ones. You'd better come out and let me look you over."

The men swore they would do nothing of the sort, and if he came a step further they would kill him.

McDonald slackened his pace a bit--some nervous man's gun might go off by accident. He could talk very well from where he was.

"Oh, pshaw!" he said. "You fellers wouldn't kill a kitten. Six of you men behind breastworks to get away from one. Come out where I can look at you. What kind of men are you, anyway?"

"Where's your partner?" called the outlaws.

"You see him, way up yonder, don't you?" Bill Jess said quaintly--"on that hill. I haven't got a rope on him; I couldn't bring him along unless he'd come. You-all are actin' mighty sorry the way you're doin'. Come out of there now, and quit this foolishness."

The outlaws repeated their refusal and their warning that if he came another step they would shoot him dead. McDonald took out his watch.

"Well, boys," he said, "if you want to make a fight you might as well get at it. It's time for my men to be here. Your partner I got yesterday said you'd likely try to start something, so I come fixed for such fellows as you. Come, let's see what you can do."

McDonald waved his hand as if signaling to his companion half a mile in the rear and made a start toward the log fort. Before he had taken two steps, out of it piled the six outlaws and broke "lickety brindle" for the creek bottom, like a bunch of frightened steers. McDonald ran after them and saw them leap on their horses that they had tethered in the bushes and go tearing down the creek, without stopping to look behind. Evidently they did not doubt for a moment that the deputy had a posse, waiting nearby, for they would not be likely to believe that he had dared to face them alone unless assistance was close at hand. Deputy Bill, on his part was not sorry to see them go, for they had him at a serious disadvantage, and his only backing had weakened.

His companion was at the hack when he returned. The one man they had taken in charge had disappeared. Bill Jess made a few choice remarks and they set out for Kingfisher by way of Hennessey.

The following night as McDonald came out of a drug-store in Kingfisher, several shots were fired at him from the darkness. He pulled his six-shooter immediately and emptied it at the flash of the guns, running toward them as he did so. He heard retreating footsteps, but did not follow, as he discovered that he had left his cartridge belt in the hotel.

He was satisfied that the attack had been made by some of the Turkey Creek gang of the day before, trying to get rid of him, and resolved to delay no further in putting them out of business. He enlisted a man whom he knew, one Charley Meyers, and two other young men anxious for adventure, and next morning struck the trail which led, as they expected, in the direction of Turkey Creek. They followed it rapidly and toward evening came upon their game. There was no parleying this time. McDonald headed his force and they charged with a rush. Three of the men threw down their arms and surrendered--the others fired some scattering shots as they ran, and they must have kept on running, for they troubled that country no more. The Turkey and Sand Creek gangs no longer existed.[2]

It was while McDonald was at Kingfisher that he came in contact with Bill Cook and one "Skeeter," both of whom were later to become notorious in matters connected with the looting of banks and trains. The deputy was making some purchases in a store one evening when Cook attempted to ride his horse in the front door. McDonald grabbed the animal's bridle and set him back on his haunches, and before Cook could draw his gun--had him covered and under arrest. Immediately Cook's "side-partner," Skeeter, came up swearing vengeance, and was also suddenly disarmed and landed in jail. The incident closed there, but a sort of sequel was to come along a good many years later, as we shall see presently.

Meanwhile the work of "delivery" by the erstwhile tree-man was not delayed. Following the backward track he gathered up one undesirable citizen after another, until by the end of the season he had established official relations with no less than fifty of his former customers, and the rest had concluded not to wait. The story of the work of that year alone would fill a volume if fully told, but the telling is not necessary. Having planned a campaign along special lines it is only needful to give one or two examples of Bill McDonald's work to see what the rest would be in that particular field. Each field of labor was different and called for different treatment--requiring as much genius to conceive the method as bravery and presence of mind to carry it out. We have now seen what he accomplished in reclaiming a land so lost that it was called No-man's Land, and in cleaning up a strip of country infested by desperadoes supposed to be invincible. We have seen that he could do these things with thoroughness and despatch and with little bloodshed. The old manner of going in with a big posse and engaging in a general fight in which men were killed on both sides and nothing of value accomplished he had rendered obsolete. Men politically and personally opposed to Bill McDonald have referred to him in print and in spoken word as bloodthirsty, and a desperado. Certainly the reader who has followed these chapters thus far will find it hard to agree with such opinions. That he was fearless almost to the point of rashness we may believe, but that he ever wantonly shed blood, or, with all his opportunities, deliberately took human life will be harder to demonstrate.

"I never was a killer," he said once. "Some fellows seem to want to kill, every chance they get, and in a business like mine there's plenty of chances. But I never did want to kill a man, and I never did it when there was any other way to take care of his case."

It may not be out of place here to refer to the method of disarming men which McDonald used. The author has been asked how this sudden and efficient action was performed. His reply is that it is just about as hard to explain as those sleight-of-hand tricks which depend on deftness and exactness of motion--the result of a natural ability combined with long practice. Bill McDonald was born "as quick as a cat," and disarming became his special sleight-of-hand trick. He could locate a man's weapon and could daze and disarm him with a sudden movement that even he himself could not convey in words, and it was this performance that saved the lives of many men, good and bad, and often-times his own.

It was some six years after the Kingfisher incident that McDonald was to renew relations with the "Cook-Skeeter" outfit. He had become Ranger Captain meantime and was engaged in some work in North Texas when he heard of a suspicious gang, heavily armed, camped in a vacant house in the neighborhood of Bellvue, in Clay County. Unable to go himself, he sent his sergeant, J.L. Sullivan, his nephew, W.J. McCauley and another ranger named Bob McClure, to investigate. Before the Rangers reached the house a picket discovered them and set out to give warning to his associates. The Rangers overtook and captured him, but by this time they had been discovered by the occupants of the shanty who began firing through the cracks in the walls.

The Rangers promptly returned the fire and charged, shooting as they came on. The fire became very hot, but McCauley, who had many of the characteristics of his "Uncle Bill," kicked in the door, though the bullets were coming through it from the other side. The outlaws now took refuge in the loft and began shooting down through the floor, the Rangers shooting straight up from below. The Rangers would seem to have had the best luck in this blind warfare for one of the men above was wounded; another had his gun shot from his hand, and a third had his hat shot through. One of them came to the opening, presently, and offered his six-shooter as a sign of surrender. Four were captured, including the aforenamed "Skeeter," but Bill Cook, though a member of the gang, was absent at the time, and escaped. The captured men were taken to Wichita Falls and one of them, a young fellow named Turner, turned State's evidence, through McDonald's persuasive probing, and detailed their plan for robbing the Fort Worth and Denver, next day, giving a list of their crimes. Skeeter and the others were taken to the United States courts at Fort Smith for trial, and pleaded guilty. Skeeter was given thirty years and upon hearing the verdict made his now famous remark:

"Well, this is a hell of a court for a man to plead guilty in."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: Somewhat later when McDonald's work, as Ranger Captain, was confined to Texas, another gang did rendezvous in this section--the gang headed by the Dalton boys (formerly deputy marshals); and for a period terrorized the surrounding country. Their crimes were daring and bloody and their end was sudden and violent. They were shot, one after another by a brave and accurate liveryman as they came out of a bank they had been looting, in daylight, in Coffeyville, Kansas. According to Bill Dalton two of the Daltons were United States deputy marshals and lived near Hennessey at the time McDonald was selling trees in that section.]