The Story of Cole Younger Part 12

We took a trip into town that forenoon, and I looked over the bank. We had dinner at various places and then returned to the camp. While we were planning the raid it was intended that I should be one of the party to go into the bank. I urged on the boys that whatever happened we should not shoot any one.

"What if they begin shooting at us?" some one suggested.

"Well," said Bob, "if Cap is so particular about the shooting, suppose we let him stay outside and take his chances."

So at the last minute our plans were changed, and when we started for town Bob, Pitts and Howard went in front, the plan being for them to await us in the square and enter the bank when the second detachment came up with them. Miller and I went second to stand guard at the bank, while the rest of the party were to wait at the bridge for the signal-a pistol shot-in the event they were needed. There were no saddle horses in evidence, and we calculated that we would have a considerable advantage. Wrecking the telegraph office as we left, we would get a good start, and by night would be safe beyond s.h.i.+eldsville, and the next day could ride south across the Iowa line and be in comparative safety.

But between the time we broke camp and the time they reached the bridge the three who went ahead drank a quart of whisky, and there was the initial blunder at Northfield. I never knew Bob to drink before, and I did not know he was drinking that day till after it was all over.

When Miller and I crossed the bridge the three were on some dry goods boxes at the corner near the bank, and as soon as they saw us went right into the bank, instead of waiting for us to get there.

When we came up I told Miller to shut the bank door, which they had left open in their hurry. I dismounted in the street, pretending to tighten my saddle girth. J. S. Allen, whose hardware store was near, tried to go into the bank, but Miller ordered him away, and he ran around the corner, shouting:

"Get your guns, boys; they're robbing the bank."

Dr. H. M. Wheeler, who had been standing on the east side of Division street, near the Dampier house, shouted "Robbery! Robbery!" and I called to him to get inside, at the same time firing a pistol shot in the air as a signal to the three boys at the bridge that we had been discovered.

Almost at this instant I heard a pistol shot in the bank. Chadwell, Woods and Jim rode up and joined us, shouting to people in the street to get inside, and firing their pistols to emphasize their commands. I do not believe they killed any one, however. I have always believed that the man Nicholas Gustavson, who was shot in the street, and who, it was said, did not go inside because he did not understand English, was. .h.i.t by a glancing shot from Manning's or Wheeler's rifle. If any of our party shot him it must have been Woods.

A man named Elias Stacy, armed with a shot-gun, fired at Miller just as he was mounting his horse, filling Clell's face full of bird shot. Manning took a shot at Pitts' horse, killing it, which crippled us badly.

Meantime the street was getting uncomfortably hot. Every time I saw any one with a bead on me I would drop off my horse and try to drive the shooter inside, but I could not see in every direction. I called to the boys in the bank to come out, for I could not imagine what was keeping them so long. With his second shot Manning wounded me in the thigh, and with his third he shot Chadwell through the heart. Bill fell from the saddle dead. Dr. Wheeler, who had gone upstairs in the hotel, shot Miller, and he lay dying in the street.

At last the boys who had been in the bank came out. Bob ran down the street toward Manning, who hurried into Lee & Hitchc.o.c.k's store, hoping in that way to get a shot at Bob from behind. Bob, however, did not see Wheeler, who was upstairs in the hotel behind him, and Wheeler's third shot shattered Bob's right elbow as he stood beneath the stairs. Changing his pistol to his left hand, Bob ran out and mounted Miller's mare.

Howard and Pitts had at last come out of the bank. Miller was lying in the street, but we thought him still alive. I told Pitts to put him up with me, and I would pack him out, but when we lifted him I saw he was dead, and I told Pitts to lay him down again. Pitts' horse had been killed, and I told him I would hold the crowd back while he got out on foot. I stayed there pointing my pistol at any one who showed his head until Pitts had gone perhaps 30 or 40 yards, and then, putting spurs to my horse, I galloped to where he was and took him up behind me.

"What kept you so long?" I asked Pitts.

Then he told me they had been drinking and had made a botch of it inside the bank. Instead of carrying out the plan originally formed, seizing the cas.h.i.+er at his window and getting to the safe without interruption, they leaped right over the counter and scared Heywood at the very start. As to the rest of the affair inside the bank I take the account of a Northfield narrator:

"With a flourish of his revolver one of the robbers pointed to Joseph L.

Heywood, head bookkeeper, who was acting as cas.h.i.+er in the absence of that official, and asked:"

" 'Are you the cas.h.i.+er?' "

" 'No,' " replied Heywood, and the same question was put to A. E. Bunker, teller, and Frank J. Wilc.o.x, a.s.sistant bookkeeper, each of whom made the same reply.

" 'You are the cas.h.i.+er,' said the robber, turning upon Heywood, who was sitting at the cas.h.i.+er's desk. 'Open that safe-quick or I'll blow your head off.' "

"Pitts then ran to the vault and stepped inside, whereupon Heywood followed him and tried to shut him in."

"One of the robbers seized him and said:"

" 'Open that safe now or you haven't but a minute to live.' "

" 'There's a time lock on,' Heywood answered, 'and it can't be opened now.' "

Howard drew a knife from his pocket and made a feint to cut Heywood's throat, as he lay on the floor where he had been thrown in the scuffle, and Pitts told me afterward that Howard fired a pistol near Heywood's head to scare him.

Bunker tried to get a pistol that lay near him, but Pitts saw his movement and beat him to it. It was found on Charley when he was killed, so much more evidence to identify us as the men who were in Northfield.

"Where's the money outside the safe?" Bob asked.

Bunker showed him a box of small change on the counter, and while Bob was putting the money in a grainsack Bunker took advantage of the opportunity to dash out of the rear window. The shutters were closed, and this caused Bunker an instant's delay that was almost fatal. Pitts chased him with a bullet. The first one missed him, but the second went through his right shoulder.

As the men left the bank Heywood clambered to his feet and Pitts, in his liquor, shot him through the head, inflicting the wound that killed him.

We had no time to wreck the telegraph office, and the alarm was soon sent throughout the country.

Gov. John S. Pillsbury first offered $1,000 reward for the arrest of the six who had escaped, and this he changed afterward to $1,000 for each of them, dead or alive. The Northfield bank offered $700 and the Winona & St. Peter railroad $500.

29. A CHASE TO THE DEATH

A little way out of Northfield we met a farmer and borrowed one of his horses for Pitts to ride. We pa.s.sed Dundas on the run, before the news of the robbery had reached there, and at Millersburg, too, we were in advance of the news, but at s.h.i.+eldsville we were behind it. Here a squad of men, who, we afterwards learned, were from Faribault, had left their guns outside a house. We did not permit them to get their weapons until we had watered our horses and got a fresh start. They overtook us about four miles west of s.h.i.+eldsville, and shots were exchanged without effect on either side. A spent bullet did hit me on the "crazy bone," and as I was leading Bob's horse it caused a little excitement for a minute, but that was all.

We were in a strange country. On the prairie our maps were all right, but when we got into the big woods and among the lakes we were practically lost.

There were a thousand men on our trail, and watching for us at fords and bridges where it was thought we would be apt to go.

That night it started to rain, and we wore out our horses. Friday we moved toward Waterville, and Friday night we camped between Elysian and German lake. Sat.u.r.day morning we left our horses and started through on foot, hiding that day on an island in a swamp. That night we tramped all night and we spent Sunday about four miles south of Marysburg. Meantime our pursuers were watching for hors.e.m.e.n, not finding our abandoned horses, it seems, until Monday or Tuesday.

Bob's shattered elbow was requiring frequent attention, and that night we made only nine miles, and Monday, Monday night and Tuesday we spent in a deserted farm-house close to Mankato. That day a man named Dunning discovered us and we took him prisoner. Some of the boys wanted to kill him, on the theory that "dead men tell no tales," while others urged binding him and leaving him in the woods. Finally we administered to him an oath not to betray our whereabouts until we had time to make our escape, and he agreed not to. No sooner, however, was he released than he made posthaste into Mankato to announce our presence, and in a few minutes another posse was looking for us.

Suspecting, however, that he would do so, we were soon on the move, and that night we evaded the guard at the Blue Earth river bridge, and about midnight made our way through Mankato. The whistle on the oil mill blew, and we feared that it was a signal that had been agreed upon to alarm the town in case we were observed, but we were not molested.

Howard and Woods, who had favored killing Dunning, and who felt we were losing valuable time because of Bob's wound, left us that night and went west. As we afterward learned, this was an advantage to us as well as to them, for they stole two horses soon after leaving us, and the posse followed the trail of these horses, not knowing that our party had been divided.

Accordingly, we were not pursued, having kept on a course toward Madelia to a farm where I knew there were some good horses, once in possession of which we could get along faster.

We had been living on scant rations, corn, watermelon and other vegetables princ.i.p.ally, but in spite of this Bob's arm was mending somewhat. He had to sleep with it pillowed on my breast, Jim being also crippled with a wound in his shoulder, and we could not get much sleep. The wound in my thigh was troubling me and I had to walk with a cane I cut in the brush.

One place we got a chicken and cooked it, only to be interrupted before we could have our feast, having to make a quick dash for cover.

At every stopping place we left marks of blood from our wounds, and could have been easily trailed had not the pursuers been led in the track of our recent companions.

It seems from what I have read since, however, that I had myself left with my landlord at Madelia, Col. Vought, of the Flanders house, a damaging suggestion which proved the ultimate undoing of our party. I had talked with him about a bridge between two lakes near there, and accordingly when it became known that the robbers had pa.s.sed Mankato Vought thought of this bridge, and it was guarded by him and others for two nights. When they abandoned the guard, however, he admonished a Norwegian boy named Oscar Suborn to keep close watch there for us, and Thursday morning, Sept. 21, just two weeks after the robbery, Oscar saw us, and fled into town with the alarm. A party of forty was soon out in search for us, headed by Capt. W. W. Murphy, Col. Vought and Sheriff Glispin. They came up with us as we were fording a small slough, and unable to ford it with their horses, they were delayed somewhat by having to go around it. But they soon after got close enough so that one of them broke my walking stick with a shot. We were in sight of our long-sought horses when they cut us off from the animals, and our last hope was gone. We were at bay on the open prairie, surrounded by a picket line of forty men, some of whom would fight. Not prepared to stand for our last fight against such odds on the open field, we fell back into the Watonwan river bottoms and took refuge in some bushes.

We were prepared to wait as long as they would, but they were not of the waiting kind. At least some of them were not, and soon we heard the captain, who, we afterward learned, was W. W. Murphy, calling for volunteers to go in with him and rout us out. Six stepped to the front, Sheriff Glispin, Col. T. L. Vought, B. M. Rice, G. A. Bradford, C. A.

Pomeroy and S. J. Severson.

Forming in line four paces apart, he ordered them to advance rapidly and concentrate the fire of the whole line the instant the robbers were discovered.

Meanwhile we were planning, too.

"Pitts," I said, "if you want to go out and surrender, go on."

"I'll not go," he replied, game to the last. "I can die as well as you can."