The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1883-08-09
CAPTURING A DESPERATE.

WI OAAALtO "A OAtCA 1dehOOa
Tn the far West, particularly in the
far Southwest, the neWly-arrived settler
often finds that he has strange neighbors
NOT only Indians, but white desper-
ADDE'S. who are more to be feared than
even Utes and Apaches.
Two young friends of mine-gOod,
steady, Neutrality-suspicious. young men
were SO unfortunate as to buy land
in the vicinity of an especially ugly
member of this outlaw fraternity.
These young men had been brought
up to obey the law, and to respect the
property and rights of their neighbors
They could be brave enough in the de-
Tense of any just cause, yet they dreaded
and shrank from the use of deadly
weapons against fellow-being, from
keen sense of the sacredness of human
life, and the criminality involved in
such acts.
Such were Gilbert and Charles Small
Plain, farm-bred boys, they had, by
steady labor and economy, saved up a
capital Of seventeen hundred dollars.
With this they had emigratcd to Col
oradO and started a small stock-farm,
fifteen miles from Alamosa.
BY availing themselves of the Home
stead act and the Presumption law, they
secured q tract of three hundred and
twenty acres of land. lying upon a creek,
with range extending back over the
hills, which was not likely to be taken
by other settlers.
At point n short distance below,
where a mining trail passed them, and
where they judged there would in time
be railroad, they built a frame house,
which they opened as hotel, and in
which they also kept q stock of grocer
les. For like many other enterprising
young immigrants, they had an ambi-
ton to found town and grow up
with it.
Some eight or ten miles from them
lived a man named Peter Hergit, who
professcdly worked mine, but whose
place really was q kind of rendezvous
for renegade cowboys" and other
desperate characters of the Jesse James
type. 1t was intimated that several
daring train-robberies had here been
planned, and also that ''Clate Walker
made it one of his stopping-places.
This Walker was a notorious gambler
and dcad-shOt. He was supposed to be
the leader of band of train-robbers,
and was said to have killed not less than
ten men in various aflrays. TWAS sat I'd,
too, that occasionally, when times be
came too monotonous because of the
Attt n VI NNNlbCiiitlls llt WOUiQ XIII a man
9 for fun Just to keep his hand in
He had habit, also, of riding through
small towns and camps, shooting pro
miscuouSly at everybody he saw, to
keep up the terror of his name, mat
ter he appears to have been vain Of
1t will seem well-nigh incredible to
people i'm the East that such a man
should be allowed to escape Justice and
to run at large. Such is the ugly fact,
however, in scores of cases, owing prob
ably to the circumstance that no officer
likes to attempt the arrest of these des-
peradocs, who generally carry two and
sometimes three heavy revolvers, and
are mawelously quick and sure of aim.
As an example of the wonderfully
rapid and accurate shooting of some of
these frontiersmen, the writer remem-
bers seeing a &" cowboy" at Ration.
New Mexico, ride his horse at full
gallop past telegraph-p to which
was pinned the round white cover of a
papercollar box, and lodge four balls
from his Colts pistol in this small mark
while passing. Afterwards he enter
tanned us by throwing into the air, one
after another, a handful of pig-nuts,
and cracking each us it fell with single
bullet. Then he did the same thing
again, tossing the nuts up rapidly and
lWifflu8 the revolver round MS fore
finger after every shot Finally, throw
ing the nuts up more slowly. he replaced
his pistol in its sheath at his hip after
every shot, drawing itfor each succeed
ing NUT and did not miss one out of six.
This shows the accuracy and quick
ness Of aim of many Of these lawless
fellows, and such marksman was
Clate Walker; who added to this repu-
tation, moreover, the more murderous
one of being a killer which in the
phrase of this section means n des-
perado who viii shoot man upon the
least provocation.
Our two young stockmen had heard
of this border monster. but their first
actual acquaintance with him began
the week after putting up their sign OF
Small Bros, Hotel and Grocery
Walker CHANGED to pass one morning,
and, seeing the new sign, refined in his
horse, and by way of calling the at
tenficn of the landlord to his arrival,
drew his revolver and opened fire on
the sign. shooting the first letter 5 to
pieces. Then. dismounting. he kicked
the door open, and, walking in, de
m9ndad cocktail.
Gilbert, who CHANGED to be inside ST
,be time. told Kim civilly that there
was no bar connected with the house;
fer. trpe 70 the.r home principles, the
Young men hed determined to keep q