Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-06


from his wife at Galveston who had
heard of his trouble and that she would
| be out to see him on the next stage.
This had no effect upon the hardened
criminal. All he said was: f'Whioh wife
| do you refer to?"
Then the sheriff proposed to Wilkes
that If he would allow us to kill him, as
there was $50 reward for him dead or
alive in the next county, We would give
the reward and 500 extra to his heirs
and assigns He said that six months
good living in this county was better than
$3.50 to a dead man anywhere, and he
was not going TO leave. There was
town meeting held TO consider the mat
ter and one third of the inhabitants in
the county were in attendance. It was
proposed by the chairman of the county
commissioners 'sthat $500 be appropri-
ated out of the county funds TO buy mule
for Jefferson Wilkes, and deliver the
same over to him, and that $50 extra for
expenses be also appropriated and turned
over to said wilkes, conditional that said
Wilkes on said mule should leave said
county of Tom Green and never there
after appear in said county. II was fur
Their conditioned that should said Wilkes
desire, after the expiration of four
months, at which time the new county
jail of Tom Green would be finished, to
return to said county. ne would receive
the hospitality of said jail during the
period of six months thereafter, accord
ing to the Judgment made IN the case
heretofore referred to.
Wilkes accepted this proposition, and
Jefferson Wilkes, escorted by several
hundred of the grateful citizens OF San
Jose, passed out of the town forever, on.
board of mule with Napoleonic noseE
and burrs in his tail. ..S
THE MAN WITH THE GUN-BARRELs. *.
"Well, well, well, - said BraggSs
"were mt those good old times that wss
used to have in Texas tea years ago, be-
fore the railroads came, when we used
to go around armed with guns, and
bloodhounds, and quart bottles of stimu-
lants. Remember the time when they
voted for prohibition in Tom Green
county, and when that little tenderfoot
from Cincinnati came along and taught
Us how to work the racket?'
1 remembered, put [ let ex-Sherif
Bragg of Tom Green county go on and
reminisoe. He said: "By George, he
didn't seem to know enough to pound
sand. He came in, you remember, on
the stage the week after the prohibition
law had been passed, the bloomingist,
toughest law that we ever had in Texas.
Ii said that no person within the confines
of the state could sell whisky or any
other spiritual drink except by
the barrel. This fellow Jenkins or
wilkins, or something, he got
there one morning on the stage and
was int reduced TO me, and he said he
wanted drink the worst kind, and in
yited me TO join him. 1 told him the
circumstances, and you never saw man
fall to pieces worse than he did. He
used language about the people of the
county that 1 wouldn't repeat; and with
liberal establishment, born of bound
less imagination, he used expressions
regarding the good sense of the inhabit-
ants of Tom Green county that were cal
culated to split the drum of Christian
ear.
est was about clock that afternoon
that saw this little tenderfOot coming
up the street with a double barreled
shotgun i'll his hand. / didn't know
what to make of It; did not know but the
fellow might be crazy and wanted to pour
lead into some of US; but you can guess
l was not much afraid. In them DAYS
we were accustomed to that, and
it was an every day thing
to have fellers explore each
others anatomy with cutlery. Remem-
Der them two MexIcans KILN each other
with one knife? Jose Marie grabbed
onto Roderiquis. and although that ended
daylight for Roddy he had time to pull
the knife out of his own corpse and plant |
it so deep in Jose Marie that they both |
hn T01If
darn it, have gotten off the track. We |
were talking about the tenderfoot and |
the gun. He comes along and ses to me: |
"SherIff, let's go and have some
thing, - and 1 ses to him:
"Didn t tell you you can It get moth |
in here unless you want to go into the |
wholesale and buy it by the barrel. - and |
he ses to-me:
"That's all right; you come along and |
see. - |
$50 we went into Ned Brown g, ana |
he goes right up and layln' the old muz-
zle-lOader down on the counter, SEES: 81
'What's the matter of selling me is
barrel of whisky?' ~
'Why, nothing ses Brown, 19but
what do you want of a barrel?' ~
"Why, drink it, - SEES the tenderfoot, |
land l have got hundred dollars to bet |
that can pay for it and drink oil of it
inside a week - T. =
III go yon, - ses Brown. $ysz
6 The money was placed in my hands, Il
and the tenderfoot, without winklng an
eye or turning hair, and just as coolly
as am talking to you, SEES, Here goes,
them and, unhitching the barrel from
the stock of the gun. handed it to Brown
and said, sill her up
''She was filled, and don t you forget
it, and the scheme got all around town,
and it 5 fact, SO help me, that until
the law Yves changed at the next cleo
ton, don t believe I ever met, at any
hour of the day or night, one out of fifty
prominent citizens who wasn't carryin'
a doable- barrel, shotgun under his arm.
J. ARMOY KNOX.