The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1894-08-18
WIDOW M'COOL.

Dr. Eli BaS>fOrd or NOIf anyOn 'aHC
his wife was with him. Five years agt
last winter Jim's wife was the Widow
McCOol. She had objected pretty hard t.
taking the name Of McCool, but McCoo
had money, and her folks didn't have any
and wanted some. SO they insisted that
she should marry McCool, and she
couldn't help herself, because she WASH
- yet. She wasn't McCoOl's wife long
though. McCoOl was inconsiderate enough
to get in a row one night where the other
fellow was handler with his gun thar be
was, and Mrs. McCOol became the Widow
McCool, to which she had no objection
whatever. The company that owned the
stage route between Buffalo and Dry Chey-
enne appointed her its agent at Dry Chey-
enne, and it was there that Jim Kidd met
her.
She had been there three months,
though, when jim came along. She was
trim and snappy, dark as a Mexican al
most and pretty as a picture. A dozen Of
the boys out there fell lead in love with
her from the word 60, but she stood 'cm
all off. Then Mart Huntoon, a rich ranch
man, took the heaviest kind of a shine TO
her and wouldn't take no, so the Widow
McCool said she would marry him and
help get away with some of his dollars.
They were going to be married on May II,
and young Jim Kidd dropped into Dry
Cheyenne on the 1st.
Jim was a quiet sort of a duck, but
he was nifty. Good a fellow as ever lived
and just the sort to catch the girls. He
sold goods out through that country for
some house in the east. He was dead gone
when he got his eyes on the Widow Nc.
Cool, and the widow was stuck on him
from the go in. There was going to be a
dance at Sheffield the next Saturday
night, and what does my bold James do
but ask the widow if she'd &C and take 1t
in with him. Would she? Well, nOw!
The chance are that if Mart Hun
tOOn gets onto us, said the widow, we'll
come back feet first to Dry Cheyenne, but
We'll have some fun, you bet yOu!'
80 Saturday night jim and the widow
took a sneak and went to the dance. Shelf
field is 90 miles from Dry Cheyenne. They
hadn't been II a great while before
some of the boys missed Jim and the wild
Ow, and they suspected something, SO off
some one goes and gives Mart the tip. He
came in just more than yooping with a
dozen OF so of his men, among EN- Ed
Cook, his foreman. 1t was half an hour
or more before any one could think up
which way Jim and the widow might have
gone, and then some one happened to
think Of the dance at Sheffield. Then you
ought to heard MART! You could never
write down the words he chucked around
there for the next 10 minutes. They'd
melt your pen. After he got rid of all the
language he had handy, he called his men,
and they started for Sheffield.
"As they rode away some one said:
If [ knew where that fresh Jim kidd
lived, I'd telegraph his folks to meet him
at the train with a coffin
"On the way to Sheffield Mart Huntoon
says to Ed Cook and the rest:
This here Jim Kidd is a dangerous
and a quarrelsOme ~ruffian, amt hep
The boys looked at one another and
grinned and said that Kidd was a bad
man.
IF he talks bad to any of you boys,
says Mart, don't let him get the drop Oh
you
1.-The boys grinned some moro and said
they wouldn't. When Mart's party got to
Sheffield, there was Jim and the widow,
shaking it down in great shape. When
the widow saw who the new arrivals were,
she says to Jim:
'GOta gum
Two says Jim.
You'll need 'em before morning,
says the widow. Let's dance this reel.
It's a dandy
"Sure enough, Mart and his gang
hadn't been at the dance more han halt
an hOu when somehow Ed Cook and
some Of the rest Of them got into aquarrel
with Jim Kidd. They began to close in
on Jim, and he backed up against a door
at one side Of the ballroom. AS the gang |
edged toward him, yelling and bowling,
Jim whipped out his two six shooters. He
shot Ed Cook and another of Mart's men
dead in their tracks.
LUCKILY for him, in the melee the lights |
We're put out. He would have been a dead
man, though, in 10 seconds more, but the
door opened behind him just then, and
Jim was yanked through it SO quick that
he didn't know where he was until he
heard the door boltcd behind him and saw
the Widow McCoOl at his side. The spry |
and plucky widow knew the house, and
she had seen the door Jim was backed UP
against was the door to a bedroom that
had a window on the other side. She had
hurried from the ballroom as soon as the
fuss began, got into the bedroom through
the window, opened the door, yankcd Jim
into the bedroom and bOlted the door again
before any one knew what had become OF
him.
But the mere getting of jim into tn,
bedroom wasn't going to do him or hel
any lasting good, so the widow hustled
Jim out at the window.
"'We've got to shake the dirt Of this
shebang off our feet pretty lively now,
the widow.
And they did. They took the first two
horses they came to, tied in the yard, and
before Mart and his gang got head or tail
of what was going on jim and the Widow
McCOol were streaking it away on the road
to Douglass. Jim had two pistol balll
wounds, one through his left forearm and
one through the tleshy part of his shout
der, but they hadn't time to stop and fool
with little things like that. They rode all
the rest OF that night and all of the next
day, getting 10 Douglas Sunday night.
They Were rs near dead as alive. but they
stopped at Douglas only long enough tc
something TO eat. They left THEN
out horses at Douglas, hired a team
and headed for Chadron, Neb.
when Mart Huntoon and the gang had
the house over and found no trace
of Jim or the widow. Mart made the dis