The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-01-01

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officer is never, never on hand when he is
wanted and that the sound of alarm is his
signal OF retreat received a severe shock
when the story of Sergeant Howard S
chase after the murderer ROhan was
published few days ago.
Sergeant howard, with two loads in his
revolver, crouching on one side of a gar
bage box, on the other side of which
stopped an escaped murderer with three
weapons and unlimited ammunition, is
not the first officer who has gone with
open eyes into danger and has persisted
against great peril for the sake of the law
Other wearers of uniforms have performed
similarly nervy feats and have made the
silver star sign of valor.
AS, for instance, Tom Ormsby.
Or1nsby was a patrollnan in the days
when the police department of the city of
Omaha was first gladdened by the pres
ence of wagon" Nowadays the patrol
wagon has it's own Grew just the same as
a railroad train-its conductor to convey
the prisoner to the station with proper de-
corum-but at that time the necessity for
a conductor was not known, and an ar
resting officer rode to the city jail with
the culprit and helped the man at the desk
to book the offender. Ormsby one night
arrested some naIefactor who was wanted
great giant of man, big enough to eat
two or three ordinary policemen. Tho
wagon being under way, the prisoner
looked about him, and seeing the man
ner of man with whom he was travelling
a rather small sized individual, who SEEM
ed pitiably unable to help himself against
the charge and thunder of such big man
as he-turned upon Ormsby, and in a mo-
ment that patrol wagon was the receptacle
of a most magnificent fight. The noise of
the onslaught started the horses and caused
them to swerve out of their course. The
jerk threw Jim o Brien, the driver, to the
street, stunning him, and as the loosened
reins tapped over the launches of the
horses, already nervous because of the I'M
usual clenor behind them, they bolted
furioUsly. Weaving across and zigzagging
back along the wide street they Numbered
on, dragging the swaying wagon load of
fight after them. One or two other police
men, seeing the runaway as it dashed un-
der the gaslight and then fitted into the
darkness beyond the corners, tried to stop
the team, but before they could get to the
center of the street the maddened horses
were far away.
They were fastened on their fugitive
course by the ever increasing noise behind
from which they were fleeing, but from
which they seemed unable to withdraw.
Fiercer, 6ercer the battle between the two
men waged in the narrow confines between
the seats of the patrol wagon, the huge
bulk of the aroused crook meeting the
stanch grit and courage Of Orlnsby, the
lesser man; blows were battered upon the
face of the struggling policeman, but still
he chung on The prisoner tried to throw
him out of the whirling and swinging
wagon, but the officer fought back and
wrapped himself closer. With. his own
club Ormsby YVES beaten, and the gigantic
prisoner centered every effort on reaching
the policeman S revolver, his own having
already teen lost overheard. He caught
a feeting grasp upon it once-a grasp
which was enough to send a ball flying at
random through the air, soaring Orms-
by's leg in its transit and increasing the
fear of the horses by its discharge. But
the policeman, recognizing his own in
fertority in strength, with a jerk of his
wrist threw the weapon out from him. 1t
fell on the stone pavement, and another
explosion added to the insanity of tho
horses
They few through the town and struck
the country road which leads to the fort
on the heights four miles away. The dan
ger of a broad, clear midnight street was
many times multiplied on the narrow dirt
road, cut by gullies and broken by ridges.
But all the danger seemed insufficient to
cool the Rrdor of the battling men in tho
blue wagon. Ormsby heard the hollow
sound of their passage over wooden bridges
and felt the careening of the big vehicle as
it crashed from side to side. Momentarily
he caught dizzy glimpses of night lamps
in tho outlying houses which shot past
them as they progressed. He heard the
yelping of the dogs, which. reused from
contemplation of the moon, tailed behind
the wagon, barking new frenzy into the
unwearied horses. He heard the challenge
of the sentry at the gate of the fort, and
almost before the hail was uttered the
side the lines of the garrison and was over
a ditch and across a sidewalk and out into |
the parade ground and, crashing against
q tree, was shattered and overturned and |
1oosened from the trappings of the horses, |
which, with last bombardnent of kick /
ing at space, broke away and disappeared |
down Officers row, changing and clatter- |
ing as the singletrees and the shattered |
fragments of vehicle struck the aagstones. |
Ormsby and his herculean prisoner wer3 |
thrown out by indescribable twin somer- |
saults, remaining strangely close together |
through it all. The officer of the guard |
came rushing and found them CORY and |
battered where they had fallen, the big |
man unconscious from the conclusion and |
Ormsby grinning weakly through the |
blood as the lamplight fell on him
whats this?'' said the military man |
after the policeman had briefly told of the |
adventure. you're handcuffed. -
YES" said Ormsby. You see, was |
afraid he might get gun to my head and |
make me let him go, and to be sure that
he couldn't get away, no matter how he |
licked me, 1 snapped the irons on him
and me when I saw he was doing me. |
But in the hurry got his left hand locked
to my right, and he kept right on putting /
up too much fight for me. Still, it didn't
worry me much, for 1 knew that even if
I was killed he couldn't get away.
= -
The officer of the guard, who was cap
tain, and who had been through nearly 80
years of fighting. looked admiringly at
the little scrub OF policeman.