Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-02-25

oInef night. 1T always makes Ine SIHlie
to read some sheriffs prediction that such
and such "a murderer. condemned to death.
is likely to die game or that it will prob
ably be necessary to carry the man to the
gallows. 1t would be just about as reason
able to attempt to forecast the weather for
ten years ahead. have seen twenty-three
men legally put to death in the country
west Of the Mississippi from the Columbia
to the Rio Grande, and of that whole bunch
there were certainly not more than half
dozen of them who met their finish in any
thing like the way that had been mapped
out in advance by the prognosticators-
myself fncluded-though I will say that
after having seen about an even dozen OF
my advance fgurings of this sort go to
pieces I acquired the habit of keeping my
predictions to myself
Four Sentenced to Die.
"Of all the occasions upon which among
others have been badly fooled In this way
perhaps the worst was the time when four
men were hanged on the same gallows in
the federal prison at Fort Smith, Arkansas
back in 1884. Two of them were Indians
one a Cherokee and the other Choctaw
the other two were mlddle-aged Wnlte
man and white lad OF nineteen: me
Cherokee was a renegade who had muir
dered settlers and plundered their outhts
all over the territory. He was buck Of
about twenty-eight years OF age, gigantic
of stature and strength, and as utterly
cruel and relentless red devil as l ever
clapped eyes upon, He had performed all
of his fiendish work right in the open and
generally in the broad light of day, and In
almost every case he had taken exactly
even chances with the people he slaugh-
tered and carried a good many OF their
marks upon his evil carcass. Because ne
hadn't done his jobs like sneak. and be-
L n
demned to the, galloWs he continued to
carry himself with a sullen. silent defiance
almost beyond belief, we all had 1t set
down for absolute certainty that ne
would stride te his death like sergeant
of marines and let himself drop into space
like bag of bran.
a Mean Specimen.
1.-The Choctaw was the most emery, wea-
zened, shriveled-up-loeking young red /
ever looked at. He was meaner built IN
dian than a Moqui, and | can't say any
worse Of him than that. He had killed
two of the squaws of his tribe with meat
ak and fed their remains to the tepee dogs.
When he was rounded up he writhed IKE
snake and eringed and yoWied ike a
coyote at night and Aowied for mercy, and
called upon the Great Father, and made
a nauseating exhibition of himself in gem
erai. He was only twenty-five, but his m
nate devltry had made his face like parch-
of which | have toted around with me ever
since 1 was sent down to the territory after
him, for l was United States deputy
marshal at that time. The devil bit me
pretty badly, too, and had to almost pum-
mel his head off before / could load him
into the prairie schooner to bring him up
to Fort Smith Well, we had it all fixed
among ourselves that this Choctaw rattle
snake would have to be packed UP the
steps of the scaffold and held taut with
side ropes until the trap sprung.
Bad Man Generally.
"DalIam Birdsall was the name of a mid
dIe-aged desperate, horse thief, wife MUIR
derer and bad man in general. He belonged
to the Arkansas cracker class, and was a
pretty evil bunch He had taken a pretty
long rope for himself all over the terri
tory and Texas Che murdered his wife in
Forth Worth) for a number of years, was
a confirmed rustier, would shoot to kill at
the drop of the bonnet and was a very
much desired man when Ed Ringgold, one
of the Arkansas marshals, finally got the
drop on him al the southern edge of the
state and brought him in. The Indifference
he displayed when he got his sentence and
during all the time he was waiting for the
day caused us to map him out as the east
est kind of case for the scaffod.
" He'll almost do the whole job for US
himself the sheriff told the boys who In
quired how the lot Were getting along.
Nearly Scared to Death.
But none of us thought the young
white lad would live until the day of his
execution, he was SO scared His name
was Nate Tascom, and in a quarrel he had
blown his old fathers head off with a shot
gun while the two were on their way in a
prairie schooner to a Kansas farm He
was a pale, slim, white-livered chap, with
a shifty eye of no particular color and
tow hair and his hands We're in motion all
whimpered when they corralled him. and
cried like a pappoose, and promised never
to do it again and all that kind of thing
He fell fiat to the dock when the judge
gave him his dose and appointed the day
and did nothing but tumble a Bible and
sing hymn tunes in his cell He was too
craven and frightened to eat anything,
and, as say. all Of us, including the prison
physician, expected him to fit into the he
yond on his own hook before the arrival
of the day of the quadrup!e hanging.
Might just as we'll only get three trans
READY, said the sherlH, after look at Tas-
com in his cell couple of weeks before
the day came around.
In Sight of the Gallows.
Now, the remarkable part of the thing ;s
| that every one of these four men preserved
up to the very morning of the hanging ex-
actly the characteristics that / have de-
scribed. The ,White-livered Tascom lust
crouched in a corner of his cell and moan
ed so that even the kindly old Roman
Catholic priest who was with him couldn't
help but give him some odd looks out of
the tail of his eye. AS for the Choctaw on
the day before the hanging he was nothing
short of raving mailman, and had to he
straight jacketea to9 prevent his Knocking
his brains out against the bars of his cell
Thus it was all set when the gray day
of the execution morning came round Tin
to an hour before the march was to begin
We could hear the mpans of Tascom and
the rawlings of the Choctaw
"Birdsall and the Cherokee, still unmoyed
up to within half hour of the time they
We're to make their final plunge. atf. avert
scrap of the big breakfast that was sent in
/ to them and picked their teeth after n iita
men that had lifetime ahead of them No
| food was sent to Tascom or the Cboct q =,
because it was perfectly plain that tbev
were In no shape to eat. But il was noticed
| by all hands that their lamentations had
ceased altogether while their two partners
| in the death just at hand were eatins
There were over dozen of us In Tho
procession that started for the Pow u,han
| the minute arrived. Tascom's cell was ,ha
| first we came to. The priest was with him
well, Tascom, lad said the sheriff
| looking in. it's time to be moving 80
A Big SURPRISE
".AI right, sur came the reply I'm a
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