Durango semi-weekly herald., 1907-03-28
CUTTERS RUN WITH LIQUOR.
Indian Nation Officer Has Spilled 1o,-
900 Gallons In All.


Kansas City tSar.
At the southwest corner of the fed
eral court building in Muskogee, l.
r., the brick wall furnishes the buff
.er for Bud Ledbetter in action and
there thousands of gallons of liquor,
rom the finest champagne to the
.owest grade of beer, have been
spilled. A spadeful of soil from
that spot burned in the fire will give
off an odor of burning alcohol. If
The glass of broken bottles were al
owed TO remain there would be pile
half as high as the court house itself.
Under the law. when an officer finds
liquor in Indian territory, he must
eonfiscate and destroy It. Ledbe.ter is
l special officer whose duty is to sup
press bootlegging. He has come near
or breaking it up than any other man
IN Indian territory. But even he is
at this time more or less discour-
aged
To keep liquor out of town of
$4,000 people with five railroads in the
city, in addition to having half hun
dred other towns in his district, is
not small matter, especially when
bootlegger can double his money on
every quart of whiskey he can get
into the territory and when profit and
thirst create geniuses in the art of
getting liquor past the United States
marshals. When Ledbetter finds any
considerable quantity of liquor he
gets dray. hauls 1t to this corner
of the old court house and destroys it
by hurting the bottles against the
brick wall
Ledbetter in action always draws a
big and thirsty crowd All are willing
to assist, with the hope of being able
to get away with one bottle without
Ledbetter seeing them. Often liquor
runs down the gutter and negroes will
kneel down and drink 1t. When this
is done a match is applied so that
flames will spread over the liquor
soaked ground. This keeps the ne
groes off, no matter how thirsty.
The court house corner was selected
because it is sheltered from the wind
in the winter and there is a large
shade tree valued in the summer.
How much whisky has been spilled
there Ledbetter does not know, but
he says there have been thousands of
gallons. He has figures to show that
during the last three years he has con-
fiscated 10000 gallons of liquor. This
at Indian territory prices was worth
$4,000.
BUD Ledbetter is a wonderful man.
He is "a years old, 'six-footer" and
weighs over 200 pounds. He has been
an officer for twenty-five years and
has never been seriously wounded in
fight He has been a deputy mar
shal in Indian territory for thirteen
years and has killed many men. He
Is considered the best field deputy in
the territory and he made his repu-
tation at that reckless period when
the fight for supremacy was on between
the government officers and the gangs
Of outlaws which infested Indian ter.
rltory
Ledbetter will not talk about the
men he has killed. but everyone
knows that he never killed one that
he did not have to kill and that every
one was fighting when killed by Led
better 1t has been seven years since
he killed d man. When he was asked
how many men he had killed he grew
serious, cloud passed over his face
md he replied Many more than |
wanted to-
When asked who was the first man
ne killed, he replied. "Yes, | remem-
Der who Ii was and where, but | don't |
ike to talk about It," No one ever
iated more to draw gun down on a