The Tupelo journal., 1910-02-25

whom hone and muscle and nerve were racked
and the whole body cried out for sleep. The
onset might be swift and reckless, once begun,
but the preparation for that moment was eau
tious and slow and often beset with difficulties.
The few jewellers in No-man's Land really desir-
Gus of getting rid of the outlaws were afraid TO
show any such anxiety, to give anything resem-
bling information, or even to offer shelter to
the officers. They knew that to manifest any
interest on the side of law and order would be
to incur the enmity of the gangs and bring
down reprisal swift and bloody. Mcdonald
and Burson realized this and however severe
the conditions of weather and WEAKNESS faced
them rather than impose any risk upon men
whose only offense was to dwell among very
bad neighbors.
At one time the deputies were after a gang
of five men, wanted for murder and theft, and
were driving from Higgins into No-man's Land.
with hack and team, their saddles loaded in
behind, as usual. 1t was late in the year now,
and suddenly in the swift Texas fashion a
norther came down, with piercing wind and
fine, driving snow. If the reader has never
seen a Texas norther or a Dakota blizzard, he
will hardly understand their predicament. The
wind leaps up in a wild gale almost in an in
slant; the air from being balmy takes on a
sudden bitterness that withers the body and
numbs the heart and pinches the very soul.
linen the SHOW comes, me anu DlluuluS-SudIp
and hard as glass. No living being was ever
created that could survive long in the face Of
a storm like that. Cattle know when a norther
Is coming and gather into thick punches, their
heads to the center. Birds speed AVA to the
south, ahead of it, or find shelter In hollows
and crannies until the demon has passed by.
A storm like that always means death. The
Texas norther and the Dakota blizzard have
strewn the prairies with bones.
Mcdonald and Burson, in the fact of such a
tempest, tried to press on, hoping to find a
shelter of some sort-anything that would
break the wind. But everywhere was only the
wide prairie. level as the sea and lost now
in the swirling drift. 1t seemed to them that
they drifted for hours, battling against the
norther, though it probably was less than one
hour, when they came upon some stacks of
prairie hay, which indicated the habitation Of
men. Without seeking further, they made for
the shelter of the stacks, burrowed themselves
and their horses into them, allowing the latter
to feed literally from the hay. There they
remained all night and until the afternoon Of
the next day, the men without food. The storm
abated then and the officers, undiscouraged
pressed on. reaching the outlaw camp late in
the afternoon, instead of at their favorite
morning hour.
The surprise was quite as complete, how
ever, for the last thing those bandits expected
was that two officers should suddenly appear
out of that white devastation to take them to
Jail. They were too much astonished to at
tempt resistance and were on their way to
Wichita Falls that night, following the road
which so many of their kind had taken.
Indeed it was this capture at the end of
1888 that marked about the end of the heaviest
work in that particular section. The years
crusade had demonstrated that No-man's Land
was not big enough to hold a band of COW
thieves and two deputies like Bill Mcdonald
and Lon Burson at the same time. It was no
encouragement to a band of Woodworking out
laws, inst as they had got their plant estab-
lished and things well under way to be sud
denly pounced down upon and put out of bus
mess by two men who had no regard for the
customary rules of fighting but just rushed
right in with a lot of impertinent orders and
an assortment of handouts and always had a
big hack ready to start at a moments notice.
for Wichita Falls.
What is the use?" one of the freebooters
is said to have complained. "a fellow no more
than gets started when that fool comes in and
upsets everything"
What was the use? Such of the No-man'
Land fraternity as still remained unhung and
out of Jail set out for other fields of labor.
Some Of them located in the more barren dis
them settled in the remoter places of what
was known then as the Cherokee Strip, where
they joined with congenial spirits in that ter
ritory and, pretending to be engaged in agri-
culture-for they were in a more settled coun-
tsy-Indian country-continued their old bust.
ness at the new stand.
fMA