Barbour County index., 1910-03-16

somehow almost without realizing it they told
great many things about themselves and
neighbors. He wrote down the orders and
listened and chuckled at some of the yarns
while he encouraged further condolences
The tree did not hesitate to give a
generous return for any such condolences in
venting on the spot some of his own for the
purpose. The number and character of crimes
he confessed to having been accused of in
the States would be worth recording in this
history if they could be remembered now The
tree man would then fall to abusing laws In
general and the men who enforced them in
particular and end by declaring that he was
nightly in love with that particular section
and would stay where there was little or no
chance of meeting any of those obnoxious off,
cials, If the boys would consider him one of
them and all stand together in time of trouble
Talk like this would open the door for any,
thing. The rest of the interview was likely to
run somewhat as follows:
by gum," mods the big, burly individual
staring at picture of such peaches as grow
only in paradise, "eatin peaches like them
would be like holdin' up the Santa Fe express"
That's what" assents the salesman, gaily
regular picnic all the time. 1 spose you fell
lows in here have money to throw at the birds
after that kind of job"
well, not much after all. Too many
to have piece out of it. Everybody wants to
help on it lit has to be pretty big basket of
money to cut in two more'n twice and leave
enough to pay"
The salesman shows sympathetic interest
"Of course" he agrees, "t's too bad to
spoil a good bunch of money by making little
piles of it. l guess you have to have a good
many, though. for job like that"
mo; two can do it, an there ain't no need
OF moren three. One to take care of the en-
gineer, another to pull down on the passengers
and the other man to go through EN- It's
plum easy. They give up like sinners at a
camp meetin,' and the messengers and mail
fellers come down pretty easy, too. If they
don't we put a few shots through their cars
and that fetches 'em.
You ought to come down here an go in
with me- You've got persuadin way about
you that would make man give up anything
he had and thank you for takin it. 1t 'ud
pay yeh better. 1 reckon. than ridin' a paint
hoss over the country, peddlin' trees. That
reminds me-you en- give me six O. them
peaches an a few O. them pears an plums an
couple o cherry trees and some grapevines
the big yaller ones-Niagaries, 1 think you
said they was"
And this was the drift Of more than one
conversation between the Cherokee agricultur
lists and the genial tree man, who certainly
did have "persuadin' way" in making a man
give up anything he had in the way of infor-
nation.
So for several weeks the tree man on his
paint horse with his old tenderfoot saddle and
his picture book loitered up through the Strip
and on over into the Territory, on the surface
taking orders for spring delivery and beneath
1t all locating the different communities of
Offenders, the individuals of the same, and
securing data of particular crimes He ended
his canvass at last at Guthrie, busy frontier
point on the Santa Fe, with twenty-five hun
dred dollars worth of orders for trees trees
which might be bearing to this day If the
spring deliveries had been made as planned
But Mcdonald was ready now for deliveries
OF different sort-deliveries of the purchas-
ers themselves into the hands of the law AS
preliminary step he swore out warrants for
eight men-the chief operators in a very bad
community located along a small creek be-
tween Guthrie and Kinghsher-about Is miles
west of the latter He then went with his
warrants to deputy marshal at Guthrie and
invited his cooperation In making the arrests
The Guthrie deputy looked at him with curl
osity, wondering perhaps II this circuit riding
Texas person was in his right mind. Clearly
the fame Of Bill Mcdonald had not yet pene-
trated into darkest Oklahoma Then, when
he had looked over Bill Jess's credentials and
perhaps felt his pulse. he said:
If you can get company of soldiers to
go along might undertake that job with you.
You don't know that Sand creek crowd-I do.
No two men nor ten men could go up against
that outfit and get back alive. Bring q COM