Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-06-09
CHAPTER I.
Baptized Into Battle,


believe 1t was Victor Hugo who
once wrote. "A judge is more and less
than man; he Is more than man be
cause he holds the scales of justice;
he 10 less than man because he has
no heart"
But my memory harks back across a
half century to times when judges and
prosecuting attorneys and peace Of
ficers as we'll, were less than men fol
other reasons than lack of heart;
not all Of course, but far too many.
refer to times in the formative
epoch Of our early mining communi
ties. from the British line to the Next
can border, when their lawless ele.
ments made the lives and property OF
honest, serious folk who there ven,
tured 40 insecure as both had been
while exposed to the ambushes and
raids Of hostile Indians who infested
the overland trails; to times When
judges and peace officers were either
the willing and we'll paid tools or the
cowed and trembling servitors Of the
human vultures who there preyed and
1attened; to time when vigilance COM
mittees were more often instruments
of private grudge and abettors of
crime than just publishers Of wrong
doors.
Bitter, cruel times we're those that
tried ones faith alike in justice human
and divine, times when man with
the rashness or deliberate hardihood
to defend the weak often found HIM
self forced without the pale of what
ever crude counterfeit of law happened
ct tho moment to be prevailing, his on
~ chance Of escape of corrupt YER
dict-certain to cost him his life or
liberty-lying IN a fighting fight that
stamped upon him indelibly the stain
Of outlawry.
Looking down now from the serene
height OF the seventy-four years nave
now attained, and back over forty-odd
years Of perpetual battling, marvel
most that should still remain alive to
tell Of them. Most Of my contempt
raries, actively engaged in the same
employment that has been my princi-
pal life-work have long since crossed
the last divide, dying manfully, like
the sturdy battlers they were, with
their boots on. The few that remain
could count on the fingers Of one
hand.
While will not live to see it, and
while 1t Is perhaps too much to hope,
I trust one day some faithful hand will
chronicle the honor-roll of that van
guard Of unlettered and unsung he
roes, who as stage-coach messengers,
treasure guards and marshals, to their
end fearlessly fought, often single
handed, the raiding hostile savages,
the organized bands Of road agents
that infested the stage roads, and the
disorganized groups Of thugs and hold
ups that thronged new mining and
front railway camps.
These men were the real pacifiers OF
the early trails and towns, class
which, had men of like kidney been
lacking, would have retarded another
half century the pacification and set
Element OF the plains and sierras.
To be sure the memories of many
are gone past finding as completely
as their wolf-picked bones have disin-
tegrated and become absorbed into
the plant life risen above the buffalo
wallows in which they died; are lost
as hopelessly as every trace of many
Boot Hill" that held their unmarked
graves has been buried for all time
beneath masses of brick and mortar;
but the life stories of enough Of these
men are still obtainable to enable just
measure Of their services and worth.
Mine has, unfortunately, been red
record from early youth right UP to
the very end of my active career. Some
OF it's leading incidents l now propose
to chronicle, incidents that will serve
to point to the youth of today the hard
ships and dangers an earlier genera
ton had to cope with, in battling,
first, to save our federal union, and,
later, to win from savagery hundreds