The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1917-04-27


BECAME A Pl
gone, and Johnson found that he
would have to wait until morning for
the next one. Accordingly he placed
the two men in the lookup and went
to a hotel for the night.
One of the city marshals Of Caney
was a man named Carr, who happened
to be a friend of Johnson's. He had
daughter, whose sweetheart was a
night telephone operator At night,
when calls are few, gossip is apt to
pass along the wires between the OPP
orators ard their friends. The young
fellow called up the girl, and, after
a number of intimate remarks which
have no bearing the story, informed
her, in a casual way, that the prison
ers had telephoned for a lawyer to
hurry along and play habeas cor
pus stunt to get the criminals out Of
JAIL" as Johnson phrased it.
The daughter told her father, and
Carr realized that Johnson was in
the way of losing the results of his
achievement. He rushed down to the
hotel where Pussyfoot was staying
and pulled him out of bed.
Johnson, informed what was hap
pening, realized that, if the ''habeas
corpus stunt" could be pulled off, as
was most likely, anything might de-
velop, even an injunction restraining
him from again interfering with the
internal affairs of Lewiss kingdom.
1t would not take long to get the
place into running order again. 1t
was a perplexing position, and John
son remembered what the lawyer said
to the man in JAIL Anyway, he was
not taking any chances.
He dressed himself hurriedly and
sent an urgent summons to his dep
uty Keller. Then he telephoned for
a rig. Half an hour later he had the
rig, the deputies, and the prisoners.
He placed one man by his side,
handed over the other to Keller, and,
with the reins in one hand, his Colt
automatic in the other, he drove all
night through the darkness over the
rutty Kansas roads until he reached
Bartlesville at one o'clock in the
morning, whence train conveyed the
four to Vinita. The outlaws were
speedily lodged in prison.
II don't want to have anything
more to do with Kansas justice" said
Pussyfoot, when he had pulled off his
coup. "The next time they get me
they'll hold me, and 1 can't forsake
the Territory"
In order to ascertain who were the
actual hackers of King Lewis, John
son held the money and the pistol
which he had taken, so that they
might make themselves known by re-
plevining them. They replevined
them, and proved to be two men
named Hicks and Kelley.
Il knew my kingdom couldn't last, "
explained Lewis, as, comfortably pro-
vided with this worlds goods, he
strobe, a free man, upon free Kansas
soil. my place Of business was in
Kansas all the time. Those fellows
up there did not know it. They would
come down there and look at my
kingdom and watch me, but they were
very careful not to come beyond what
they thought was the boundary line,
and modest me. I had them bluffed
all right, but 1 knew it was only a
question of time until they found that
l was working them, and then they
would have made trouble for me.
Il would have got away with the
bluff. only the Territory officials
thought it was their duty to come
up and raid me. They had no au-
thority there, because 1 was in Kan
sas. But their raid started the Kan
sas authorities to asking questions,
and 1 was afraid one Of the fellows
who worked for me when the stone
was moved might remember and tell
the story, and then I would be in
trouble. There was no harm done,
but 1 suppose I ought to go up there
now and put the line marker back
where it belongs"
However, Lewis was subsequently
arrested, and the three men were SEN
fenced to serve for short periods in
prison.
This incident made Pussyfoot's
reputation nationwide. And, humor-
GUS in itself, it was the prelude to a
series of tragedies altogether out of
proportion to the situation.
The lesser actors could not avoid
basking in the light Of Johnson's repu-
tation. In particular Carr was unable
to abstain from letting it become
known that it was he who 1a6 check
mated Killion and Paradise in their
attempt to play a habeas corpus
stunt" The news reached Killion's
ears. He brooded over it all the time
that he was in prison, and, when he
came out. he resolved to be revenged
on Carr.
However, he did not take any i'm
mediate steps toward yhis end. Cir
cumstances would have to be propi-
tious. The bad man" is always a