The log cabin Democrat., 1917-03-03
WOUNDS MAY YET
 COST BLOUNT LIFE
CONDITION GROWS WORSE
Mayfower Desperate Declares Kill ing of COllinston Ua.) Mayor
 was Accidental.

A special to the Arkansas Gazette from Shreveport late last night says: y@Sf1as
 Lee Blount, the Arkansas desper- ado, in jail here charged with the murder of Mayor H. w. Vaughn of Collinston, La, following the robbery of the Bank of Collinston by Blount and Shorty" Defts Wednesday, main- tains the attitude of stoical philo- sophy that has characterized his en- tire criminal career. His two narrow escapes from death-one from the
 posse that captured him and later from mob that sought to lynch him-have left him unmoved. He shows only faint interest in the pros- pect of legal execution that stares him in the face.
 At II o'clock tonight Sheriff Hughes had Blount removed to the Charity hospital, where he might re- receive the medical attention of which he is badly in need. Dr. w. F. But Ter, who attended him on his arrival, visited him again tonight, and thinks now that his chances for recovery are much less than they appeared this morning. Blood poisoning de- veloped this afternoon from the wound in the stomach, and Blount grew worse rapidly.
 Before leaving the jail he gave Hughes his wife's address. As he went through the door he told the sheriff he had been in just as bad a fix, if not worse, before, and had pulled through, and that he was not afraid of this one, but just to be on the safe side he gave the address.
 A special deputy was placed to watch the prisoner patient.
 Blount had narrow escape from being lynched by party of men at Bastrop yesterday. After being cap tured near Collinston, Blount was taken to Bastrop to have his wounds dressed. Officers learned that a mob was forming to lynch the prisoner and they hurried him out of town. The mob pursued and the officers fled into the woods west of town They remained in hiding all after noon and night and reached here with the prisoner this morning.
 During the night while the officers listened with anxious ears for sounds of the pursuers, Blount was the cool est member of the party. However, he pleaded with one of the deputies, asking that if the mob overlook them that he be given a revolver.
 "I won't hurt any of you boys and l won't try to get away if I'm not killed" he said. "I promise that, and I never broke a promise in my life. If they catch up with us, just give me gun, stand me up with my back to tree and I'll shoot it out to the last cartridge with those cowardly -. There's no reason why any of you boys should get hurt trying to save me-"
 While the parish physician was dressing his wounds in jail here this morning, Blount refused an opiate and bore the pain with seeming. in- difference.
 The nearest he came to showing interest in his fate was when he asked whether the Louisiana law pro- vides for execution by hanging or by electrocution.
 ''It don't make any difference to me, but was just curious to know" he said.
 Blount says that Mayor Vaughn was killed by accident. He said that Vaughn was beating him over the head with his revolver when it was discharged and the bullet entered the mayors brain.
 Blount said that the Collinston raid was his first attempt at bank robbery.
 'I never tried to rob a bank be- fore," he said. "I didn't want to tackle this job, but Shorty wanted piece of change, and he talked me into it. was fool to try some thing that I didn't know anything about, but did it, and now I'll take my medicine. They never would have caught me if it hadn't been for the bullet in my belly. It got to hurting so that I couldn't stay on my horse, and lay down in the first safe-look- ing house that I saw. It happened to be that nigger church. Then I gave a nigger $100 to go get a doc tor for me, and I suppose one or the other of them gave me away"
 Blount also told of his escape from the state farm at Tucker. He said that he and Shorty" Defts stood in swamp knee-deep in mud and water in freezing weather for seven hours in order to throw the bloodhounds off the scent.