|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 21
But, in my opinion, the main condition that makes train robbing easy is
the element of surprise in connection with the imagination of the
passengers. If you have ever seen a horse that has eaten loco weed you
will understand what I mean when I say that the passengers get locoed.
That horse gets the awfullest imagination on him in the world. You can't
coax him to cross a little branch stream two feet wide. It looks as big
to him as the Mississippi River. That's just the way with the passenger.
He thinks there are a hundred men yelling and shooting outside, when maybe
there are only two or three. And the muzzle of a forty-five looks like
the entrance to a tunnel. The passenger is all right, although he may do
mean little tricks, like hiding a wad of money in his shoe and forgetting
to dig-up until you jostle his ribs some with the end of your six-shooter;
but there's no harm in him.
As to the train crew, we never had any more trouble with them than if they
had been so many sheep. I don't mean that they are cowards; I mean that
they have got sense. They know they're not up against a bluff. It's the
same way with the officers. I've seen secret service men, marshals, and
railroad detectives fork over their change as meek as Moses. I saw one of
the bravest marshals I ever knew hide his gun under his seat and dig up
along with the rest while I was taking toll. He wasn't afraid; he simply
knew that we had the drop on the whole outfit. Besides, many of those
officers have families and they feel that they oughtn't to take chances;
whereas death has no terrors for the man who holds up a train. He expects
to get killed some day, and he generally does. My advice to you, if you
should ever be in a hold-up, is to line up with the cowards and save your
bravery for an occasion when it may be of some benefit to you. Another
reason why officers are backward about mixing things with a train robber
is a financial one. Every time there is a scrimmage and somebody gets
killed, the officers lose money. If the train robber gets away they swear
out a warrant against John Doe et al. and travel hundreds of miles and
sign vouchers for thousands on the trail of the fugitives, and the
Government foots the bills. So, with them, it is a question of mileage
rather than courage.
I will give one instance to support my statement that the surprise is the
best card in playing for a hold-up.
Along in '92 the Daltons were cutting out a hot trail for the officers
down in the Cherokee Nation, Those were their lucky days, and they got so
reckless and sandy, that they used to announce before hand what job they
were going to undertake. Once they gave it out that they were going to
hold up the M. K. & T. flyer on a certain night at the station of Pryor
Creek, in Indian Territory.
That night the railroad company got fifteen deputy marshals in Muscogee
and put them on the train. Beside them they had fifty armed men hid in
the depot at Pryor Creek.
When the Katy Flyer pulled in not a Dalton showed up. The next station
was Adair, six miles away. When the train reached there, and the deputies
were having a good time explaining what they would have done to the Dalton
gang if they had turned up, all at once it sounded like an army firing
outside. The conductor and brakeman came running into the car yelling,
"Train robbers!"
Some of those deputies lit out of the door, hit the ground, and kept on
running. Some of them hid their Winchesters under the seats. Two of them
made a fight and were both killed.
It took the Daltons just ten minutes to capture the train and whip the
escort. In twenty minutes more they robbed the express car of
twenty-seven thousand dollars and made a clean get-away.
My opinion is that those deputies would have put up a stiff fight at Pryor
Creek, where they were expecting trouble, but they were taken by surprise
and "locoed" at Adair, just as the Daltons, who knew their business,
expected they would.
I don't think I ought to close without giving some deductions from my
experience of eight years "on the dodge." It doesn't pay to rob trains.
Leaving out the question of right and morals, which I don't think I ought
to tackle, there is very little to envy in the life of an outlaw. After a
while money ceases to have any value in his eyes. He gets to looking upon
the railroads and express companies as his bankers, and his six-shooter as
a cheque book good for any amount. He throws away money right and left.
Most of the time he is on the jump, riding day and night, and he lives so
hard between times that he doesn't enjoy the taste of high life when he
gets it. He knows that his time is bound to come to lose his life or
liberty, and that the accuracy of his aim, the speed of his horse, and the
fidelity of his "sider," are all that postpone the inevitable.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|