THE OUTLAW YEARS

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THE

OUTLAW YEARS

THE HISTORY OF THE

LAND PIRATES OF
THE NATCHEZ TRACE

by Robert M. Goates

NEW YORK

THE LITERARY GUILD OF AMERICA

1930

Copyright, 1930, by
THE MACAULAY COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

To
MALCOLM COWLEY

who had the idea

CONTENTS

PAGE

PIONEERS 3

I THE HARPES

"THESE TERRIBLE MEN, THE HARPES!" 21

HARPES HEAD 44

II HARE

"!T Is A DESPERATE LIFE!" 73

III SAMUEL MASON

ONE OF THE BOLDEST SOLDIERS 109

THE END OF MASON 134

IV MURREL

A MAN IN A BOLIVAR COAT 169

SUCH GENTEEL MANNERS 195

DOWNFALL 243

THE FOURTH OF JULY 272

BIBLIOGRAPHY AN EXPLANATION 303

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Natchez : a Painting by John Audubon Frontispiece

FACING PAGE)

Crossing the Alleghenies 4

House-raising 38

Sugar-making 54

New Orleans 86

A Winter Camp IO2

Flatboating 118

Natchez, from the River 134

New Madrid 150

Murrel, Running a Slave 1 66

Murder of Woods 198

The Gentlemen of Natchez 214

Two Early Advertisements 230

Murrel and Stewart 246

Cotton Plantation 278

A Frontier Hanging 294

THE

OUTLAW

YEARS

THE OUTLAW YEARS

PIONEERS

DANIEL BOON came first. He left his home in the
Carolinas, in the Yadkin Valley; he came climbing
up through the ragged Cumberlands, tracing his
way westward "in quest of the country of Kentucke."

D.BOOn

CillED A BAR OH
ThE TREE

inyEAR
1760

He blazed a history of his passage on the trunks
of trees; he scratched his sign on boulders along
the way : he moved out silently into the wilderness.
He found it netted with buffalo paths, hunting trails
the Tennessee Path, the Bison Street, the War-
rior's Path which the roaming savages, from time
immemorial, had been weaving through the forest
Boon went zigzagging through the maze. He blazed
fording-places at the rivers, felled trees to make
"raccoon bridges" across the creeks: thousands of
other men, abandoning the comfortable prosperous
East, came groping westward after him.

3

The Outlaw Years
James Calk keeps a diary:

1775 Mon 1 3th I set out from prince william to
travel to caintuck. . . . Thursday i6th We started
early it rained Chief part of the day. . . . Wednes-
day 22nd We start early and git to foart Chissel
whear we git some good loaf bread and good whis-
key. . . .

On again, from the little military outpost, along
Boon's Trace. It is grinding going. One of the party
wanders into the forest and is lost. They wait; they
fire their guns and beat about in the thicket, yelling
his name: he is gone, his fate unknown. The wilder-
ness has gulped him in. Next day they move on
again:

April Saturday ist This morning there is ice at our
camp half inch thick we start early and travel this day
along a very Bad hilley way ... we cross Clinch
river and travell till late in the night and camp on Cove
creek having two men with us that wair pilates . . .

tuesday 4th Raney we start about 10 oclock and
git down to Capt martins in the valey where we over-
take Col. Henderson and his Company Bound for
Caintuck there they were Broiling and Eating beef
without Bread. . . .

tuesday nth this is a iowry morning and like for
Rain but we all agree to start Early and we cross Cum-
berland River and travel Down it about 10 miles

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Pioneers

through some turrabel cain brakes ... it is a very,
raney Eavening we take up camp near Richland Creek
they kill a beef Mr Drake Bakes Bread without wash-
ing his hands we Keep Sentry this night for fear of the
indians . . .

Food is gone : they have had hungry days, weary
days; always, day and night, the great forest has
been leaning all about them, breathing menace. But
they move on, making their way westward.

Wednesday igth smart frost this morning they kill
3 bofelos about n oclock we come to where the In-
dians fired on Boons company. . . .

thurday 2Oth this morning is clear and cool. We
start early to git Down to caintuck to Boons f oart . . .

While some follow Boon's path, others strike off
by themselves, trying to find a water route to the
great Mississippi. Colonel John Donelson buys a
flatboat and sets forth, his daughter Rachel with
him "a black-eyed, black-haired brunette, as gay,
bold and handsome a lass as ever danced on the deck
of a flatboat or took the helm while her father took
a shot at the Indians."

They are fighting Indians all the way:

Wed. 8th. Cast off at 10 o'clock. . . . We had not
gone far before we discovered a number of Indians,
armed and painted. . . .

5

The Outlaw Years

A man named Stuart has chartered another flat-
boat and is following behind them. The Indians
fall upon him in pitiless massacre. Donelson's boat,
drifting with the current, is powerless to return to
their aid:

. . . Stuart, his friends and family to the number
of 28 persons . . . was at some distance in the rear.
The Indians fell upon him, killed and took prisoner
the whole crew : their cries were distinctly heard. . . .

Donelson's boat sweeps on, but the Indians fol-
low, keeping pace along the bank, growing con-
tinually in force: occasionally, where the banks
narrow, their bullets thwack against the boat's plank-
ing; occasionally, from some sheltered cove, a fleet
of war canoes comes dashing to swarm about the
clumsy barge. . . .

All these skirmishing attacks are repulsed: the
men crouch at the boat's bulwarks, firing, passing
down their muskets through the cabin ports for the
women to reload. But still the main force of the
Indian army marches along the shore abreast of
them, waiting patiently for the moment when
snagged, beached or stranded the boat will be help-
less against attack:

Monday. Got under way before sunrise. . . . We
still perceived them, marching down the river in con-
siderable bodies. . . .

6

Pioneers

Day by day, Donelson writes in his "JOURNAL OF
A VOYAGE, intended by God's permission, in the good
boat ADVENTURE"; almost every entry records an
incident in this strange watery gauntlet he runs with
death :

. . . Captain Hutchins negro man died, being much
frosted in his feet and legs, of which he died. . . .
The Indians keeping pace with us. ...

Friday. We landed on the north shore at a level
spot, when the Indians appeared immediately over us,
and commenced firing down upon us. We immediately
moved off. ...

. . . The Indians lining the bluffs along continued
their fire on our boats below, without doing any other
injury than wounding four. . . .

In the end they outstrip the Indians but now an-
other danger appears: jagged rocks fill the channel,
and the current, where it is not boiling over hidden
snags, has accelerated to that silent rush that rivers
take as they approach a waterfall. They are nearing
the Muscle Shoals:

. . . After running until 10 o'clock, came in sight
of the Shoals. When we approached them they had a
dreadful appearance. . . . The water being high made
a terrible roaring. ...

Every man takes an oar, the women helping : the
clumsy flatboat swings into the current, yaws, and

7

The Outlaw Years

then suddenly is gripped by the water's force and
flung rocking and careening down among the rapids.
It goes scraping, straining, bumping there are
quick cries of command, frenzied heavings at the
oars: over all there is the ominous dull thunder of
the boiling river and then at last with a sighing
satisfaction they are safe again:

. . . Passed, by the hand of Providence. . . . We
are much encouraged. . . .

They drift on down the Tennessee River, seeking
the Ohio.

They reach the juncture of the two rivers, but
in what lamentable state their food, strength, cour-
age all exhausted:

. . . Our situation here is truly disagreeable . . .
our provisions exhausted, the crews almost worn down
with hunger and fatigues, and know not what distance
we have to go, or what time it will take us. ...

But they go on :

Sunday, 26 Got under way early. . .

Monday, 27 Set out again: killed a swan, which
was very delicious. . . .

Wednesday, 29 Proceeded. Gathered some herbs
on the bottoms which some of the company called
Shawnee Sallad. . . .

Friday, 31 Proceeded on. We are now without
bread, worn out . . . progress is slow. . . .

8

Pioneers

But they went on Donelson to found, with James
Robertson, the city of Nashville ; his daughter, even-
tually, to take her place in history as the wife of
Andrew Jackson.

And others came after them : Captain Hall, Major
Winchester famous Indian fighters both; the
mighty Major Harvey: "his arm was as powerful
as a trip-hammer an Anak among men" : he could
take two medium-sized men and hold them up at
arm's length; Colonel Bledsoe and Spencer, Boon's
companion, who lived one winter in a hollow tree,
shooting deer that came to a salt-lick at its base.

Few of them lived long, or died in any way but
violently. Anthony Bledsoe was killed in July, 1787,
his brother Isaac in 1793: both, fighting Indians.
Two sons died in the same way. Captain Hall was
attacked while moving his family to the settlement
at Mansco's Lick; he and his son were killed and
scalped. But while they died, others came to replace
them. One sees them, their figures shadowy and
gigantic, like the figures of men seen moving in a
mist. . .

"And as the emigrants came, the brawny-limbed,
sturdy husband and head of the family was seen driv-
ing his pack-horse before him, his rifle upon his
shoulder, his tomahawk and butcher-knife at his side,
and followed by a stout, healthy, ruddy-cheeked,

9

The Outlaw Years

strong-armed, nimble-tongued wife, with a numer-
ous train of greasy-faced, smutty-browed brats, shak-
ing their tattered garments in the wind . . ."

They came by the thousands, 1 all sorts and con-
ditions of men: mountaineers from the Blue Ridge
and the Yadkin Valley "the strength of their rough
hands could break bones"; pack-peddlers, traders,
army men, disgruntled soldiers "the original set-
tlers of Tennessee comprised a large number who
had fought in the Revolution"; farm boys, city men,
men of all trades "carpenters, hostlers, mechan-
icks"; men embittered, seeking solitude Aaron
Burr, John Fitch with his despised steamboat model,
Fannie Wright and Robert Owens seeking Utopia;
proud fearless men and men with heavy secrets to

1 At the close of the Revolution, it is estimated that there were not more
than 10,000 settlers in the whole territory. The Federal census table,
begun in 1790, reveals the astounding volume of immigration in subse-
quent years:

1790

l80O

1810

1820

Tennessee

7C.7Q1

105 6O2

26l 727

A22 8l3

Ohio

AC 9&t

2 1O 76O

q.<S,ol3
C&I 4. 3.1

Kentucky

71,077

22O.Q5C

4JO6.<II

5 OI 43T

cfi 4*7

8 850

AO.7C2

jt AlR

V^tiy*

75*r4

108,868

380,772

939.350

1,644,012

There was something inexplicable about the whble movementespe-
cially since, the East being at the time in very prosperous condition, no
economic motive could be ascribed. European observers looked on in
wonderment. A Dr. Raphael Dubois of the University of Lyons, con-
structed an ingenious device to prove that man, like the squirrel in a
cage, is irresistibly impelled to step westward by the fact of the earth's
rotation eastward. Others were content to mention, diffidently, "mystic
forces" and "far-seeing powers."

TO

Pioneers

conceal "desperadoes flying from justice, suspected
or convicted felons escaped from the grasp of the
law . . . the horse thief, the counterfeiter and the
robber. . . ." By water and by land they came, ham-
mering their way into the wilderness, pushing on
toward the scented River, the dreamed-of Missis-
sippi, that lay like a liquid spine in the wilderness'
midst.

Boon's Trace was the path that most of them fol-
lowed : it led up through the Great Smoky Moun-
tains and down along the Wautaga River on the
other side to its juncture with the Clinch River ; here
the way forked. One branch led south to Knoxville,
and so westward through Tennessee; the other fork
turned sharply northward, climbed through the
Cumberland Gap and, descending into Kentucky,
curved gradually west and south again: this latter
trail became known as the "Wilderness Road."

Both forks met at Nashville, already the metrop-
olis of the middle valley, with a population of about
1000 inhabitants, all commodiously housed in cabins
"built of cedar logs with stone or mud chimneys,' 1
with a post-office and a general store run by Lardner
Clark, Esq., "Merchant and Ordinary Keeper."
Nashville had "more wheeled vehicles than any
other frontier town," and yet so new it was on
any sunny day you might see its founder, old Timote
DeMonbreun, 2 the French-Canadian trader, stroll-

ii

The Outlaw Years

ing in the public square, wearing knee-breeches with
silver buckles "even to the end he favored the old-
time clothes" and showing off his plump, well-
shaped leg.

They came pushing on, along one fork or the
other, and the wilderness swallowed them; wher-
ever they went, it touched them ; wherever they set-
tled, it surrounded them. Facing the wilderness its
dark loneliness, its strange menace; the bitter priva-
tions it imposed, and the sudden bountifulness it
sometimes afforded all men changed a little, as if
their natures, like their mouths, were fed on the wild
fruit it offered.

They built their cabins of felled logs: twenty by
sixteen feet were the usual dimensions. Sometimes
the floor was the bare earth; sometimes a floor of
"puncheons" logs split into planks would be laid.
Then, layer by layer, the log walls were rolled up

8 This is not, even by comparison with page 9, a mistake; Donelson
and Robertson did actually found the town of Nashville, but DeMonbreun
had come down from Canada as early as 1760, and had established a
trading-camp with the Indians on the site; he visited it annually until,
finding Robertson settled there, he decided to remain. DeMonbreun was
credited with being the first white man to enter Middle Tennessee, and
the town was at first called French Lick in his honor, but even he could
remember that there had been others. On his first voyage, he stumbled
on a small party of wanderers. There were five men and a woman, and
there had been a sixth the woman's husband: he had fallen sick a while
back and they had left him to die; a healthier member of the party had
claimed the bride, DeMonbreun went on his way; the next day he found
the man's body and buried him. The others had been heading vaguely
westward: they were never heard of again. "This," the old trader used
to say, "was no doubt the first white woman ever seen in Tennessee."

12

Pioneers

into place, notched and fitted at the corners. Two
stout young trees, cut down entire, were set up at
both end walls with their branches trimmed in a
crotch to support the ridge-pole. The roof was of
bark slabs laid like shingles, and held in place by
a log for weight. Windows were rare : such as there
were, they made of paper coated with hog's lard or
bear's grease to let in the light; ordinarily, the clay
chinking between the logs was knocked out in sum-
mer, for ventilation, and filled in again in winter, to
keep out cold.

The interior comprised but one room, "answering
the purpose of the kitchen, dining-room, nursery and
dormitory." The furniture: "a plain home-made
bed-stead or two, some split-bottomed chairs and
stools, a large puncheon supported on four legs, used
as occasion required, for a bench or a table."

The wardrobe was equally simple: leather hunt-
ing shirts, leggins and moccasins for the men, with
homespun jean trousers, butternut dyed; "cotton
stripes and linsey-woolsey for the women. If a calico
dress was bought it created great excitement, and
was 'norated' through the neighborhood." Children
wore the "toga," a long shirt like a nightgown, the
boys' having "two slits in the tail, to distinguish them
from the girls'."

Victuals were measured by what the wilderness
supplied. Salt was the great lack: "Salt was brought

13

The Outlaw Years

in on pack-horses from Augusta and Richmond and
readily commanded ten dollars a barrel. The salt
gourd, in every cabin, was considered as a treasure.
. . . Often a family would not get more than a
pound of salt a year." So meat was packed in wood
ashes, then washed in boiling water, and smoked over
the fire: "Cured in this way, it remained fresh as
long as if it was salted."

Coffee was another luxury: "Ten pounds of coffee
was a large annual supply for a family, which was
used only on Sunday morning, none but the adults
being allowed a cup." The rest of the time various
roots, dried and browned in the oven, furnished a
substitute. Sugar was made from the sugar-maple,
but even this was rare : "It was only used for the sick,
or in the preparation of a 'sweetened dram' at a
wedding or the arrival of a new comer."

They rose at three or four o'clock in the morning;
they went to bed at eight or nine o'clock at night.
Rush-lights, tallow-dip tapers and the glow from the
fireside furnished their illumination. Meals, though
limited as to variety, were generous as to quantity.
John Palmer boarded at a frontier tavern: for break-
fast, the menu included "beefsteak, bacon, eggs,
johnny-cakes, butter, tea and coffee"; for dinner: "2
or 3 dishes of fowls, roast meat, kidney beans, peas,
new potatoes, preserves, cherry pie, etc."; for sup-
per: "nearly the same as breakfast." After a corn-

H

Pioneers

husking, a quilting bee or some other pioneer
frolic, a collation such as the following might be set
out: "hot cake and custard, hoe cake, johnny cake,
dodger cake, pickled peaches, waffle cake, preserved
cucumbers, ham, turkey, hung beef, apple sauce,
pickled oysters. . . ."

But corn, above all, was the staple of diet with
them as it had been with the Indians. At the mar-
riage of Captain Leiper, one of the first settlers at
Nashville, "the great delicacy for the ladies was
roasting ears"; later, dozens of ways were devised
to vary the flavor of the ever-present ingredient, corn
meal: "Boiled in water, it forms the frontier dish
called mush, which was eaten with milk, with honey,
molasses, butter or gravy. Mixed with cold water,
covered with hot ashes, the preparation is called
the ash-cake; placed upon a piece of clapboard and
set near the coals, it forms the journey-cake; 3 or man-
aged in the same way upon a helveless hoe, the hoe-
cake; put in an oven and covered with a heated lid,
a pone or a loaf; if in smaller quantities dodgers.
Let paeans be sung all over the mighty West, to In-
dian corn without it, the West would have been
still a wilderness!" 4

So they settled down: "clearing a patch and en-

3 Hence, "johnny-cake."

4 Curiously, its principal present-day use in making corn -whiskey-
had not yet been discovered. The settlers drank Monongahela whiskey,
flatboated down the Ohio from the distilleries around Pittsburgh.

The Outlaw Years

closing it within a brush or a cane fence, upon which
to raise corn for next summer's bread; when the
day's toil was over . . . playing a Virginia jig upon
a gourd fiddle, while a train of tatterly brats kicked
up a tremendous dust as they danced over the dirt
floor. . . ."

The wilderness surrounded them: black danger
of the Indian, the marauder imprisoned them with
the forest wall. Like a lens constricted to a narrow
focus, their whole life lay within the circle of the
cabin and the corn-patch: they hoed and reaped,
rendered lard, ground meal on the hominy block,
loved, slept, ate "there, surrounding a skillet of
grease, we sat with chunks of bread in our hands,
sopping gravy, drinking milk out of a bowl with
wooden ladles" every labored gesture, like a loud
noise in a narrow room, booming and reechoing in
their minds.

Gradually, as the settlers came pouring into the
region, the danger of the Indians diminished; but
now that very tide of immigration brought a new
peril to the wilderness: the river pirates who preyed
on the traffic of the River, and the land pirates, who
infested the forest trails. As travel increased, their
numbers mounted ; as trade grew richer, they became
more powerful. Everything combined to aid them.
On the River, the current itself with its snags, its
shifting riffles and shoals was a trap for the un-

16

Pioneers

wary boatmen; since one bank was under Spanish
and the other under American jurisdiction, either
shore offered the bandits a safe refuge from all pur-
suit on the other.

On land they were more fortunate still, for here
the wilderness fed them, hid them, inspired them:
its dense canebrakes aided them in the ambuscade,
its thickets, its swamps and its reedy bottoms cov-
ered their escape and concealed their hiding places.
They were the terror of the great trails the
Natchez Trace, where traders came back from the
New Orleans market; the Wilderness Road, where
immigrants came in from the East: Hare, and the
two mad Harpes, Mason, and Murrel that erratic
Napoleon of the outlaws one by one they rose to
power and had their period of dominion over the
wilderness country.

They were its creatures, the bitter fruit of the same
wild seed that bred the pioneers : they reflected, but
in more savage fashion, the same ruthless audacity
and fierce implacable energy which its loneliness in-
spired in their more honest fellows.

When their reign ended when MurreFs fantastic
dream of a robber empire in the West collapsed and
the strength of the robber bands was finally broken
it was not because their own forces had lessened,
but rather because the dark influence of the wilder-
ness itself was at last being cleared away.

I

THE HARPES

"THESE TERRIBLE MEN, THE HARPES!"

ON AN April day in the year 1797 a young circuit
rider of the Methodist Church was jogging west-
ward along the Wilderness Road.

This was the track that Boon had followed. He
had found it no more than a vague path, clotted
with briar and matted with moss, but now more than
forty thousand people had come after him: the
Trace had been hammered hard and cleared almost
to the width of a carriage road by their horses'
hoofs.

On either side, however, the virgin forest re-
mained unaltered : its great trees strode away illim-
itably, lifting their shaggy branches one hundred,
two hundred feet into the sunshine; beneath them,
crowded thick between their trunks, was the tangled
screen of underbrush and briar, making a hedge that
rose higher than a man's head on both sides of the
way.

It was Spring. The air was heavy with the pale
scent of flowers, and sleepy with the sound of the
wild bees blundering among the lazily-unfolding
petals. The young preacher his name was William
Lambuth rode slowly : he was thinking perhaps of

21

The Outlaw Years

the sermon he would deliver at the next settlement.
His meditations were suddenly interrupted.

His horse shied, startled. Lambuth looked up. A
man stood, rifle in hand, barring his path. "Stand
where you be!" the man commanded.

The stranger was tall, broad-built, apparently
toward the middle age; his skin was dark, almost
swarthy it had a peculiar "dryed and lifeless" look;
his eyes had the flat fixed stare of an animal. He was
dressed like an Indian in fringed buckskin breeches
and a ragged leather shirt. He did not move for a
moment: unemotionally, he observed the preacher's
agitation. Then another man, somewhat shorter and
less ill-favored, stepped from the thicket.

Together, ominously, the two approached.

Lambuth began to protest: he had little money;
he was a man of God ; his cloth should save him
from indignity.

"Git down from that hoss!" the big fellow or-
dered. Lambuth dismounted.

They took his horse; they took his pistol from
the saddle holster. They turned his pockets inside
out, taking what silver they contained. Last they
took his Bible and fingered through the pages : oc-
casionally, travelers would carry paper money
pressed between the pages of a book.

Throughout the search, neither of the two men
had spoken. Now, the big man flipped the book open

22

"These Terrible Men, The Harpes!"

at its title page : on it was written the owner's name,
also the name of George Washington. At this the
big man offered a strange comment:

"That," he said, "is a brave and good man, but a
mighty rebel against the King!"

Lambuth, the first shock of terror past, had re-
covered a little of his assurance. He was convinced
now that they did not mean to murder him ; he began
to reason with them, pleading that they would not
leave him unarmed, unhorsed in mid-forest. They
would not answer. They seemed as if animated by
some hungry fury; they looked strangely at him.
Lambuth began to fear again.

Now two women appeared, coming silently, both
ragged and unkempt. This seemed a signal : the men
bundled their booty together; Lambuth watching
helplessly, they seized the horse by the bridle and
made off into the forest

As they went, as they entered the thicket, both
turned abruptly.

"We are the Harpes!" they shouted, then plunged
out of sight.

It had been a strange visitation. Not the fact of
the robbery had been surprising: brigandage was al-
ready frequent along that barren way. But this one
had lacked all purpose : preachers were always poor;
the hold-up had not repaid its risk. Yet the robbers
had seemed neither surprised nor angered. All their

The Outlaw Years

actions had been erratic, as if half-controlled: they
had been like men throbbing with a strange fury.
They had been like madmen. Lambuth, pondering,
trudged on toward the settlement of Barboursville,
to tell of his adventure.

This was the first known crime of the Harpes. It
was, also, almost the only one that did not end in
murder.

Their coming had been dramatic in its sudden-
ness. As if embodied in the wilderness, like an incar-
nation of its menace, they had suddenly stepped
forth, cried: "We are the Harpes !"

Later, research and their own confessions revealed
something of their history.

The two men were brothers: "Big Harpe" Mi-
cajah; and Wiley "Little Harpe." Both had been
born in North Carolina, one in the year 1768 and
the other two years later. There were rumors as
to their parentage; many thought them part Negro:
"their tawny appearance and dark curly hair be-
trayed a tinge of African blood."

In any case, it is known that their father had been
a Tory; he fought with the British during the early
years of the War. Later, as the Revolution pros-
pered, he had tried to turn his coat, but his neigh-
bors had too long memories: he was forced to flee
for his life. The two sons and the mother remained.

24

"These Terrible Men, The Harpes!"

Whether they suffered from the same spite is not
known. At any rate, in 1795, the sons in their turn
took flight from North Carolina, heading west. Two
women came with them: two sisters, Susan and Bet-
sey Roberts. Susan the elder " rather tall, raw-
boned, dark hair and eyes, and rather ugly"
claimed to be Big Harpe's lawful wife. The younger
sister Betsey was blonde, blue-eyed, gay-tempered,
"a perfect contrast with her sister" : she was wife to
either of the Harpes, as the mood seized her, or
them.

So, roaming westward with their little harem, the
two Harpes made their way into central Tennessee.
Here, through some accident, they established
friendly relations with a tribe of Cherokee Indians
a tribe, wandering like themselves, outlawed for
some breach of faith from the general confederacy
of the Indian nations. They lived with the savages
for two years: it was a dangerous life.

Hunted by both redskin and white, attacked con-
stantly or attacking, they learned to strike with cun-
ning and walk warily. Throughout the rest of their
career, they preserved many of the habits they thus
acquired: they dressed in leather, the women as well
as the men; in a day when the tasseled coonskin cap
was the badge of the white man, the Harpes went
hatless "except in the coldest weather, and then
they used the kind they whanged together with deer-

The Outlaw Years

skin thongs." It was among the Indians as well, in
all probability, that their blood-madness was born.

Many men, leaving the policed and prosperous
East, had felt strange impulses strengthening within
them, wild new instincts blossoming in their hearts.
At home, in the cities, on farms along the Housa-
tonic or the Yadkin Rivers, they had been indistin-
guishable from their fellows, but once they entered
the wilderness they were transformed. Its per-
fumed appeal, its dark menace particularized them:
as if in a kind of intimate abandonment as if, alone
against the dark heart of the continent, their own
hearts unfolded they revealed by their violences,
or by their heroisms, how different they were from
other men. So it was with the Harpes: if they had
stayed at home, if their rage had never fed on the
wild soil of the West, they might have lived sane and
law-abiding. Seeded among the savages, their mad-
ness had its terrible flowering among the whites.

They had just deserted the Indians when they en-
countered the preacher Lambuth. After robbing
him, they went on to Knoxville.

The young town of Knoxville lay at the conflu-
ence of the Holston and the French Broad Rivers,
on the south branch of the Wilderness Road. It
marked the overland gateway to the West: it was
wild, tumultuous, booming. Half its population

26

"These Terrible Men, The Harpes!"

changed overnight as the emigrants entered, stopped
for supplies and plunged westward again ; the other
half thrived on the trade thus fostered.

Rum shops lined the streets. "I stood aghast!"
wrote James Weir, who visited the town in 1798.
He saw men jostling, singing, swearing; women yell-
ing from the doorways; half-naked niggers playing
on their "banjies" while the crowd whooped and
danced around them. Whiskey cost four shillings a
pint and peach brandy the same. "The town was con-
fused with a promiscuous throng of every denomina-
tion" blanket-clad Indians, leather-shirted woods-
men, gamblers hard-eyed and vigilant "My soul
shrank back." The whole town was roaring. The
Harpes liked it.

For some time, however, they preserved the char-
acter of honest settlers. Arriving, they had taken a
small tract of land along the Beaver Creek, a few
miles west of town.

In those days, building a cabin, clearing a "patch"
were community affairs. All the neighbors came:
while the men worked chopping logs for the cabin
walls, splitting "puncheon" planks for the floor, slab-
bing bark for the roof the women would be quilt-
ing, twisting "hankins" of yarn, stuffing bedticks
with dried moss or pine needles, gossiping. In the
end, with the cabin raised and the corn patch cleared,
a whiskey jug would be uncorked and a gourd fiddle

27

The Outlaw Years

would appear, and a rattling reel would follow,
danced on the new-laid floor.

"Mush-a-ring-a-riny-a-rah!
Whack fol'd the dady Of
Whack fol'd the dady 0!
Thar s whiskey in the ]uy!"

Such was the welcome the Harpes received and
among those who came down to the frolic were
John Rice, a minister living a few miles to the north-
ward, and his daughter Sally.

Sally Rice had a frail blonde beauty; she was
not yet twenty years old: Little Harpe was smitten
with her at once. Through the summer, he haunted
the Rices' cabin, paying his court in his hang-dog
fashion; before the setting-in of Fall he had married
her. Her father performed the ceremony.

Such men as the Harpes, however, with the wild
energy that filled them, could not be satisfied with
peace. They found outlet, at first, in petty thievery.

They had been raising hogs and selling pork to
the butcher at Knoxville, John Miller. Now Miller
noticed that they came in more frequently, and had
more pork to sell at every trip. Soon they were al-
ways around the town, swapping horses and racing,
drinking, gambling, carousing: imperceptibly, they
had turned from honest farmers into rowdies,
bruisers.

28

"These Terrible Men, The Harpes!"

People who had trusted them now eyed them cau-
tiously and kept away from dealings with them : as if
accidentally, a series of fires destroyed the barns and
outhouses of these same wary gentlemen. Suspicion,
gradually, settled on the Harpes.

Matters came to a climax with the theft of a team
of fine horses from the stable of Edward Tiel. Tiel
was a prominent man; his horses were prime: with-
out delay he drummed his neighbors into a posse
and set out to interview the Harpes.

The posse came too late. They found a deserted
cabin, but the clearing showed the hoof-prints of a
number of horses; a fresh track led away into the
forest.

Tiel and his men set out on the trail, riding rap-
idly. Deep in the Cumberlands, they overtook the
two Harpes alone, driving the stolen horses. The
thieves made no resistance ; they seemed dejected, as
if befuddled. Triumphantly, Tiel led them back
toward Knoxville.

Like all madmen, the Harpes were never consis-
tent. In their flight, they had left a trail that a child
could have followed. They had shown no spirit When
captured. But now, suddenly, their cunning awak-
ened. Unnoticed, they sidled toward the edge of the
road, leaped free, plunged into the forest.

Their guards had only time for a startled yell of
warning. Then Tiel cursing, the whole troupe

29

The Outlaw Years

spurring about in the thicket, searching the Harpes
had gone. It was as if they had vanished.

A few miles outside town, on the banks of the
Holston River, a man named Hughes maintained a
tavern. Like most such places in that time it dealt
in a variety of goods. There were bolted calicos on
the shelves, a miscellany of hardware, a counter bake-
shop. Meals were served, with grog or a bowl of
toddy, at the fixed rate of four shillings sixpence;
between-meals, drinks sold by the bottle and whiskey
"such as will sink tallow": thus was the proof de-
termined was the principal potion. There was no
bar: instead, the proprietor stood behind a latticed
wicket in a corner and the purchaser dealt with him,
as now with a cashier at a bank, through an opening
just wide enough to shove the bottle and receive
change.

Hughes' place had an evil reputation: it was
known as a "rowdy groggery," much frequented by
bruisers from the river and skulkers from the town.
On the night of Tiel's chase and the Harpes' escape,
however, it was almost deserted. In those days men
rose at dawn or earlier and went to bed at dusk:
their lives followed the sun; as the lowering night
came on there remained in Hughes' little inn-com-
mon only four men : Hughes himself, the two Met-

30

"These Terrible Men, The Harpes!"

calfe boys, his wife's brothers, and a man named
Johnson.

Of the man Johnson, as of so many others amor g
the Harpes' victims, nothing is known save the man-
ner of his death. He had come West, and the Harpes
killed him, and that single dark encounter is the only
relic of his life.

He sat in the darkening room ; he had drunk his
bottle and was demanding more. Hughes was telling
him to clear out, it was closing time. But he wanted
more. And soon the two Harpes, come back to Knox-
ville on no one knows what crazy errand of their
own, appeared in the doorway.

What followed what thrashing struggle, what
hopeless pleading can only be surmised from the
final outcome. Two days later, Johnson's body was
found floating in a weedy ebb of the Holston River.
The murderers had thought to dispose of the corpse
in the manner later made famous by Murrel: they
had ripped open the belly, removed the entrails and
weighted the cavity with stones. In spite of their
work, the body had floated.

Hughes and the Metcalfes were arrested; they
blamed the Harpes, who had disappeared ; they were
acquitted for lack of evidence. At their release, the
Metcalfe brothers wisely decamped. Hughes, with
braggadocio, reopened his groggery : it was immedi-

The Outlaw Years

ately visited by a party of "Regulators"; * the house
was pulled down and Hughes, after an unmerciful
cowhiding, was driven from the country.

The Harpes could not be found, nor their trail
discovered until it appeared in blood.

Some days later, just south of the settlement of
Barboursville, on the north branch of the Wilder-
ness Road, a man's body was found lying. He had
been a poor old fellow, a pack-peddler; his name
was Peyton. He had been tomahawked. His bundle
had been torn open and scattered, but little save a
few items of women's wearing apparel had been
taken.

Farther out into the wilderness, and a few days
later, two more bodies were found: two men from
Maryland named Paca and Bates; they had 'been
traveling toward Nashville. Bates had been shot
in the back and killed instantly; Paca had been
wounded, had struggled: his head had been split
with the tomahawk. Both had been stripped of their
clothing. The Harpes had continued westward.

About a month afterward, early in December, a
young traveler from Virginia named Stephen Lang-
ford arrived toward nightfall at the tavern-ordinary
kept by John Pharris on the Wilderness Road.

This was a meeting-place well known to travelers

*That is, a citizens' posse.

"These Terrible Men, The Harpes!"

of the day. It lay just outside the settlement of Little
Rock Castle: between it and the next town, Crab
Orchard, the road traversed a thirty-mile-wide
stretch of country which torn by ravines, infested
with Indians was known even in that land of un-
broken forest as "the Wilderness."

No man would willingly face it alone. Those who
must traverse it waited until others joined them;
often they advertised their intention by a scrawled
notice tacked to Pharris' inn-door, or an item in-
serted in one of the early newspapers, as in the Ken-
tucky Gazette: "A large company will start from
the Crab Orchard on the aoth of February, in order
to go through the Wilderness," Similarly, west-bound
travelers met and joined forces at Pharris' inn.

When young Langford arrived, however, he found
no others waiting to make the journey. To go on
alone that day, the landlord assured him, was out
of the question : he would be benighted in mid-wil-
derness. Besides, if he waited over, some other trav-
eler might appear, to-morrow. Langford decided to
stop that night at the inn.

Next day in the early misty morning, Langford,
leaning in the inn-door while breakfast was prepar-
ing, saw a small party coming down the road. Two
men and three women: they all had a ragged lower-
ing look; they came lagging along, Indian-fashion,
driving two spavined horses before them: across the

33

The Outlaw Years

backs of these were slung a few bags, some cooking-
implements, a rifle or two. An unprepossessing out-
fit, but there were two men among them ; they were
armed: better poor company than no company at
all. Langford he was a gay young fellow, high-
spiritedly heading westward hailed them jovially;
asked them to wait while he breakfasted, and they
would attack the Wilderness together.

The strangers picketed their horses, came tramp-
ing silently into the inn. Soon Pharris appeared with
a steaming platter of johnny-cakes made of Indian
meal, a pot of coffee, rashers of bacon : "Ye can sit
down to table," he announced.

The strangers did not stir: they had no money,
they said. "You won't go hungry for lack of that! 1 '
declared Langford. "Sit down to your food. I'll foot
the bill."

So they pulled up a bench to the table; they ate
hearty. When the meal was over, Langford called for
his reckoning; when he paid it, he pulled a well-
filled wallet from his greatcoat pocket. The stran-
gers watched him silently. Soon after, they all set out
together, disappeared into the Wilderness.

Langford's body was found a week later: a party
of drovers pursuing some scattered steers stumbled
on it in the underbrush at the bottom of a ravine. He
had been stripped, robbed, tomahawked.

34

"These Terrible Men, The Harpes!"

The Harpes now had five murders to their credit,
spaced along the Wilderness Road like bloody blaze-
markings of their passage. The cumulative effect
aroused the settlers; a posse set forth from the town
of Stanford, under the leadership of Captain Joseph
Ballenger. They had not far to search.

Again as, previously, at Knoxville pursuit
seemed to coincide with some curious subsidence in
the Harpes of their wild energies. Ballenger and his
men found them, with their women quite unwary,
quite unapprehensive sitting in a row on a log be-
side the Trace, a few miles out of town.

They offered no resistance ; as if bewildered, they
permitted themselves to be bound and led back to
Stanford. 2

At the arraignment, all the defendants gave the
name of Roberts except Betsey, Big Harpe's alter-
nate wife: she gave the name of Elizabeth Waker.
The rest was mere formality; their guilt was plainly
evident. Captain Ballenger, being sworn, affirmed
that when he arrested them, he "found in their pos-
session a pocketbook with the name of Stephen Lang-
ford, some shirts of fine linen, a greatcoat, vari-
ous other of his possessions" ; several innkeepers tes-
tified to their passage along the Wilderness. They
were remanded to the jail, to await removal to Dan-
ville for trial at the District Court sessions.

2 See page 307: Rothert, Otto A.

35

The Outlaw Years

Matters had now become a little complicated: all
three women were pregnant, and approaching deliv-
ery. When they were carried to the Danville Dis-
trict Jail John Biegler, the warden there, was beset
by the double duties of turnkey and nurse. More-
over, in spite of their aliases, the identity of the sus-
pects had at last been learned, and their connection
with the previous murders established; the little jail-
house was besieged by people from the outlying set-
tlements, who had ridden in to have a look at "these
terrible men, the Harpes."

Warmed by their notoriety, the Harpes swelled
with confidence. Big Harpe boasted of his strength.
He offered to take on any two men in a fair fight
with fists, provided he be set free if he bested them.
Everybody seemed to think it was a fair sporting
offer. Biegler the jailer began a series of requisitions
for handcuffs and iron-ware balanced by condi-
ments and infusions for the expectant mothers.

The jail built, as ordered by the Court in 1784,
"of hewed or sawed logs at least nine inches thick"
might have seemed sturdy enough to hold any ordi-
nary criminals. A week after the arrival of the
Harpes, however, Biegler's cashbook recorded the
purchase of "two horse locks to chain the men's feet
to the ground, 12 shillings; and one bolt, three-
pence." At the same time the purchase of "> Ib.

"These Terrible Men, The Harpes!"

Hyson Tea, is.iod," was recorded for the ladies'
delicate palates.

On February 13, the wily Biegler adds "one lock
for front jail door, i8s" to his already formidable
armament. At the end of the month three pounds of
nails, costing six shillings, u for the use of the jail,"
are purchased. And on March 7, a whole list of ex-
penditures quite unprecedented in a turnkey's diary:
"Hyson Tea, is.iod; i Ib. sugar, is.6d; for the use
of Susanna Harpe brought to bed by a daughter the
preceding night: total, 3S.4d. Paid cash for mid-
wife for ditto, i8s. Total: i.i s.4d."

One more entry and the most melancholy in the
jailer's cashbook, and Biegler's dealings with the
Harpes were over. "March 16," he wrote. "For
mending wall in the jail where the prisoners escaped,
12 shillings." His locks and handcuffs and horse-
bolts and nails had all proved futile. The Harpes
were gone leaving three women, now each deliv-
ered of a bouncing baby, to the jailer's tender minis-
trations.

But now the country was up in arms; excitement
blazed; men, at the thrill of the man-hunt, seized
rifles and plunged into the thicket The law of "old
Judge Lynch" was invoked: posses roamed every-
where in the wilderness, all armed with a length of

37

The Outlaw Years

rope and eager to noose it around the murderers'
throats.

One such party actually confronted the Harpes.
Suddenly, as they waded through the forest, two
men rose before them staring fiercely. There was a
moment of startled hesitation, then both parties
the Harpes and the posse went tearing through the
thicket, in opposite directions!

Henry Scaggs, however, a famous "Kentucky Long
Hunter" and a pioneer in 1770 with Colonel Knox,
had been among the posse. Enraged, he tried to re-
form the scattered party. But one look at the em-
battled Harpes had been enough to douse their en-
thusiasm ; the man-hunters were bound for home.

Scaggs went on alone. An hour later he stumbled
into a clearing and here he found a crowd of twenty
or thirty settlers, jigging and drinking in the cabin
of some newcomers, at the close of a "house-raising
frolic."

Scaggs burst in among them with his dire news.
The women clustered about him, screaming and ex-
claiming. The men, already half-full of whiskey,
seized demijohns and rifles indiscriminately and
plunged uproariously forth on the hunt.

Once in the forest, however, in the thicket already
misting and darkening, their enthusiasm evaporated.
Who were these Harpes, anyway? Again Scaggs saw
his followers fade away. Again he went on alone.

38

JJ 3 51

**S 8
i " -2

'"2

3*" 5

*

- 3

2|l 8

S" o a
*" ~* ** v

c -g ft

I

A ^ fl

1 S

s

: JB.S o

"These Terrible Men, The Harpes!"

His way led him to the cabin of Colonel Trabue,
another old Indian fighter and as hardy a veteran as
himself. Trabue was willing enough to join the
chase ; only, he asked to wait until his son came home :
the boy had gone down the trail to a neighbor's, to
borrow some flour and beans. So the two men pulled
their split-bottom chairs to the doorway; smoking
and talking thus, they saw the boy's dog, all smeared
with blood, come running home.

The dog led them back to the sinkhole where the
youngster's body lay. Apparently the Harpes, fam-
ished and frenzied by the dangerous chase, had ex-
ploded in a very ecstasy of passion. Young Trabue
had been shot, kicked, tomahawked, pummeled. His
body was macerated by their blows, almost dismem-
bered by their knives. Their whole booty had been a
sack of beans and a bushel of flour. And again they
had vanished. Trabue and Scaggs, though they
hunted for days in the wilderness, found no trace of
them whatever.

Meanwhile, back in Danville, the three women
had come to trial. Their downcast looks, the hard
condition of their life, the pitiful circumstances of
their motherhood had all combined to sway public
opinion in their favor. They were acquitted. They
swore that now their only desire was to return to
Knoxville and start a new life, so the settlers took

39

The Outlaw Years

up a collection of provisions and clothing for them;
some one added an old gray mare. And so, with the
new-born children swung in a pair of hickory-withe
panniers over the mare's back, they set out. The faith-
ful Biegler accompanied them to the town limits : he
watched them go trudging away, single file, into the
wilderness. And there though spies, on the chance
that they might lead to the hiding place of the men,
had been sent to trail them they disappeared.

The spies traced them as far as the Green River
crossing: here, they found, the women had traded
their mare for a canoe, and vanished. No one can say
now what motives impelled them whether love, or
loneliness; if that same mad fever the wilderness
bred in the men's hearts had been communicated to
theirs, or if it was only fear that drove them all we
know is that they loaded their children, provisions,
clothing, into the canoe and paddled away. The gaunt
Susan, Betsey, even the frail Sally Rice, the preach-
er's daughter, so soon accustomed to bloodshed
they were off to join their murderous masters at some
preconcerted rendezvous.

Once again the Harpes had escaped, and pursuit
had been checkmated. And now, while the country
waited sullen and uncertain, news of two more mur-
ders traveled like thunder through the settlements.

A man named Dooley had been killed near the

40

"These Terrible Men, The Harpesl"

town of Edmonton. A man named Stump, a settler
along the Barren River, was the other.

Stump's death had been pathetic. He had been"
fishing, it appeared, down the river; suddenly he
noticed smoke, as from a camp-fire, rising above the
trees on the opposite bank : he thought a party of new
settlers had arrived. He sent a hail to them, over the
water; then he rowed back to his own cabin: he
slung a turkey and his string of fish over his shoulder,
picked up his fiddle and a gallon jug of whiskey,
and crossed to give the newcomers a proper wel-
come.

His body was found some days later: he had been
tomahawked, disembowelled, his belly filled with
gravel and his body flung in the river.

This news served at least to trace the passage of
the murderers : they were apparently working north
and westward, toward the Ohio and the Mississippi.
It served also as a signal: as if a spark had been
struck, the whole country flamed into activity. Doors
that had been barred were opened ; men poured forth
to join the hunt.

Proclamations were posted. Rewards were offered,
the State of Kentucky promising "a reward of
THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS to any person
who shall apprehend and deliver into the custody of
the jailer of the Danville District the said MICA-

The Outlaw Years

JAH HARP alias ROBERTS, and a like reward
of THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS for appre-
hending and delivering as aforesaid, the said
WILEY HARP alias ROBERTS, to be paid out
of the Public Treasury agreeably to law. . . ."

At the same time, reliable descriptions were cir-
culated: "MICAJAH HARP alias ROBERTS is
about six feet high of a robust make & is about
30 or 32 years of age. He has an ill-looking, down-
cast countenance, & his hair is black and short, but
comes very much down his forehead. He is built
very straight and is full fleshed in the face. When he
went away he had on a striped nankeen coat, dark
blue woollen stockings leggins of drab cloth &
trousers of the same as the coat.

"WILEY HARP alias ROBERTS is very meagre
in his face, has short black hair but not quite so
curly as his brother's; he looks older though really
younger, and has likewise a downcast countenance.
He had on a coat of the same stuff as his brother's,
and had a drab surtout over the close-bodied one.
His stockings were dark blue woollen ones, and his
leggins of drab cloth. . . ."

Everywhere men were posted along the trails, rid-
ing through the thicket, hunting the elusive Harpes.
Failing to find these for their search failed they
turned their anger loose on lesser miscreants. The

42

"These Terrible Men, The Harpes!"

movement against the Harpes turned into a general
clean-up of the whole territory.

Posses rode from town to town, tearing down grog-
shops, burning bordels. Parties of Regulators linked
forces through all the counties of Kentucky, hanging
outlaws, horsewhipping and deporting. "Judge
Lynch and Squire Birch" ruled the land. Fifteen
people were hung; hundreds were whipped and
driven away westward. Hundreds more escaped, flee-
ing ahead of their hunters, streaking west and north
toward the Mississippi and the deserted regions
along the Ohio.

When the great hunt finally ended and the posses
disbanded, their satisfaction at the general clean-up
of the settlements a little obscured the fact that in
the purpose for which they had originally started
they had been unsuccessful.

The Harpes were still abroad, uncaptured.

HARPES HEAD

WHILE thousands of immigrants were tramping over
the Cumberlands and down the Wilderness Road,
thousands more were coming in by water, down the
Ohio. Pittsburgh marked the navigable head of the
river and the town was thriving. Almost overnight
it had swollen from a mere outpost to the size of a
city: Wm. B. Irish, Esq., taking census at the begin-
ning of the century, found 4,640 inhabitants housed
in 767 buildings of which eleven, as he proudly spec-
ified, were built of stone!

Most of its population were either tavern-keepers
or shipbuilders. Whiskey cost forty cents a gallon;
brandy, eighty cents; beer, five dollars a barrel. In
two years the town had launched twelve rigged
ships, and barges, keelboats, broadhorns, Kentucky
boats innumerable. Flatboats "comfortable family
boats well boarded up on the sides, and roofed to
within seven or eight feet of the bow" these sold
for one dolnr per foot of length: thirty to forty feet
was the rule.

As fast as they could be knocked together the im-
migrants bought them. Haste made for carelessness;
good wood lacking, rotten wood was used. "It be-

44

Harpes Head

hoves every purchaser of a Kentucky-boat to get it
narrowly examined," warned Zadock Cramer but
the immigrants were too anxious to be away: they
would load in supplies salt pork, flour, beans, po-
tatoes, tea, sugar, an axe, cooking pots, powder and
balls, some cutlery and shove off down the bend.

The journey begun, however, many of them had
occasion to regret their impetuous departure. The
French, almost a century earlier, had called the Ohio
"La Belle Riviere" : even the captious Mrs. Trollope
admired its beauty, remarking only that "were there
occasionally a ruined abbey or feudal castle, to mix
the romance of real life with that of nature, the Ohio
would be perfect." But to the immigrants its winding
course, its twisting channels, as well as the heavy
forest wall that hedged each shore, were a source of
constant menace.

Boats, snagged, sank and all on board were
drowned or, what was worse, were set down unarmed
and unprovisioned to wander starving in the wilder-
ness. Indians flouring their faces to look like white
men, Indians crawling on all-fours wrapped in bear-
hides tempted the travelers to land: landing, they
were massacred. There was another danger even
greater than the uncertain currents, or the bitter eva-
sive Indians : bandits.

Thomas Ashe went down the river. "Most of the
settlers on the lower parts of these waters are crim-

4?

The Outlaw Years

inals either escaping from, or apprehensive of, pub-
lic justice," he wrote. "I was warned that many of
the small inns on the Kentucky shore were held in
solitary situations by persons of infamous character.
I demanded how a stranger was to distinguish a good
from a vicious house." He was told to look to his
landlord's ears: if they had been clipped or cut away
entirely he might be sure that their owner had left
them nailed to some market cross in the eastern col-
onies; by this indication, "a tolerable judgment of
the host's character might be formed."

The towns, too and especially along the lower
reaches of the river were populated by the same
choice characters. Benjamin Van Cleve, floating
down-river with a surveyor's party bound for Fort
Massac, stopped over a day at the settlement of Red
Bank.

It was a day of drizzling cloudy weather; the
scattered cabins dripping dismally, the single street
a churned mass of clay and mud : he found the town
and its occupants alike disagreeable. "The place is
a refuge, not for the oppressed, but for all the horse
thieves, rogues and outlaws that have been able to
effect their escape from justice in the neighboring
states. Neither law nor gospel has been able to reach
here as yet. A commission of the peace has been sent
by Kentucky to one Mason" ten years later Mason
himself had turned bandit: his character had re-

46

Harpes Head

versed completely "and an effort has been made to
introduce law; but the inhabitants drove the persons
away and insisted on doing without.

"I inquired how they managed to marry, and was
told that the parties agreed to take each other for
husband and wife before their friends." Such an
agreement was commonly held a sufficient contract
in the settlements; sometimes couples so married
would get their "Bible-wedding" later, when a cir-
cuit-rider appeared; in the wilder areas, naturally,
this custom opened the way to many abuses. "I was
shown two cabins with about the width of a street
between them, where two men a short time ago had
exchanged wives." Women were scarce in the early
West.

From Red Bank on down to the town of Smith-
land, the river traversed its most dangerous section.
Shoals abounded ; sand bars lay just below the ripple
of the surface; islands split the channel like a ser-
pentine. Landsmen most of the river travelers were :
as they came poling down, their jerry-built barges
swinging awkwardly in the changing currents, they
were helpless indeed to resist attack. A whole hier-
archy of piracy had arisen, to prey on them.

The first of these had been a man named Wilson.
At the head of the maze of snags and riffles known as
the Hurricane Bars, some sixty miles below Red
Bank, he took his stand at a cave in the bluff along-

47

The Outlaw Years

shore: a cave like many others in those limestone
regions, with deep chambers and hidden recesses and
strange rock-formations. He posted a sign on the
river bank: "Wilson's Liquor Vault & House for
Entertainment." The cave was known as the "Cave
Inn" later twisted to "Cave-in-Rock." It had a long
chapter in the history of river piracy.

Boat-wreckers waited along the bank: watching a
boat pass, they would offer to pilot it through the
channel. If the unskilled steersman chose to run the
rip unaided, it was more than likely he would run
aground: if he hired a pilot, the chance of his
grounding became a certainty. Once beached, the
boat and its occupants fell easily before the attack
of Wilson's gang.

Sometimes the travelers would beach their boats
of their own accord, planning to spend the night at
the Cave and make the passage of the Bars in the
morning. Next day, however, a different crew would
man the barge, and a little more blood would have
been spilt. Wilson had a sense of humor: he used
to stand above the Cave, watching the flatboats drift-
ing down to the ambush : "These people are taking
their goods to market for me," he would say.

Wilson's sway was not undisputed; he had many
rivals. One such was Colonel Fluger, known all
through the West as "Colonel Plug," and renowned
for his deviltry and his uproarious escapades.

Harpes Head

He became, finally, a legend among the boatmen :
tales were told of his adventures, almost admiringly,
wherever rivermen congregated. How he would
"smouch" himself aboard a broadhorn, dig out the
calking between the planks, bore through the craft's
bottom ; how, as the scuttled boat began to sink, his
gang would come tearing in their skiffs to the rescue
a rescue that concerned only the goods aboard:
the crew were left to drown.

How Pluggy's one obsession was his jealousy: he
knew his wife's charms, and the weakness of his
lieutenant, "Nine-Eyes," all too well. How, suspect-
ing cuckoldry, he challenged Nine-Eyes to Gargan-
tuan combat: armed with rifles, the two men took
their positions; midway between them a bottle of
prime Monongahela whiskey had been placed the
victor's prize.

They fired. Both were hit, but neither was too
badly wounded to keep him from making for the
whiskey. They met over the bottle.

"You air all grit!" said Plug.

"You waded in like a real Kentuck!" replied
Nine-Eyes. And, share for share, they finished the
bottle between them.

How, finally, Colonel Plug met the end to which
he had committed so many of his victims: hid in
the hold of a flatboat, boring away at the plank-
ing, he found the rotten material giving way too

49

The Outlaw Years

quickly; the boat, far out in midstream, sank too
soon. Long before his followers, staging their res-
cue, could come aboard the vessel it had sunk. Col-
onel Plug, caught like a rat in his hiding-place, sank
with it.

It happened, then, that when the great drive to
clean up the territory and capture the Harpes be-
gan, the direction in which the fugitives fled was
determined as much by what lay before them as
by what menaced them in the rear.

Behind them, spread out in a great half-circle,
the posses were sweeping them westward ; ahead of
them lay the lawless region of the Cave-in-Rock.
When the hunt ended, the Cave was swarming with
refugees and the lower Ohio a hive of outlaws.
Drives and campaigns, we still have not quite
learned, sometimes have paradoxical results: there
is no doubt that by thus forcing the outlaws into mass
formation the settlers themselves aided in the for-
mation of the large bands of criminals culminating
in Murrel's enormous organization which were
later to prey on them.

The Harpes, however, were lone operators to the
last. They came, with the other refugees, to the Cave ;
the three women had already rendezvoused there
and were waiting for them. For a time they injected
a new spirit, designed to interest the most blase

50

Harpes Head

among the thugs, into the activities of the river pir-
ates. They embellished the workaday business of
boarding flatboats and murdering crews with bizarre
and terrible refinements of torture.

"They seemed endowed with an inhuman ferocity.
Neither avarice, want, nor any of the usual induce-
ments to the commission of crime seemed to govern
their conduct" In fact, they were homicidal
maniacs, and the eerie quality of their actions, the
strange shallow light their eyes reflected did not fail
soon to set the outlaws' spines shivering queasily too.

Murder, in those dark regions, was an almost nec-
essary concomitant of robbery. The traveler then
broke all the links that bound him to past and fu-
ture : he went into the wilderness as if into a tem-
porary oblivion, from which no word or other
warning of his passing might be expected to issue
until he appeared again, at his destination. Such a
man, met on the way by bandits and robbed only,
might start forth into the settlements, to spread word
of the attack. Kill him, and the gap between the
beginning and the end of his journey remained for-
ever unconnected, no one ever or not for years
bothering to inquire what had become of him.

So these men had grown used to killing. But the
Harpes made as it were an ecstasy of murder. A vic-
tim swiftly despatched represented to them a pleas-
ure lost: they were like Indians; they preferred the

The Outlaw Years

slow torture, the bloody anguish; they tore at men's
bodies with knives and their bare hands, dismem-
bering them. It was a little more than even the
ruffians of the Cave could stomach.

One night they had robbed a flatboat during the
afternoon: two families moving down to settle on
the lower waters had been massacred the outlaws
had gathered about the camp-fire on the beach, sort-
ing the plunder. The Harpes, characteristically,
were absent: greed was not one of their failings;
they took what share was given them.

Suddenly, as the gang bent there, they heard wild
cries, the thud of hoofs, a prodigious crashing from
the thicket at the top of the cliff that rose behind
them. They looked up, startled: it must have been a
strange sight against the black sky and the gray
rock the spectacle they beheld.

A great horse had plunged through the brush,
leaping straight out over the lip of the precipice.
Strapped to his back, stark naked and now wildly
gesticulating, a man bestrode him. The robbers saw
the ungodly apparition hang high above their heads
a moment, the horse's neck outstretched, his legs still
moving as if galloping ; they saw the man lean over,
his horrified face staring. Then horse and man came
crashing down together, smashed in a bloody heap
on the rocks along the beach.

While the outlaws sat stunned, the two Harpes

52

Harpes Head

came scrambling down the cliff to join them, roar-
ing with laughter. They had salvaged this victim
from the crew of the flatboat; all afternoon they
had saved him, to put on this show and surprise the
boys.

Their idea of fun, however, had made the others
a little dizzy. Such wit as this the cave-dwellers had
never seen before, and they never wanted to see it
again. They drove the Harpes women, children, all
of them bodily out of camp. From then on the
Harpes were outlawed even by the outlaws. All
through the valley, every man had set his hand to
destroy them.

Yet for over a year we see them, appearing and
disappearing, like snakes in the underbrush striking
and gliding away, murdering and tomahawking in
an insatiable frenzy for blood for over a year, be-
fore their last great chase begins.

We see them drifting down through Kentucky
again. They need a rifle; the young son of Chesley
Coffey, whom they meet along the trail, is carrying
one. "Young Coffey was riding along a road one
evening to get a fiddle. These terrible men smeared
a tree with his brains, making out that his horse had
run against the tree."

They weave back and forth. They move seemingly
with inhuman speed ; they strike with a terrible f e-

53

The Outlaw Years

rocity. No one can predict their actions. All any one
can do is wait, and lock the doors until news comes
that they are elsewhere. But they may be heading
back again.

Two days after killing young Coffey, they murder
William Ballard, in Tennessee near Knoxville. A
week later they have moved north and west again.
The women have been set down to wait for them
somewhere in the wilderness : the two men are skir-
mishing alone. They encounter James Brassel and his
brother Robert along the way.

And now a new stratagem has entered their crazy
brains: constantly, henceforward, the Harpes will be
asking news of the Harpes, pretending to be hunt-
ers on their trail. In the end, they seem actually to
believe it: while the whole region is tracking them
the Harpes, too, have joined the chase, hunting the
Harpes.

So with the Brassel brothers. The four meet ami-
ably, exchange gossip, ride along a little way to-
gether.

"We're lookin' for the Harpes," Big Harpe re-
marks, and they talk of the murderers' wild sorties.
But in a little while his manner changes; his eyes
narrow: "Now, I shouldn't be surprised if you was
the Harpes yourselves, you two!" The Brassel boys
begin to protest, but the others' guns are ready. "Ye
say ye've just come from Barboursville? Well, we'll

54

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QJ

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Harpes Head

just ride back that with ye and find out. Ye couldn't
want fairer than that."

The elder of the two boys, confident that at the
settlement he will be identified and freed, permits
himself to be disarmed and trussed across his horse.
Robert Brassel, moved by some sudden intuition,
risks his life and escapes.

Stumbling panic-stricken along the trace, he en-
counters a party of men, all friends of his and all
engaged in the eternal hunt for the Harpes, And
by now the boy has guessed the identity of the two
strangers; he tells his story; at a pounding gallop,
the posse starts back up the trail.

They find his brother's body, the throat cut, the
head battered, the gun smashed against a rock.
Hardly pausing, the whole party rushes on, eager
to capture the murderers.

But by now a kind of mystic terror embodies the
Harpes. Even brave men quail from them. So with
these men: sweeping forward, intent on vengeance,
they see the Harpes, coming back!

Somewhere, in the interim, the women have re-
joined them: perhaps they had merely lain hidden
in the thicket by the roadside while the two men
went about their bloody work. At any rate, there
they all are, lowering and sullen-looking: the men,
the three women and the children, loaded with arms

55

The Outlaw Years

and ammunition, moving forward in close forma-
tion, as if in battle array, along the trail.

Thus confronted, pursuers and pursued, they eye
each other, and all the courage of the hunters ebbs
away.

"Listen," some one suggests. "If they don't make
no trouble let's us not start any." Silently, doggedly,
the Harpes come on; they approach, pass abreast of
the shrinking posse "They looked very awful at
them" and move on down the trail. Still under the
terror of their presence, the others are careful to con-
tinue up the trace for some distance, in the opposite
direction, never speaking as they go, "so that noth-
ing might be said that would be taken as a
threat. . . ."

So through the spring and summer of 1798. Later
they have killed no one knows how many people
in the meantime: John Tully, a farmer named Brad-
bury, the two Triswold brothers, John Graves and
his son: they split their heads with an axe and threw
them out in their own cabin yard, "where they lay
until some one, seeing so many buzzards about, made
an investigation and discovered what had taken
place" ; many others undoubtedly, in the lonely for-
est, were never discovered later a directed purpose
becomes apparent in the twisting path they have

56

Harpes Head

traced through the wilderness. They are looking for
Colonel Trabue, seeking him to murder him.

Trabue, since the murder of his son by their hands,
had already made himself their implacable enemy.
Now that they are striking back at him, he makes
what preparation he can, toward the event that he be
murdered in the attack.

Being a Justice of the Peace, his preparation takes
a legal form. He makes affidavit to their known
crimes, together with a list of their victims. He pre-
pares his own will. He draws up a description of the
two Harpes and has printed copies of this distrib-
uted among the settlements:

"The big man is pale, dark, swarthy, bushy hair,
had a reddish gunstock. The little man had a black-
ish gunstock, with a silver star with four straight
points. They had short sailor's coats, very dirty, and
grey greatcoats. . . ." Riders rush everywhere with
the warning, crying, "Look out for the Harpes I"

Neighbors gather about Trabue's cabin. They
watch the trails, filter cautiously through the forest.
The old Indian hunter waits, his rifle ready.

But mad men are masters in the art of anti-climax.
The settlers watch and wait after how many false
starts and sudden surprises and watch again. The
Harpes do not appear. They have forgotten Colonel
Trabue and their vowed vengeance. They have struck
west again, toward the Cave and the river country.

57

The Outlaw Years

They are moving up toward Red Bank again, no
one suspecting them. John Slover, coming down the
Highland Lick Road from a bear hunt, hears the
click of a rifle's hammer behind him: he turns, sees
the two men peering from the shrubbery, the gun
that had missed fire still aimed at him; he escapes,
but even now no one suspects their identity.

They pass through several settlements, bound on
no one will ever know what terrible errand. Their
women are no longer with them. Somewhere the two
men have acquired fresh new suits, new black sur-
touts and buckskin gaiters. In this disguise, they rep-
resent themselves to be Methodist preachers, travel-
ing to a distant congregation.

Arriving thus, they are welcomed at the cabin of
James Tompkins, where the trail from Red Bank to
Nashville crossed the Barrens of the Tradewater
Creek. Tompkins invites them to share the noon din-
ner. They accept; Big Harpe, his great face owl-
ishly solemn, says a long and unctuous grace over
the food.

Tompkins marvels that two preachers should
travel so heavily armed. "With such dreadful men
as the Harpes abroad, my friend, it behooves us all
to protect ourselves," Big Harpe replies. At this, the
host remarks that he is in no condition for defense:
he has scarcely any powder in the house.

Harpe, quite carried away by his sanctimonious

58

Harpes Head

role, immediately pulls out his powder-horn and
pours a cupful, gives it to Tompkins. They leave
soon after, pausing in the saddle to invoke, with
many "Amens!" from the Tompkins family, a bles-
sing on the house.

Tompkins poured the powder they had given him
into his powder-horn, loaded his rifle. A bullet from
that rifle, propelled by that powder, was to knock
Big Harpe from his horse and bring about his death,
forty-eight hours later.

That evening, the night of July 20, 1799, the dogs
began barking about the dooryard of Silas McBee's
cabin. He opened his door. "Who's there?" he called.
There was no answer. It had rained late that after-
noon, and now the forest silence was filled with the
drip of water among the leaves : it drowned all other
sound. McBee waited, watching: he thought he saw
the figures of two men lurking in the shadows along
the road ; thought he saw them make away, silently,
among the trees. But he could not be sure. The dogs
growled and bristled, then gradually quieted into
their beds again. The farmer closed his door.

The Harpes had gone on, to the cabin of Moses
Steigal who lived a mile or more down the road.
They knocked, and here they were admitted.

There is a mystery in this connection. Steigal him-
self bore a dubious reputation in the settlement. That

59

The Outlaw Years

he knew the Harpes and had some under-cover rela-
tions with them appears certain. Of his own activi-
ties, little had ever been known, but he was a man of
sudden disappearances, of long voyages to destina-
tions only hinted at, of strange parleyings with fur-
tive individuals: all these things, little noticed before,
were to give rise to much comment later on.

He was absent on one of his journeys when the
Harpes arrived, but he was expected home late that
night and Mrs. Steigal was sitting up to wait for
him. Besides herself, there was another person in the
house: a Major William Love, a surveyor; he had
called on a business errand and, finding Steigal gone,
had climbed up to a bed in the loft, to take a nap
until Steigal returned.

Though Mrs. Steigal knew the Harpes well, her
husband had warned her never to betray their iden-
tity. So now the Harpes still held to their character
of parsons, and when Love, awakened by the tramp
of their arrival, came climbing sleepily down the
ladder from the loft, Mrs. Steigal so introduced
them. They all sat about for a while in the candle
light, the woman sewing, the two Harpes chatting
with Love: as always, they asked for news of the
Harpes and spoke with horror of their deeds. Soon,
Steigal still not returning, the men mounted to the
loft together to take a nap.

In all probability, the Harpes had come to

60

Harpes Head

Steigal's for rest and concealment, and not with any
murderous intent. But this man Love, lying unsus-
pecting between them on the straw-filled beJtick
in the loft Love, stretching and grunting and
finally dropping off to sleep the man was too great
a temptation. Lying there, he was perhaps to their
distorted passions as great an incitement as to the
lover the sight of his mistress' hair spread tenderly
across the pillow. Big Harpe's fingers itched toward
his tomahawk.

A few minutes later the two brothers swung down
the ladder from the loft-floor to the room below.
Mrs. Steigal still sat with her sewing; Love had
been killed while he slept without even a single
awakening shriek but something perhaps a spatter
of blood on their hands, perhaps the glaring look of
their eyes told her what had happened.

"He snored so much!" growled Big Harpe, and
started toward the shrinking woman. "What do ye
mean by puttin' us in with a man that snored so?"

When Steigal came home, late that night, he found
his house burning; he found his wife gasping, dy-
ing, and his baby, dead. The Harpes had gone on.
Two more corpses showed the direction of their
travel. Two neighbors named Gilmore and Hudgens
had encountered them on the trail : Gilmore had been

61

The Outlaw Years

shot dead; they had smashed Hudgens' skull with
the butt of a gun.

Steigal who had harbored them, who had pro-
tected them now flamed into a rage as terrible as
their own. The flare of the burning cabin in the
dark night had attracted most of the nearby settlers
Squire McBee, Samuel Leiper, James Tompkins,
John Williams they stood wondering at the tragic
happening, thinking how nearly this fate had been
theirs. And now, galvanized by Steigal's frantic fury,
they drummed up a posse among them on the spot
and set forth, Steigal, implacable "He was foam-
ing" in the lead.

They rode through the night and the day follow-
ing, without sighting the fugitives. No one had
brought much food a little meal, a handful of
jerked beef they were hungry. They were about
ready to turn back; they hadn't expected to be gone
so long. Steigal held them to the chase. He would
not give up.

So they camped that night, and rode on again,
next day. Next day they sighted their quarry.

They sighted them far down across a valley, mid-
way of the rise. Somewhere the Harpes had rejoined
their women, and these now the three women with
their children stood in a little cluster at the side
of the trail. The two men had accosted a stranger

62

Harpes Head

along the way; they were talking, edging closer to
him ; undoubtedly they meant to kill him.

At the sound of the posse's coming, however, at
the shots and cries from the heights, they abandoned
their victim. The men leaped to their horses. Wiley
rode straight for the thicket and vanished. Big Harpe
spurred on down the trace: the hunt followed him.
The women, even as the posse galloped shouting by
as if in some way they knew that the end had come
stood still as they had been standing, motionless, in
a little cluster.

It was rolling country. The pursuers rode down
one slope and up another ; at the second hill top they
had closed to within rifle range. Samuel Leiper was
in the lead. He fired. The shot seemed to have no
effect.

And when he tried to reload, he found his ramrod
stuck in its casing: in the rainy weather the metal
had rusted and jammed. He dropped his bridle;
still galloping, he tried with both hands to free it
As he did so, Tompkins spurred up alongside him.
"Here. Take my gun," he offered. "You got the
fastest hoss and you are the best shot, so you better
take it.

"And say!" he added, tapping the gun barrel. "I
just recollected the charge of powder in there is from
that feller's own horn! He give it to me day before

The Outlaw Years

yesterday. Now, seems like you ought to be able to
hit him with that!"

Leiper did hit him. His next shot struck Big Harpe
square in the spine. His pursuers saw his arms jerk
wildly; with an effort he waved his tomahawk in
one last flourish; his hand perhaps obeying some
inner spasm of pain, he yanked his horse's head about
and spurred straight for the thicket. The others,
crashing blindly after him, followed.

When they emerged from the tangle of branches
and briars, they saw Big Harpe again, now only a
little distance ahead of them. He was rolling, dazed
and almost unconscious, in his saddle; the horse, with
a free bit, had slowed to a walk. Leiper and Tomp-
kins had kept their lead on the rest of the party;
now they rode alongside the bandit, pulled him from
the saddle he was too weak to resist and sat down
to wait for the rest of the party.

Steigal came riding in. In uncontrollable fury, he
rushed to where Harpe lay. He kicked the dying
robber; he waved his knife in Harpe's face. "I'm
going to cut your head off with that!" he cried but
the others restrained him: let the man die if he
would, but if he lived they meant to bring him back
to town to stand his trial.

Big Harpe breathed, stirred, stared about him. He
asked for water. Young Williams gave him a little;
he thanked the boy. The men sat about, resting after

Harpes Head

the long hard chase, staring at the man who had
spread such terror. . . .

Big Harpe talked, from time to time, or tried to.
His voice was weak: they could hardly understand
him. He talked of his murders; he said he did not
regret them ; it became apparent that his mania had
taken a religious turn : he said that "he had seen a
vision, and the All-Wise had forged him for a
scourge to humanity."

Big Harpe was slow in dying. He said there was
one murder he regretted : in a fit of impatience at the
child's crying he had snatched up his wife Susan's
baby; he had "slung it by the heels against a large
tree by the path-side . . . thrown it from him . . .
into the woods." He regretted that.

So an hour passed, and Steigal was striding about,
fuming and impatient: Big Harpe still lived. At last
Steigal sat down near him. Carelessly, as if toying
with the weapon, he pointed his rifle-barrel at
Harpe's head. The dying bandit read his intention.

Slowly, painfully, he craned his neck, twisting his
head, straining away from the deadly gun barrel.
The muzzle of the rifle followed his movement He
jerked his head back the other way, faster. Steigal,
still in the pale fury that possessed him, threw down
the gun and laughed.

"All right!" he said. "I wouldn't shoot you in the

65

The Outlaw Years

head anyway. I want that head. I told you I was go-
ing to cut it off."

He did cut off the head. "Stegall took Harp's own
butcher knife, which Leiper had compelled him to
deliver up, and taking Harp by the hair of the head,
drew the knife slowly across the back of his neck,
cutting to the bone; Harp staring him full in the
face, with a grim and fiendish countenance, and ex-
claiming, 'You are a God Damned rough butcher,
but cut on and be damned!'

"Stegall then passed the knife around his neck,
cutting to the bone ; and then wrung off his head, in
the same manner a butcher would of a hog. . . ."

Steigal put Harpe's head in a bag they had
brought, to carry it home with him: the trunk of the
body they left to the birds.

A curious incident occurred on their return. They
were now two days out from home; all their supplies
had been eaten ; they were hungry. And so, passing
an outlying cabin, they were delighted to find that
the farmer had plenty of roasting-ears of corn, and
was willing to spare them some. They bought sev-
eral dozen; Harpe's head, bloody and contorted, had
been loaded in the only sack they carried, but that
only bothered them a moment: with a shrug, they
dumped the corn in with it. "He won't eat it!" they
said.

And so, that night, they feasted all except young

66

Harpes Head

Williams. "Young Williams would not eat any of
the roasting-ears" it struck them all as a piece of
outlandish finicking "and consequently he was
forced to undergo the cravings of hunger until they
returned to the settlements." Obviously, a young man
a little too delicate for those hardy times.

So the two years of terror ended, though its rever-
berations still went occasionally rumbling through
the wilderness country. Steigal, tasting vengeance,
rode down the trace toward Red Bank, to the cross-
ing at Robertson's Lick. Here, in the fork of a tree,
he wedged Harpe's head and nailed it there. The
spot is still called "Harpes Head," and for many
years the skull hung there, rotted and rain-whitened,
grinning down at the traveler.

One story tells that, in the end, an old woman took
it down: her nephew had fits, and some conjuring
doctor had told her that the one sure remedy was
the bone of the human skull, pulverized and properly
concocted. Whether the tale is true or not, no one
knows: it would have been strangely fitting, cer-
tainly, had the head of the madman been pestled and
powdered at last to such a crazy purpose.

Wiley Harpe "Little Harpe" had made good
his escape, and five years were to pass before he re-
appeared. But the women remained, and upon them
Steigal turned his hatred, still unappeased.

67

The Outlaw Years

They had been arrested ; they came to trial, on no
very definite charges. A court's decision, in those
days, was often only the signal for the partisans of
the contending parties to enforce their own. Steigal
rode to the trial armed and surrounded by some of
his mysterious friends, vowing to kill the women him-
self if they were acquitted.

In spite of their boasting, however, the Court
ruled to acquit them. At the verdict, they were re-
turned to jail again, under guard of the warden,
Major William Stewart.

Stewart himself was a pioneer, and a fantastic
character of the early days: "Often he appeared at-
tired in an entire suit made of various 'lists' taken
from the finest broadcloth sewed together, fantasti-
cally cut and fitted to his person, while the buttons
on his coat and pantaloons were quarter dollars,
United States coin, and his vest buttoned with gen-
uine United States dimes." He remained an eccentric
to the last. "On the morning of the day on which he
died, he, with but little aid, drew on his curiously-
constituted, many-colored suit of clothes, and in that
attire he died and was buried."

But he could be grim on occasion, and Steigal
probably knew as much. For a few days the strange
avenger strutted and boasted; then, gradually, his
enthusiasm cooled. His followers dispersed on more

68

Harpes Head

profitable errands; Steigal went home. In point of
fact, the three Harpe women long outlived him. 1

His conduct had not failed to arouse remark. His
strange persistent vengef ulness : grief for his wife
seemed to have little part in it he appeared to hate
the Harpes for some other darker reason. His ac-
tions when the hunters caught up with their quarry:
others of the posse told how he had been restless, al-
most like a man afraid it was hinted that perhaps
he had cut Big Harpe's throat to keep the man from
talking, telling. . . .

A few months after he had ridden triumphantly
into the settlement with Harpe's head slung in a bag
across his saddle, Moses Steigal was himself in flight.
With him traveled a young girl from a neighboring
town : her name was Miss Maddox ; they were elop-
ing together.

They rode north, toward the river. After them
came the girl's brother, intent on vengeance.

"Peak Fletcher and a brother of the young woman
followed the runaways, and overtook them in the
now State of Illinois." They found the pair lodged
for the night at the cabin of one of Steigal's mysteri-
ous friends; silently, the two avengers approached.

1 A11 three women, it is recorded, subsequently married and lived
decorous and respectable lives. Morals, in relation to such matters as
murder, etc., would appear to have been on the frontier largely the affair
of circumstance.

69

The Outlaw Years

"Maddox and Fletcher fired upon Steigal through
the chinks, and killed him." And they chose a grue-
some moment for the shot: "Miss Maddox was sit-
ting at the time in the lap of her lover, with an arm
about his neck."

Aside from the steadiness of aim thus exhibited,
there was another feature of the execution which
many people mentioned with satisfaction at the time.
The family honor had been cleared: it had been nec-
essary to kill the seducer but the duty had been per-
formed with commendable neatness and unobtrusive-
ness "without," as a contemporary wrote approv-
ingly, "doing any of the others any injury whatever."

70

II

HARE

' C IT IS A DESPERATE LIFE"

MRS. FRANCES MILTON TROLLOPE visited New Or-
leans; she found "very little that can gratify the
eye of taste," although when she walked out with
her children to the forest at the edge of town and
saw the tall palmettos and the gay-colored paw-paw
trees, all hooked through with wild grape vines and
draped with the dim green of Spanish moss, her
prim little heart did stir at last: "It was our first
walk in the forests of the western world, and we felt
rather sublime and poetical."

But then, the whole day was full of novel sensa-
tions ; coming back from their walk they stopped to
admire a hedge made of dwarf orange trees trained
together, and were greeted by a young negress work-
ing in the yard. "She was the first slave we had ever
spoken to, and I believe we all felt we could hardly
address her with sufficient gentleness. She answered
us civilly and gaily. . . ." It is possible the black
girl did not entirely fathom their clinical interest

Robert Baird, on the other hand, received a quite
different impression : "This is one of the most won-
derful places in the world I" he cried he was speak-
ing particularly of the river-ward face of the city.

73

The Outlaw Years

"As far as the eye can see, almost, the margin is lined
with flatboats. Some are laden with flour, others with
corn, others with live stock, cattle, hogs, horses and
mules. Some have traveling stores, some are to be
found which are full of negroes, and some full of
what is infinitely worse" for Baird was a parson
and a temperance advocate " 'Old Monongahela
Whiskey'."

So he turned his back on the river and strolled
through the long arcaded alleys of the Market:
"Such crowds! The busy and anxious-looking mer-
chant. . . . Negresses and Quatre-Unes, 1 carrying
on their bandanaed heads and with solemn pace a
whole table or platform as large as a table cov-
ered with cakes, and apples, and oranges, and figs,
and bananas, and pineapples, and cocoa nuts. . . ."

Thomas Ashe, as well, was struck by the bright-
ness, the gaiety of the town, by especially the Cre-
ole damsels: "They are very beautiful. Their petti-
coats are ornamented at the bottom with gold lace
or fringe richly tasseled; their slippers are composed
of gold embroidery, and their stockings interwoven
with the same metal, in so fanciful a manner, as to
display the shape of the leg to the best advantage. 1 '

He sauntered under the China-trees whose shade

*An amusing bit of preciosity on the part of the reverend gentleman,
who apparently tried to arrive at the etymology of the word "quadroon"
by giving a French twist to its pronunciation. The derivation is from
the Spanish "cuarteron"; the French say "quarteron."

74

"It Is A Desperate Life"

made the gravel paths of the rue Marigny so pleas-
ant a promenade. His long journey down the river
was over ; peacefully he dawdled in the cool gloom
of the wine-cellars along Poydras Street, their walls
tiered with bottles to the ceiling. No need, now, to
study his landlord's ears; he turned his attention to
the ladies'. "Their most general head-dress is either
a handkerchief of gold-gauze braided in with dia-
monds, or else chains of gold and pearls, twisted in
and out through a profusion of fine black hair. . . ."

Joseph Ingraham, more practical, admiring these
barbaric beauties "their lips are a blushing red,
their bosoms are heaving snows" remarked also
that the gentlemen of the town carried heavy arma-
ment: the cane so daintily twirled by the dandy
mincing down Chartres Street was a sword-cane ; his
short over-jacket, worn capewise with the sleeves
knotted under one arm, concealed, more often than
not, a dirk.

And the streets, to this observer, were "dark and
noisome"; the coffee-shops were gay and colorful
enough, but what pictured scenes were these that
decorated the walls: "paintings . . . most of them
of the most licentious description. . . !" It would
seem that in this strange confusing city, half -Span-
ish, partly French, and now becoming American in
New Orleans each visitor found a different picture
to describe.

7?

The Outlaw Years

"Both the city and the suburbs are mere outlines,
the greatest part of the houses being constructed of
wood, having but one story, erected often on blocks
and roofed with shingles; the whole being of a very
combustible wood, that is, of cypress. There are a
few houses, more solid and less exposed, on the banks
of the River, and in the front streets. These houses
are of burnt brick, having the upper part furnished
with an open gallery, which surrounds the build-
ing. . . .

"In the winter, during the Carnaval, there is a
public ball open twice a week. . . ." Berquin Du-
vallon, describing these balls, reveals that the hatred
of the French settlers for their Spanish overlords
had not died since those days in 1763 when by a
stroke of the pen at the Treaty of Versailles the
whole Louisiana Territory had come under the do-
minion of Spain and bands of rebel Frenchmen
had roamed ragefully through the streets. He tells
how even now the dances often ended in riotous dis-
turbances, the men of the two races angrily confront-
ing each other, the soldiers hurrying to quell the
melee.

Thus once, in the midst of a reel, some gentlemen
of the Governor-General's entourage appeared, re-
splendent in their uniforms. With the insolence of
their caste, they stopped the music, ordered another
more suitable to their tastes. But the public rebelled.

"It Is A Desperate Life"

"Gontredanses frangaises!" they yelled. "A bos les
espagnolst Nous sommes frangais!"

The officers called their body-guard to aid them.
Bayonets glistened in the doorways. Ladies screamed
and fainted. Men drew swords. Duvallon's irony
hints that the Yankee traders had already learned to
profit by non-partisanship: "During this squabble
and uproar, how did a number of Americans act,
who were present at the ball?

"Men of a pacific nature and habituated to neu-
trality, they ran to the assistance of the fair ladies
who had fainted away; and, loaded with their pre-
cious burdens, carried them off. Monsieur D . . . . , a
French merchant of the city, running to the succor
of his wife, found her senseless in the arms of four
Americans I"

Two decades earlier, Spain had demanded and the
colonies had almost agreed to die astounding pro-
posal to close the Mississippi completely against
trade. There were military reasons for the demand.
Spain held the western bank of the river from its
unknown source to its mouth and here, in a narrow
strip running eastward from a point just below
Natchez to the Floridas, she held the eastern bank
and the Caribbean coast as well.

She wanted no interference in her possessions and
John Jay, accepting the proposal, and the Federal
Government, almost ratifying it, appeared to agree

77

The Outlaw Years

with her. Only the new territories Ohio, Kentucky,
Tennessee rebelled. For them, the River was the
one profitable outlet of trade: how else and cer-
tainly not by trekking their goods laboriously back
across the Cumberlands could they ever get their
produce to the market? Kentucky, seeing its life
menaced, threatened to secede, almost as soon as it
had become a state. The whole Middle Valley pro-
tested. Washington reconsidered, refused to ratify.

Spain was forced, by reciprocal agreement, to ad-
mit the River as neutral water and countenance trade
along its length. That trade, now, was the life of
New Orleans. It brought cotton, peltry, lead, hemp
and tobacco, molasses to fill the great stone ware-
houses back of the landing; it made the fortunes of
the commission merchants; it sent the gold coins
jingling across the counters of the banks.

It heightened the lights and it darkened the shad-
ows of the city; it swept blanketed Indians, gar-
landed Creoles, trappers in buckskins and red-shirted
flatboatmen, mulatto girls laughing "money will al-
ways buy their caresses" pig-tailed mariners and
nigger slaves with jingling earrings all in a slow
swirl of kaleidoscopic color flowing past the flaring
torches of the coffee stands that lined Poydras Street
in the evenings.

It filled the town with glamor, with drunkenness,
with gold, with murder, with romance. "The city

78

"It Is A Desperate Life"

abounds with tippling-houses, crowded day and
night. All colors, white, yellow and black, mix in-
discriminately. Such a motley crew, and incongru-
ous scene 1

"In this corner a party staking their whole cash
at a game of 'All-Fours' ; here slaves, free people of
color of both sexes, and sailors in jacket and trowsers
hopping and capering to the sound of a fiddle ; there
a party roaring out some dirty song. . . ."

It heightened men's wits and their passions.
"Many stabbings are reported, and shootings; many
people falling into the river from flatboat or levee
and drowning, while drunk. . . ." It made a strange,
bawdy, gaudy spectacle of life : a man, coming there,
could enter it, let it take hold of him ; no matter what
his purpose, he could find its attainment there.

If he had no aim: if he were, perhaps, a young
apprentice seaman jumping ship to see the sights of
Chartres Street, then all the sooner would its bril-
liance penetrate him, find that dark gem, his soul,
and set one facet gleaming.

Joseph Thompson Hare was born on a farm in
Chester County, Pennsylvania, but he early moved
to the cities. He was a hoodlum at heart, and the
hard sharp crowded life of the cities sharpened and
pinched him. New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore:

79

The Outlaw Years

later, when he moved out across the dark soil of the
wilderness, he remembered them hungrily.

He was sharp, but here was a land so wide that
it made a bludgeon of the passions. He was quick,
but quickness is an uneasy quality, in emptiness. In
the end, he went back to the cities and to his death
but meanwhile he made a name for himself in the
western country so great a name that even Mur-
rel's best boast was, "I have robbed more than Hare
ever did."

This model of his profession was a model in other
ways as well. As a boy he had been apprenticed to
a tailor, and the love of fine fabrics and flashy rai-
ment remained with him to the end. A handsome
lad, like Derry Dropper the legendary Beau Brum-
mel of the wilderness highwaymen, he loved, like
"Dandy Derry," a well-cut coat and a snug-fitting
pair of breeches. Even when he tells of the capture
that was to mean his hanging, he cannot resist in-
cluding a few sartorial details: "I had bought one
plaid coat, lined with crimson silk, at the price of
$35, and one coat in the style of an officer's, at the
price of $75, very dashy, when two men whom the
owner of the shop had sent for, entered and appre-
hended us. . . ."

Liking to wear fine clothes, however, did not mean
that he liked to cut them. He spent two years at the
trade and learned it, then left beeswax and presser's

80

"It Is A Desperate Life"

goose behind him. He went down to the Battery and
signed aboard a ship, to see the world. A month
later he landed in New Orleans. When his ship
sailed again, it sailed without him. He liked the
town.

His sharp shrewd eyes soon saw that the city held
a profit for him, too. These people from the up-
country, these flatboatmen and planters were rough,
raw, uproarious; they threw money around; they
stuck their cash in their pockets: to this narrow-
witted sharpster they seemed stupid, doltish. Soon he
was picking their pockets in the cabarets, he was
tripping them up in dark streets and plundering
them, he was stealing through their unlocked doors
and robbing them while they slept. He was clean-
ing up.

And with this success he began to lay bolder plans.
He had seen the loaded boats come down the River ;
had seen the goods sold and the cash change hands.
He had seen "every few days a company start from
New Orleans on horses, and was told they carried a
great deal of money with them through the Choctaw
and Chickasaw Nations to get to Kentucky, Tenn-
essee . . ."

He gathered his own companions about him,
armed them and mounted them. He started up the
trail, after his victims.

81

The Outlaw Years

Traffic down-river was, of course, made easy by
the current; but, the trader once arrived in New Or-
leans and his goods sold, that same current defeated
his return. Steam had not yet been more than
dreamed of ; some few travelers made their way up-
river for short distances in small sailing-vessels or
canoes but the majority and especially those who
came from more distant points, as Kentucky or
Tennessee traveled overland home again, with
their cash, an uneasy burden, bound in their saddle
bags behind them. There was but one road for them
to go.

The trail led up the river to Natchez, and this
far, through the Spanish territory, it was tolerably
policed. Leaving Natchez, however, the road
plunged straight through the wilderness, swamp-
ridden, Indian-infested. "The road from Nashville
to Natchez was estimated to be five hundred and
fifty miles. The road was a mere trace or bridle-way
through the woods and cane-brake." This road was
the Natchez Trace. "Kentuckians and Tennesseeians
took boats laden with produce down the river, which
they sold at Natchez or New Orleans, and then re-
turned to their homes by this route, carrying their
money, which was sewn in raw hides. . . ." For
years, the Natchez Trace had a bloody history of
robbery, of ambush, of murder as the bandits
prowled there.

82

"It Is A Desperate Life"

John L. Swaney traveled the Trace, but with a
different purpose than such men as Hare. Toward
the close of the century, a Government mail route
had been established, linking the American settle-
ments and the Spanish province: from 1796 until
about 1 8 10 he was one of its messengers. His mem-
oirs give a graphic picture of the conditions at the
lime.

The mail consisted of "a few letters and govern-
ment dispatches, with a few newspapers" : beside his
mail-pouch, he carried "one-half bushel of corn for
his horse, provender for himself; an overcoat or a
blanket, and a tin trumpet." It took him ten days for
the trip to Natchez.

"He would leave Nashville on Saturday night at
eight o'clock" ; he would go clattering down Market
Street from William Tab's store where the post-
office was located, and so out through the cabins of
the town, already darkened for the night.

Toward midnight, he would reach the Big Branch
of the Harpeth River: here lay Tom Davis' cabin
and clearing. Davis' dogs would bark at his gallop-
ing passing; Swaney would answer with a hailing
cry. This was the last white man's dwelling: beyond
lay the wilderness.

"Sunday morning he would get to Gordon's Ferry
on the Duck River, 51 miles from Nashville, which
was then the line between Tennessee and the Choc-

The Outlaw Years

taw Nation. There he fed his horse and ate break-
fast.

"He had then to ride 80 miles to Colbert's Ferry,
on the Tennessee River, before night set in, where
the Indians would set him across." This was a hard
day's riding, after a night in the saddle, but he had
to make it. "The Indians were contrary, and would
not come across the river for him if he failed to get
to the landing before bed-time."

This ferry was operated under the auspices of
old James Colbert, chief of the Chickasaws; on the
opposite shore they maintained a kind of inn, where
Swaney stayed the night. It afforded the rudest kind
of shelter, and its hospitality was colored by native
superstition. Mrs. Thomas Martin, following the
Trace, spent a night there and described it : the In-
dians were very agreeable to them gave them a sup-
per of venison, potatoes and coffee, while "Mrs. Col-
bert," wife of the old chieftain, paraded about, wear-
ing a Paris hat, but barefoot but would not let
them sleep in the house: "They assigned us to an-
other, where slept not less than fifty Indians, many
of them drunk, while my husband and others sat
up all night. It is not their custom to let strangers
sleep in the house with their families."

Leaving here, Swaney pushed on deeper into the
wilderness: "He would have to go to the Chicka-
saw Agency, 120 miles, before he would see a house,

"It Is A Desperate Life"

or even an Indian wigwam, and would have to lie
out one night in the woods or cane brake. . . ."

At the Chickasaw Agency he encountered the first
white men since leaving Nashville. Even these were,
in a certain sense, outlaws. "The Chickasaw Agency
was kept by McGee, who was the agent, with Jim
Allen as interpreter. Allen was a man of fine ad-
dress, and was a lawyer who came from Nashville,
but failing in business, went off among the In-
dians. . . ."

Two hundred miles farther on lay the Choctaw
Agency: "The route was entirely through Indian
country": compared to this, the first half of the
journey had been populous. One hundred miles far-
ther still, and he entered Natchez.

It was here, in this three hundred mile wide strip
of canebrake, swamp and desolation ruled by the
Chickasaws and Choctaws, that the danger to trav-
elers lay. The danger was not in the Indians, or
rarely. Occasionally a wandering band of Creeks
"great warriors" cut through the land, but the
others were "kind and peaceable. The Chickasaws
always boasted that they had never shed the blood
of a white man in anger. Allen often told Mr. Swa-
ney that the Chickasaws and Choctaws were the hap-
piest and best people he had ever known. They could
not say anything in their native tongue worse than
'skena' (bad) and 'pulla' (mean) and in all his

85

The Outlaw Years

knowledge he never heard of the crime of adultery
being committed but once. The punishment in such
a case was to cut off the end of the nose of the
woman. . . .

Happy Jim Allen! He had lived but a year among
these pleasant savages, when his eye grew desirous
of one of their virtuous maidens. "The manner of
choosing a wife among the Chickasaw Indians was
for the swain to make his desire toward a particular
maiden known to the chief, and having gained his
consent, the suitor would return to his wigwam and
there wait until his lady love should be sent to him."

In Allen's case the matter had certain complica-
tions: his choice had fallen upon no less a person
than Susie, daughter of the chief, James Colbert
himself. Many braves had been her suitors. Allen,
however, paid formal visit to the potentate, made
his plea. He then, as custom demanded, retired to
his wigwam, closed its flaps and waited there in the
darkness while the elders of the tribe debated his
request

"He waited until nearly dark, when Susie Colbert
made her appearance at his door with a blanket
drawn closely around her head, leaving only space
enough for her to find her way, and in response to
his invitation, walked in and took a seat This was
Jim Allen's courtship and marriage."

The union thus formed was fruitful, of a daugh-

86

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f -3
rss

"It Is A Desperate Life"

ter: her name was Peggy Allen. In Swaney's time
she had grown into young girlhood : he reported that
she was "the prettiest woman he ever saw," and in
those days, in the womanless West the fame of a
lovely girl spread all through the territory: men
would come traveling hundreds of miles, like
zealots on a pilgrimage, to settle their longings and
look upon her. "Mr. Swaney said it was almost in-
credible the number of travelers and boatmen who
stopped at the Agency to see her, attracted alone by
her reputation. She was known to all the boatmen
as a great beauty."

But she was wilful. Allen's brother, a substantial
man, came out from North Carolina to visit them;
he tried to persuade Peggy to come east with him ;
he offered to school her, and launch her out as a belle
in eastern society. She refused.

Sam Mitchell, the agent in the Choctaw territory,
fell madly in love with her. He found no favor with
her but he did gain the support of her grandmother,
old Chief Colbert's wife. With craft, this beldame
invited the girl to visit her in the Indian encamp-
ments : she immediately dispatched her, perforce, to
Mitchell's cabin, "with eight or ten negroes and as
many ponies as dowry."

Here was danger of an involuntary bridal, but
Peg still showed her spirit. She told Sam Mitchell
"she would never marry a drunken white man or

The Outlaw Years

an Indian"; she locked the doors of the man's own
cabin against him. Baffled, after two weeks Mitchell
sent her home again.

Allen was proud, but he was also sensible. They
were alone in the wilderness. If Mitchell chose to
seek vengeance through his Choctaws they had no
defense among the Chickasaws: in fact his greater
fear was that Grandma Colbert, more spiteful still,
might be moved to savage reprisals.

But Peggy had another suitor, young Simon Bur-
ney, the son of a Natchez planter. She had dallied
Simon for years but now, in the uncertainty, she grew
more lenient toward him. "He would almost give
his life for you," her father told her.

So they were married; Peg was whisked down-
river to Natchez, away from the dark threat the
wilderness had conjured to oppose her beauty. They
settled at Natchez; their fate was happy: "Birney
amassed a large fortune, and raised and educated a
nice family."

The boatmen and the travelers loitered no more
at the Agency, feeding on Peggy's loveliness. Those
who came, passed hurriedly. For now there was
danger along the way.

Hare, with his three companions, had begun to
levy on the Trace. They jogged northward pleas-
antly, taking their time, looking about them; they

"It Is A Desperate Life"

found the prospect agreeable : it was a vacation from
the city. And the region abounded in game: wild
turkey, deer, raccoon every night their campfire
menu boasted delicacies that the grill rooms along
St. Charles Street might have featured.

Moreover, they found the venture more profitable
than they had hoped. Hardly beyond Natchez, just
entering Indian territory, they had overtaken a party
of travelers; the surprise had been complete.

"Lord bless my soul!" said one of the plucked
wayfarers, as Hare reached for their saddle-bags,
and the bandit knew he had uncovered rich treasure.

"We took three hundred doubloons, 74 pieces of
different sizes and a large quantity of gold in bars,
six inches in length and eight square thirty- weight
of it. With the others, I found 700 doubloons and
five silver dollars, and four hundred French guineas,
and 67 pieces the value of which I could not tell un-
til I weighed them. I got twelve or thirteen thou-
sand dollars altogether from the company, all in
gold."

The robbers had adopted the expedient of paint-
ing their faces with berry- juices and bark stains,
like the Indians going to war. It served as an ex-
cellent disguise; moreover, the weird coloring
heightened the terror of their aspect.

"One of the men looked very blank at seeing all
his money taken from him, and swore he'd be

The Outlaw Years

damned if he did not deserve better luck, 'for he had
got it after an hour and a half's hard fighting!' He
told me he had been on board a privateer, and seen
some danger, but he could not fight without a noise,
and this damned place was so quiet and mournful,
he felt as if he were going to the devil every mo-
ment.

"I told him I would stand his friend, and gave
him his watch and several gold pieces, and he looked
as thankful as if I had done him a favor, instead of
robbing him. . . ."

Hare and his men pushed on into the wilder-
ness, casting about for a hide-away headquarters
safe against attack. They found it soon, up near the
northern limit of the Chickasaw country, just under
the Tennessee line.

"We came across a spot that seemed a very good
retreat, and a very comfortable home too. It was
on one side of a cane brake, where the cane grew
very thick and tall, and would have concealed us
from the best eyes. These cane brakes are very much
frequented by wild animals of all sorts, especially
wildcats, and are kept clear of generally. Our habi-
tation was in a cleft rock, where one rock jutted very
much over another, and made a sort of cave, that
we could easily make safe from every savage that
walked the wild wilderness. We had a good feather
bed in our cave."

90

"It Is A Desperate Life"

As it turned out, however, they had little cause
to fear the savages ; to the Indian, tracking the wil-
derness, outlaw and merchant-traveler were alike.
Soon Hare and his men were trafficking in the en-
campments, buying parched corn and meal and to-
bacco from the squaws : an old brave known as "Hay-
Foot" acted as their scout along the trail.

Hare's danger was more insidious than the armed
attack: it lay in the silence that his ears strained at,
in the loneliness that twisted his very bowels with
bewildered foreboding. Hare was a man of imagina-
tion: moved by this emptiness, this lack of every-
thing his cramped soul had grown used to, the writ-
ing of his diary assumes a real descriptive power.

The first night they camped at the cave, the subtle
attack of the wilderness began. Sprawled in a row
on the feather bed, his companions snored com-
fortably but Hare lay awake, with that chill damp,
that sick sense of the futile passage of time which
sleepless men know. "As for me, I could not sleep,
but lay looking, sometimes in the fire which I had
kindled, and sometimes at the stars, and listening to
the wind in among the cane brake, which made such
a mournful rustling sound. . . ."

And a few days later: "We came across a com-
pany of four men. I had hard work to save their
lives. We stopped them: we had hid all the horses
from the sight of the road. I stepped up to the

9T

The Outlaw Years

one that had holsters before him, and told him that
I had twelve highway robbers under my command,
and the first man that moved should be blown to
hell. The dry cane made a great crackling: it was
so thick in that spot that a man could not be seen
ten feet from the road.

"It was a cloudy day, and everything looked black
and gloomy, and the sound of the cane, though it
did not frighten me, made me feel very strange and
out of the way. . . ."

So for a moment he hesitated: the very air seemed
to quiver with apprehension and Hare was staring
numbly at the little band of travelers he had halted :
their white faces, their eyes glistening with fear.

Behind the thicket, his men were muttering; one
of them stepped out on the path and approached
Hare: "Shoot them and have done with it," he said.

At this one of the merchants he was an oldish
man began to shake. "For God's sake . . . for
God's sake!" he kept repeating.

But the robbers cried out from their hiding place
that they were not disguised and if he let the men
live they should all be arrested and recognized later.
Immediately the travelers, made earnest by their
terror, protested and promised roundly never to
speak of them, never to describe them to a soul.

"I told them it was well thought of, and further
that if there should but one man move till I gave

92

"It Is A Desperate Life"

the signal they would all be landed in eternity ; and
with this I called to one of my companions to come
up and take their money." Seven thousand dollars
was the total of the haul. They were growing rich.

But Hare had become a difficult man to live with;
his moods jumped and jerked and varied. He would
lie sleepless at night; he would ride out alone by
day. He had imagination enough to sense his peril,
but not enough comprehension to plumb its sources :
all he knew was that the silence irked him; that
the tiny cracklings, the soft whisperings that lurked
in the center of that silence irritated him more.

One adventure at this time was near being the
end of him. He encountered a slave trader from
Natchez. "I was by myself, and had left the men
at the cave. I had one pistol with me, and felt a
desire to do something by myself." So he pounced on
the returning slaver. It was a foolish thing to do.

"I rode up on his left side, and told him to de-
liver his money, for I was the devil, and would take
him to hell in a second if he did not drop that
gun off his shoulder, and his pistols too, if he had
any." But Hare had been too careless; he had not
even drawn his weapon. And the trader glanced
back, saw that he had but one man to deal with, and
decided to take a chance.

As if in obedience to the command, he let the gun

93

The Outlaw Years

slip from his shoulder; as the muzzle swept down,
he pulled the trigger. The charge flared in Hare's
very face; his hat was blown off; his horse leaped
frantically.

Jerking at the reins, Hare whipped out his pistol.
But the smoke from the other's musket had been so
dense that he had to fire blindly: he could not see
his man. As he pulled trigger he noticed two men,
on horseback, halted a little way along the trace;
one had a rifle at his shoulder.

It was a ticklish moment. The smoke drifted. "I
had not hurt the trader in the least, but he looked
frightened, and I told him to clear himself as fast
as he could be off, or I would give him another
fire." As the man galloped away, Hare calmly dis-
mounted to recover his hat, reloaded, and waited for
the two strangers to come up.

We of the well-protected present find it difficult
to animate the figures that populate our picture of
those early days: we see them in tableau, or rather
as if frozen immobile in a single characteristic pose,
like the statues grouped in a monument to the
pioneers.

We see the woodsman with ax upraised; we see
the Kentucky-boatman leaning to his oar; we see
the mounted traveler along the path; we see the
highwayman, pistol in hand, crouched peering in
the canebrake. But when, for a single moment in

94

"It Is A Desperate Life"

their lives, we can trace their deeds and set them
moving they pass, in the instant, beyond our com-
prehension.

The ax falls, to a rhythm different than we had
expected. The boatman's lips give forth a chantey,
and though the words are familiar to us his intona-
tion invests them with a strange foreign significance.
The highwayman and the traveler meet and clash in
the wilderness but the fear of one, the bravado of
the other find outlet in actions quite beyond our
understanding.

So with Hare. He waited ; the two travelers drew
up and halted abreast of him. They had a sly, cozen-
ing look in their eyes.

"Seen any deer hereabouts?" drawled one.

Hare said that he had, indeed.

"I suppose that was one ye fired at just now?"
the questioner went on. "Why didn't ye kill it?"

"A man sometimes will miss a thing," was Hare's
answer.

The two men stared at the robber, grinning: it was
as if the escapade with the trader the fuddled
shooting into the smoke, the hats blown off, the
frightened galloping had been a little secret joke
between them. At last they picked up their reins and
jogged away down the trace. When they had gone
a little distance Hare heard them burst into loud
guffaws of merriment.

95

The Outlaw Years

Their profits so far had been considerable; they
had been three months in the wilderness : it was time
to begin spending. "I must get back to a town and
enjoy myself," Hare decided. By common consent
they headed north, for Nashville.

They lodged at "a very good house, kept by a
widow lady" ; they lived very well. The men drank
and had many fights. Hare himself took rather the
fancy to make himself a gentleman: he bought "a
black boy, and two horses and a gig." Later, riding
and driving together, they all set out for Louisville.

Here they sold the gig; they took passage in a
flatboat and drifted down the river to Natchez, and
from there to New Orleans.

So they found themselves back in the gay glitter-
ing town again. "Here we staid seven months, and
put up at a house kept by an Irishman from New
York, who kept a great tavern and was a great sport.
Twice a week a great many respectable persons met
at his house to play at dice, cards and billiards, and
a curious game called the 'United Stabel,' with 32
figures on it, of different colors. I and my highway-
men lost a great deal of money by playing at this
table."

Their funds were still further depleted by the un-
reasonable demands of a certain French gentleman,
a fellow lodger at the Irishman's, who had discov-

"It Is A Desperate Life"

ered one of Hare's light-fingered companions delv-
ing into his strong-box. They finally had to pay the
fellow "thirteen hundred dollars, to make him hold
his tongue."

Soon after money gone, credit gone they set
out for the Trace again. This time they had learned
another trick: they had procured passports from
the unsuspecting Spanish authorities. Now, if threat-
ened on American soil, they could take refuge as
citizens in Louisiana.

To be nearer the border, they made their head-
quarters just north of Natchez, camping in a cave
which, as Hare lugubriously speculated, "no man
had ever visited before, I expect, since the flood."
And again the impassive wilderness surrounded
him; its silence gripped him. It was a gloomy spot
they had chosen : "There were a great many swamps
in the neighborhood, filled with Alligators, very
large, and that made a great noise. Sometimes they
cried like a young child. They are very ugly crea-
tures. . . ."

Hare began to write his diary. Almost the first
words he set down were: "Let not any one be in-
duced to turn highwayman by reading this book and
seeing the great sums of money I have robbed, for
it is a desperate life, full of danger, and sooner or
later ends at the gallows."

97

The Outlaw Years

Two months, and they were back in town again,
sipping the wines of Mme. Saluces, smoking their
long-stemmed pipes, flicking flowers at the feet of
passing girls. They took the baths at the Bayou Saint-
John and lunched at the fish-grills along the Shell
Road. They hired their gig of a Saturday after-
noon and drove down to Lake Saint-Charles, already
a rendezvous for sporting gentlemen and sporty
ladies as well.

Hare loved the city: he loved the smell of tram-
pled fruit in the market place, the rattling sound of
feet along the plank sidewalks, the intricate lacy
pattern of the moving populace. And now, with the
shadow of the wilderness always behind it, the city
danced before his eyes like a mirage; he snatched
at everything; he was afraid it would vanish at his
touch.

And yet there was still a queer resentful flavor in
his mood. All his pleasures were bitter ones; life
had become a sullen affair. Drinking led to fighting :
Hare was a battler when aroused : he whipped Bill
Marshall the bully of the river-flats; shortly after,
he was fighting one of his own gang.

This was a lad who had found a way to turn his
good looks to account: he made a business of marry-
ing young girls and decamping with the dowry. He
had left a trail of widows up and down the River.
But now, when he turned up one day with a tender

"It Is A Desperate Life"

little Spanish girl, fresh from a nunnery in Baton
Rouge, Hare's anger flared. This was a wrong thing
to do, he argued; "I told him he would get no good
from this." He preached at the unlucky fellow: or-
dered him to return the girl to her parents.

Perhaps the other saw an inconsistency in his
leader's position. He made no answer, seemed to
agree : next morning he and his wife were gone, and
so was Hare's wallet containing seven hundred
dollars.

Hare came up with him a few days later. "I met
him at a tavern where he was boasting of being
able to whip any man in town. I thought this a good
opportunity to take my satisfaction out of him." The
challenge was passed and accepted. The two men,
followed by a crowd of hangers-on, adjourned to a
large field outside the town. "I gave him as hand-
some a dressing as any man ever got."

And those were bloody battles they fought in those
days. The gambler Devol, himself a mighty bruiser,
tells of a fight he had on a river-boat: "When we
got on deck, the mate made a ring with some bar-
rels and said, 'No man but the fighters shall get in-
side the ring.' The big fellow stripped down to his
undershirt, and looked like a young Samson; then
the bets ran up to $100 to $25. I pulled off my coat
and vest and stepped into the ring. He made a lunge:
I dropped my head and he hit it a terrific blow.

99

The Outlaw Years

Then he got one in below the belt, and I thought
for an instant I would lose my supper and the fight;
but I rallied, and got a good one on the side of his
neck, which doubled him up like a jack-knife; then
I ran in, caught him, and let drive with my head.
I struck him between the eyes, and he fell over as
if he had been shot. . . ."

So, scrambling, gouging, tripping, kicking in the
groin, butting in the belly, Hare fought for the honor
of the deluded Spanish maiden. "Every time I
caught hold of him he bellowed for help. He was
like a wolf caught in a sharp trap. I whipt him until
he hollowed, 'Enough!'"

When it was over, the beaten bridegroom lay
senseless, bloody. They thought he had been killed.
Hare and his two companions ran to cover at Pen-
sacola.

This small town was a military outpost; there
were rumors of war afloat: the town was feverishly
gay. Hare and his men lodged at "a very pleasant
boarding-house kept by a widow named Madame
Valery." They were soon sparking about the town
as flauntingly as ever.

"One day one of the boarders asked me if I had
heard the news. I was alarmed" he thought it
might have to do with the murder he thought he
had committed "but it was only that I and my
companions were picked out to give the next ball, on

100

"It Is A Desperate Life"

that night week." It was the custom then for gen-
tlemen of the town to alternate in sponsoring a co-
tillon.

Hare and his men took their turn with the rest. It
cost them three hundred dollars, but they invited
everybody: "I was much pleased to find the Span-
iards so agreeable. They were full of mirth. We
danced the fandango with a fiddle and tambourine."

The ball, as it turned out, had a fortunate after-
math. Later, leaving Spanish soil, they were seized
at the border. Spain, England, France and the
United States were all at odds. A squadron of gun-
boats lay at Baton Rouge; Governor Claiborne of
Mississippi had troops ready to send into Florida;
New York papers were remarking that the Spanish
colonies were "evidently destined to become an in-
tegral part of the United States" ; Tennessee, through
its Legislature, pronounced itself "ready to support
such honorable measures" as might be needed, in the
event that "the United States are involved with one
of the belligerent nations."

Hare and his fellows showed their passports. They
were disregarded. It was charged that they were
American spies; they were clapped into jail. In the
emergency, they had recourse to their friends at
Pensacola. At the appeal, the whole list of guests
at their cotillon responded, testifying to their char-
acter, their amiability and honesty. They were freed.

101

The Outlaw Years

But Hare had begun straining to propitiate his
fate. As he had fought with one of his companions
to keep him in the straight monogamous path, so
now, as they rode north for the Trace, he argued
with the others: "I read them from John Wesley's
magazine." He preached at them to abandon the life
of the highwayman.

Like many another evangelist his concern was
more with the souls of others than with his own.
And yet his own spirit had felt the bite of the wil-
derness. They rode northward; they took some ten
thousand dollars while Hare sulked and prosely-
tized. "We raked the woods from the Southwest
Point to the Choctaw Nation" ; and here, at the Ten-
nessee Line, the companions separated forever.

Hare, with a dismayed mind, with his soul shiv-
ering in the darkness his life had run upon, rode
on toward Nashville. It was a clear night, a star-
lit night, when his doom focussed him.

He had robbed a drover that afternoon; had taken
the man's pistols and a small sum of money. "About
nine o'clock, the night I robbed the drover, as I
was riding along very rapidly to get out of the reach
of pursuit, I saw standing right across the road, a
beautiful white horse, as white as snow; his ears
stood straight forward and his figure was very beau-
tiful.

"When I approached him, and got within six feet

1 02

"It Is A Desperate Life"

of him, he disappeared in an instant, which made
me very uneasy, and made me stop and stay at a
house near there, all night."

That delay was his fatal error. He had hardly
reached his bed when a posse, led by the mulcted
drover, overtook him. The house was surrounded;
Hare was taken. He served five years in jail, reading
the Bible and writing in his Confessions. When re-
leased, he fled the wilderness ; he had been warned :
"I think this white horse was Christ," he said, "and
that he came to warn me of my sins, and to make
me fear and repent."

A year after his release, on March 12, 1818, the
night mail coach from Baltimore was held up near
Havre-de-Grace. Hare engineered the job. The loot
was $16,900.

As the robbers prepared to go, one of the passen-
gers whom they had left tied to a wagon wheel
begged that his watch it was an heirloom be re-
turned to him. Hare held his lantern high to look
for the time-piece; its light revealed his face. Two
days later, as he debated between the plaid coat and
the coat of crimson silk in a Baltimore tailor's shop,
the same passenger entered and identified him.

The case was speedily brought to trial. Identifica-
tion was absolute ; the death penalty seemed certain.
But Charles Mitchell, Hare's lawyer, had found a

103

The Outlaw Years

loophole in the law: at the arraignment, he advised
his client to stand mute, on the question of his plea.
This action brought forward a question which, in
the inchoate legal condition of the day, had never
been developed before.

Robbing the mail was a crime against the Gov-
ernment An Act of Congress, previously passed, had
propounded that if a prisoner stood mute when asked
to plead, it should be taken that he had pleaded
guilty. This Act, however, was specifically enforce-
able only in the case of treason and other capital
crimes against the Government.

Now, at the time of the passage of this Act, rob-
bing the mail had not been made a capital crime.
A later Act of Congress had included it in the cate-
gory of crimes punishable by death, but the shrewd
Mitchell argued that since the second Act had not
been retroactive, the provisions of the first Act did
not apply, and consequently if his client stood mute
at the pleading, no plea could legally be taken. Ergo,
no trial could be had.

There were witnesses, evidence, testimony ready,
but it began to look as if in face of it all, if Hare
could keep still long enough, the Court would be
forced automatically to turn him loose.

In the emergency but only after a long wrangle
of several months' duration had beguiled the law-
yers the Court handed down an opinion : if a pris-

104

"It Is A Desperate Life"

oner stand mute, his position amounts to a construc-
tive confession, implying the plea of guilty. At the
same time, the prosecution unearthed an old law
of the State of Maryland, providing that in grave
offenses, if the prisoner stand mute, the Court shall
proceed as if on a plea of not guilty.

Thus, where there had been no plea at all, the
Court now found itself provided with two : it could
proceed as if the still silent Hare had pled either
guilty or not guilty. Once the machinery of justice
got in motion, as it developed, it made little dif-
ference which choice was taken. The trial that had
taken four months to begin, took four days to con-
clude.

On Thursday morning, September 10, 1818, Jo-
seph Thompson Hare was led from his cell into the
prison yard at Baltimore. A delay of about an hour
ensued, occupied with the preparation of the gal-
lows-trap : a concourse of about fifteen hundred peo-
ple waited patiently; Hare spent the hour praying
and reading his Bible. He was hanged shortly after
ten o'clock.

105

Ill

SAMUEL MASON

ONE OF THE BOLDEST SOLDIERS

AND still the boats came booming down the River.
It was no longer only the makeshift craft of the emi-
grant that one saw upon the waters: the River had
become a highway for trade, for freight and pas-
senger traffic.

Scows, batteaus, arks with pointed stem; Ken-
tucky-boats and flatboats roofed over and decked,
broadhorns, so called for the two great "gouge-
oars" projecting one on either side of the bow; rafts
and barges: laden with "hoop-pole and punkins,"
produce and trade-goods, they came poking down
the reaches and around the bends.

The keelboat had been developed for upriver
traffic as well as down. Heavily built, with a keel
of four-inch timber along her bottom and a stumpy
mast in the bow, she could sail before the wind; if
the wind failed a long line called the "cordelle"
was fastened to her mast-head and carried ashore
where a crew of thirty or forty men towed her while
twenty men more, in endless chain on a runway along
her sides, aided with poles.

Out of the keelboat grew the Ohio packet-boat,
larger and more unwieldy still, one hundred feet

109

The Outlaw Years

long and twenty wide, with a cargo box forward and
a passenger cabin aft: even with eighty men poling
and towing, it took such a boat a month to make the
run from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh and return.

If slow, they were at least safe; the large crews
were all, as the early advertisements took care to
specify, "very skillful in the use of weapons" ; some
of the packets were armed with small cannon as well.

The crews were hard, rough, "a rude and lawless
class of men" : their life made them so. "I am a man.
I am a horse. I am a team. I am an alligator. I can
whip any man in all Kentucky, by God 1" was their
boast. In summer they worked stripped to the waist,
tanned coffee-brown; in the cold winter they
wrapped themselves, grotesque as Indians, in furs
and blankets and heaved against the poles.

They slept on deck ; they ate on deck, with a pan
full of bread and meat set down among them, and
a "fillie" of raw Monongahela whiskey to wash it
down. "Much of the distance through which they
traveled in their voyages was entire wilderness":
they must be prepared to fight Indians or pirates
at any moment.

Indians failing, they fought among themselves.
The champion of each boat-crew stuck a red turkey
feather in his cap : placed there, it was a challenge
to any other bully on the River.

Lacking other opponents, they fell upon the

no

One of the Boldest Soldiers

townspeople. Sober citizens in the River settlements
dreaded their arrival. "Each keelboat carried from
thirty to forty boatmen, and a number of these boats
frequently sailed in company. The arrival of such
a squadron at a small town, was the certain fore-
runner of a riot. . . ."

Mike Fink was the hero and champion of them
all : his name grew into legend ; the tales of his mar-
velous doings passed into fantasy.

Mike Fink was a marvelous shot with the rifle.
All down the River whenever a shooting contest was
held and a quartered steer put up for prize, by com-
mon consent Mike Fink, without firing a shot, was
awarded the "fifth quarter" the hide and tallow.
He could drive nails with bullets. Once, when the
boats were tied to a landing, Mike sighted a nigger
standing along the bank: the fellow's feet were so
flat that his heels stuck out in a knob behind. In-
stantly, Mike drew a bead on the excrescence and
shot it off. "The fellow couldn't wear a genteel boot
with his foot like that," he stated, "and I wanted to
fix it so he could."

Mike Fink was a great drinker. It was a sober
day for him when he didn't drink his gallon of
whiskey and more. No human man was ever able
to keep track of how much he needed to get himself
a real roaring drunk.

Mike Fink was a joker. Strolling ashore one day,

in

The Outlaw Years

he noted a fine flock of sheep grazing in a farmer's
meadow. He took a pair of them and rubbed snuff
in their snouts; then he called the farmer, pointed
to the snorting pawing animals.

" What's the matter with them?" asked the simple
farmer.

Mike Fink said : "They've got the black murrain.
If you don't shoot them the whole flock will get it
too."

That was the occasion for a fine feast aboard the
flatboat, for Mike magnanimously consented to dis-
pose of the sheep if the farmer would give him a
demijohn of peach brandy for his trouble.

Mike was a rip-roarer. "I can out-run, out-hop,
out-jump, throw down, drag out, and lick any man
in the country!" he used to say. "I am a Salt River
roarer. I love the women, and I am chock-full of
fight!" He wore "a bright red flannel shirt, covered
by a loose blue coat . . . and coarse brown trousers
of linsey-woolsey. His head-covering was a cap of
untanned skin. . . ." He roamed the River for many
years, and his memory ranged it after him.

For in 1822 Mike Fink's career came to an end.
Leaving the River with a couple of companions
named Carpenter and Tolbert he embarked on a
trapping and hunting forage through the Missouri
territory. Deep in the wilderness, Mike and Car-
penter quarreled, but before they could come to

112

One of the Boldest Soldiers

blows Tolbert interceded. Mike, grudgingly, shook
hands. The whiskey was uncorked.

In the old days along the River one of Mike's
tricks with the rifle had been to shoot a tin cupful
of whiskey off his companion's head. He proposed
trying it now. Carpenter, resigned to his fate "He
knew he was going to be killed," said Tolbert
paced off the fifty yards; he balanced the whiskey
cup on his cap. Mike Fink raised his rifle.

Mike Fink shot Carpenter clean through the mid-
dle of the forehead. Tolbert, as his friend fell, ran
forward. "Is the whiskey spilt?" asked Mike calmly,
swabbing out his rifle.

But that night Mike had taken to the jug again :
he was drunk and boasting Tolbert shot him,
killed him.

Rafts with a bark cabin for shelter, shanty-boats
no bigger than skiffs drifted lazily from town to
town: "Every trade is represented on these floating
dens. Cobblers, tinsmiths . . . grocers, saloon-keep-
ers, barbers. . , ." Like gypsies chaffering and bar-
tering but stealing mostly, they floated along the
landings, blowing their horns for customers.

Farmers in the middle valley, when the Fall crops
were in, loaded their goods on home-made boats
and set out down the Ohio, trading. For them the
trip was a holiday: they cracked their heels and

The Outlaw Years

cut the pigeon-wing: "Even decent quiet deacons at
home would throw aside religion and peace when
they embarked on their annual trip down-river":
they roared and stamped and rioted.

The great man-hunt for the Harpes through the
eastern territory a few years earlier had driven
thieves, cut-/throats, rascals, prostitutes north and
westward : they settled along the lower Ohio, where
the river bends to join the Mississippi. From Red
Bank to Fort Massac, the district had become a nest
of piracy. The town of Red Bank itself, placed
where the trace from Nashville joined the river, had
become in a sense a headquarters for the outlaws.
Now, as the traders, the farmers, the blustering boat-
men rolled in, its viciousness increased.

No man is quite immune to his surroundings: in
the early West the force of environment was almost
physical in its intensity. In the wilderness, the slow
monotonous days beat heavily against a man's will,
but here in the river towns, in Red Bank, the attack
was subtler. Fate was here all irony: one saw the
honest man at his most gullible, the sharpster at his
shrewdest; the drunken lout seemed ridiculous be-
side the cool-eyed gambler who robbed him; the
traveler quaked piteously before the hard, deter-
mined bandit. Always the sinister suggestion, like
the river at the bank, was sapping, prying: if it

114

One of the Boldest Soldiers

found the least flaw in a man's character it would
enter and undermine all.

So in some measure it was with Samuel Mason.
Coming west, he had settled at Red Bank. He had
an honorable past, the record of a brave soldier in
the Revolution; Van Cleve has told us that in its
early efforts to establish order the Kentucky Legis-
lature had commissioned him Justice of the Peace.

Yet in the end he weakened. He turned highway-
man : doubtless, in his surroundings, it had come to
seem a very brave thing to do. But in fact, thence-
forward, he never made another brave move in his
life ; it was as if his whole nature crumbled.

He was all hypocrisy; he was always whining,
pleading, protesting against "tyranny," against "per-
secution." Arrested, he turned welcher, double-
crosser; brought to trial and shown the most com-
plete proof of his guilt, he still almost hysterically
proclaimed his innocence and in a certain mystical
sense perhaps he believed it

He had already been an old man when he turned
bandit. He followed the Trace only five years before
his capture and it was as if the sudden shifting in
his character had left him swaying, dizzy: he leaned
almost fearfully on his ancient manhood : he tried,
as one might wrap a bundle with rotten twine, to
tie up his present degradation with his former glory.
His last quoted remark before he came to trial was

The Outlaw Years

a boast, pathetically incongruous: one night in the
wilderness, having downed three pannikins of
whiskey, he swore that "he was one of the boldest
soldiers in the Revolutionary War, and there was
no greater robber and no better niggerstealer than
himself."

Hare was bold, hard, sure. The Harpes had their
madness to hold them to their purpose. Mason, turn-
ing highwayman, turned craven : the fact, however,
did not make him less dangerous to his victims.

Samuel Mason was born in Virginia in about the
year 1750. He was twenty- five when Patrick Henry
heard the clash of arms on the breeze that blew from
the north and whipped the genteel Assembly into
passionate patriotism. Mason caught the passion too.
A burly strong young fellow, he joined the ranks of
George Rogers Clark's "Long- Knives" ; with them
he floated down the Ohio, waded through swamps,
startling French settlers and placating them again,
pushing on across the wilderness of Illinois to the
dramatic capture of the British General Hamilton
at Vincennes. He withstood the hardship of the
march, the danger of the attack with equal fortitude:
his whole record through the Revolution was a brave
one.

Later, settling after the War in the Kentucky ter-
ritory, he bore himself well in the frontier defense :

116

One of the Boldest Soldiers

once a party of twenty-eight men himself among
them withstood for a day and night the attack of
three hundred Indians: when the fight was over only
Mason and one other survived.

We see him again in 1790 he is now aged forty,
a solid substantial man; married, he has a son, a
daughter and again two sons he is dabbling in the
chaotic government of the times: his name appears
among those of other respectable citizens signing a
petition to the General Assembly. A little later, by
authority of the newly-constituted State, he is com-
missioned Justice of the Peace.

He is a tall man, grown heavier with his years
but not fat, not ungainly: "He weighed about two
hundred pounds, and was a fine-looking man." His
face, however, holds one peculiarity: "a tooth which
projected forwards, and could only be covered with
his lip by an effort" ; it makes him look a little wolf-
ish but that does not matter; he is a good talker:
a powerful pretentious persuasive man. One can
picture him, portly pompous but a little overween-
ing in prosperity, swaggering a little in the light of
his martial glory pacing the town landing, parley-
ing importantly with the merchants.

Yet even now the dark force of the wilderness is
laboring at his passions. Solid and strict as the man
might seem, somewhere within is the flaw, the weak-

The Outlaw Years

ness that sounds hollow against the striking of fate.
And the crisis is coming.

"An inf air was given to-day by Mason to a fellow
named Kuykendall who had run away from Caro-
lina on account of crimes and had run off with Ma-
son's daughter to Diamond Island station a few
weeks ago, The father had forbid him the house and
threatened his life, but had become reconciled, and
had sent for them to come home." Diamond Island
was a blackleg haunt as evil-famed as the Cave-in-
Rock. It would be a rankling thought for the vain
J.P. that his daughter had chosen such companions.
She was recalled, and her beau with her, perforce;
Mason could even force a twisted smile at the story
of their escapade:

"The parents and friends were highly diverted at
the recital of the young couple's ingenuity in the
courtship, and laughed heartily when the woman
told of it. She said she had come downstairs after all
the family had retired, having her petticoat around
her, and returned with him through her parents'
room, with the petticoat around both; and in the
morning she brought him down in the same manner
before daylight. . . ."

A stratagem that one would rather have expected
to find related by a Brantome than by a voyager
among the rude and hearty pioneers but this is not
the only time their own records gainsay the buttery

118

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recitals we have had of them. They were no better
and no worse than ordinary men, but their feet were
planted on the dark soil of the West and their souls
fed on its profuse lustiness. Making textbook heroes
of them we change them utterly, as the tangled wild-
flower is changed into the too perfect bud of the
hothouse.

The beau bridegroom, however, seems to have
been of a quite distinguished brutality: "This Kuy-
kendall, I was told, always carried in his waistcoat
pocket 'devil's claws 7 instruments, or rather weap-
ons, that he could slip his fingers in, and with which
he could take off the whole side of a man's face at
one claw!" Under any circumstances a dangerous
man for a son-in-law and perhaps Samuel Mason
had so concluded.

But the celebration went on. "We left them hold-
ing their frolic." One can picture it: the puncheon
floor, the walls of chinked logs ; split-bottom chairs,
a table made of a halved log flat side uppermost;
the fire roaring in the fireplace; the women with
their linsey gowns and tightly coiled hair: the
women with large hands, with faces pressed in the
angular mold of labor ; the men in buckskin breeches
and tow-cloth shirt, stamping and guffawing.

It would be not quite night without, for their days
ended early, but the gourd fiddle playing "Nappy-
cot and petty-coat," "Billy in the wild woods" the

119

The Outlaw Years

thin tunes would make the dusk seem deeper, the
room warmer and brighter; there would be a jug of
whiskey on the table.

There would be dancing: the "heel-and-toe," the
"f orward-and-back" ; the couples vicing with each
other as their spirits grew hot, whirling and stamp-
ing, cutting single and double pigeon-wings in the
reel. "I think I see Boon Schoat bolting up to Sally
Swarringame with :

" 'Now, Sal, you bantered me for a jig at t'other
wedding, when you knowed I war too drunk to
dance, but I'm your man now, and all right!'

" 'And I'm your gal,' replied Sally as she bounced
to her feet. 'Jist wait till I git my shoes and stock-
ings off. I never could dance worth a cent, with
'em on.'

"So, after tying a handkerchief around her waist
and setting her comb down in her hair while Boon
was shucking his coat and girting himself they
went at it, and the way they made the puncheons
rattle for half an hour was a terror to the rats be-
neath, cheered on by their friends. The men showed
their gallantry by siding with Sally, while the
women were equally magnanimous to Boon, and
'Hurraw, Boon!' 'Go to it, Sally!' 'Now you've
got him V 'Them's the licks !' were alternately ex-
claimed during the set-to. . . ."

One can picture the flushed panting dancers whirl-

120

One of the Boldest Soldiers

ing and among them Samuel Mason, bouncing and
bowing; one can see him tall portly pompous, fill-
ing and refilling the pannikins with whiskey. Kuy-
kendall, swaying, grinning impudently, stands before
him. Mason gives his daughter a pinch and she gig-
gles; his lips squirm back from the fanged tooth
and he smiles: he raises his cup in a toast to the
wedding. Meanwhile, his two sons, and some of their
companions, have slipped outside ; are waiting in the
darkness. Mason has made his plans.

And that night, outside in the underbrush, in the
darkness, Kuykendall was killed. He was killed
by the sons, or by their companions: it is not known
because he interfered with Mason's ambitions. A
stronger man would have killed the fellow himself.
A more honorable man would have stayed behind,
to answer for the act But Mason's character had
crumbled ; the murder was for pride, but his pride
would not sustain him: next day his pretentions
flung aside, his ambitions shattered he was in full
flight, his three sons with him. Among their com-
panions was one Henry Havard, a young Tennes-
seean.

The flight was its own confession. Captain John
Dunn "the only recognized officer of the law in all
this territory" rode to intercept them. He was shot,
his body left in a corn field.

Though Mason, as the most interested party, was

121

The Outlaw Years

generally accused of this second murder, there was
doubt enough to inculpate all. Young Havard was
the first to appear in the settlements again: some
months later, in company with a man named Samuel
Mays and Mays' sister, a clubfoot girl, he rode into
his father's homestead on the Red River in Ten-
nessee. News of the murder had preceded him.

A party of Regulators a citizen's posse was im-
mediately organized; their vengeance was swift and
sure. They stormed the Havards' cabin. "They found
Henry hid between two feather-beds"; they made
short shrift of him. "They shot through the beds.
They made the old man pull out the body of his
son, and when they found his brains were oozing out
they knew he was quite dead."

Mays and his lame sister, unregarded, escaped
Mays, ultimately, to play his role in Mason's final
tragedy.

The Masons, meanwhile, had taken refuge at the
Cave-in-Rock. They were not to remain there for
long. It took long, in those days of dark voyagings,
for suspicions to focus, for dangerous localities to
become known. But at last, after so brutal a his-
tory of piracy, the Cave had been discovered as the
nest of brigands it was. A fleet of flatboats, loaded
with volunteers, was preparing at Pittsburgh to at-
tack the stronghold.

122

One of the Boldest Soldiers

Hardly had Mason arrived before news of their
danger reached the bandits. The gang split up. Ma-
son already his overbearing way, his preening man-
ner had won him a certain prominence among the
bandits led a company of them to a new headquar-
ters, to Wolf Island in the Mississippi, a few miles
below the mouth of the Ohio. Here Audubon the
naturalist, lazily voyaging down the River a year
or two later, had wind of him and noted his zeal
for organization: "He formed a line of worthless
associates from the eastern part of Virginia to New
Orleans." Mason's ambitions, now perverted, were
driving him again.

A year later, in March, 1800, he appears in
New Madrid, a river town opposite the Tennessee
Line but in Spanish territory. He is well dressed,
prosperous-looking; his manner "modest and un-
assuming . . . nothing of the raw-head-and-bloody-
bones appearance which his character would indi-
cate": he makes application for a passport. Like
Thomas Hare before him, Mason has seen the ad-
vantage to be derived from the double frontier: a
Spanish passport will permit him to slip back and
forth from one jurisdiction to the other; its posses-
sion, moreover, generally passed current as a certifi-
cate of good character.

Certain formalities, however, must be met: for
one, the recommendation of a citizen known to the

123

The Outlaw Years

authorities must be had. Mason is ready for that.
A too-trusting gentleman, met along the way and
beguiled by the bandit's manner, deems it an honor
to give the necessary assurances. The passport is
granted. Mason slips quietly away; the town of New
Madrid will not see him again for three years, but
then in what changed circumstances!

In the Spring of the year 1801, Colonel Joshua
Baker, a merchant and planter of Hardin County in
Kentucky, embarked on his annual trading journey
to New Orleans. The year had been good; crops
were heavy: several flatboats were needed for the
load of livestock and produce he was bringing to
market.

It is not known when the party started ; they lazied
along down the River, enjoying the vacation : it was
mid-summer before they reached New Orleans.
Early in August, Colonel Baker set out on his return.

There were three men in the party, all mounted;
they had with them also five pack-mules loaded with
provisions and, rolled tight in buckskin bags and
concealed among their supplies, the gold coin profits
of the trip. Leaving Natchez a fourth man joined
them, a Mr. Rogers, anxious of their company
through the wilderness.

They rode slowly, being unhurried; the second
morning, August 14, 1801, found them at Twelve-

124

One of the Boldest Soldiers

mile Creek, some ninety miles along the way. The
Kentucky Gazette, in the issue for September 14,
1801, gives the account of what happened to them
there. It is also the first newspaper notice of Mason's
activities on the Trace.

"We are informed that on the fourteenth of
August, about sixty miles on this side of the
Big Biopiere River, Colonel Joshua Baker, a
Mr. William Baker and a Mr. Rogers of
Natchez, were robbed of their horses, travelling
utensils, and about $2300 cash.

"It seems the company had halted in the
morning at a small clear stream of water in
order to wash. As soon as they had dismounted
and gone to the water four men appeared,
blacked, between them and their horses and de-
manded surrender of their money and property,
which they were obliged to comply with.

"Mr. W. Baker was more fortunate than his
companions. A pack-horse, on which was a con-
siderable sum of money, being frightened at the
appearance of the robbers, ran away, and they
being in haste to escape could not pursue. Mr.
W. Baker recovered his horse and money. He,
however, lost his riding-horse, etc.

"Colonel Baker and Mr. Rogers came to the
first settlement, where they procured assistance
125

The Outlaw Years

and immediately went in pursuit of the villains.
It is to be hoped they will be apprehended.

"One of them who was described by Colonel
Baker, formerly resided at Red Banks. A
brother of Colonel Baker, our informant, ob-
tained this information from Mr. W. Baker,
who lodged at his house in Lexington on
Thursday night last."

And so a new terror usurped the dark wilderness.
The Harpes had gone one slaughtered, beheaded;
the other vanished but scarcely had men's fears
been lightened of their menace before this other
took its place.

And again men moved warily, passed wide ; joined
forces for company and then scanned the other's
face closely, dreading treachery. "Frequently men
would wait at the line to come through with the
mail carrier. John B. Craighead, of Nashville, was
once employed to take some boats with produce
down the river to Natchez, which he sold at that
place.

"On his return home, he stopped at the line of the
Indian country so as to come through with Mr.
Swaney, who was carrying the mail. They started
just at nightfall. The night was cloudy, but the moon
shone out occasionally. . . ."

One can picture it, that long-gone evening: the

126

One of the Boldest Soldiers

tall trees, their roots moss-coated, their branches
shaggily spreading high over the two men's heads;
the acres of desolation, grown thick with cane the
cage of silence, and crackling as if the very silence
strained in the net; the whole alternately clouded
and split with pale light again fantastically, as the
sky cleared and changed; and the two men, riding
silently.

"They had gone eight or ten miles when they dis-
covered two men on horseback and carrying guns in
their rear." They had felt a menace, flitting and in-
tangible, all about them; now in those two stalking
figures behind them it had materialized at last.

They rode on. There was nothing else to do.
Craighead was in a panic. Swaney sent him ahead
with the pack-animals ; he rode behind in the narrow
path. The two dark strangers followed relentlessly.
"The robbers would frequently come up to within
two hundred yards of them, but never spoke. In this
way they trailed them for about two hours." It was
apparent that the bandits, sure of their power, were
waiting the most favorable moment to strike. And
Swaney remembered that just ahead of them, the
Trace twisted through a thick clump of cane, a jun-
gle of underbrush. He told Craighead. He told him
"he dreaded to pass through this place"; they would
be helpless there.

The two men rode on, debating. Should they make

127

The Outlaw Years

a stand? Should they run for it? And suddenly, in
the midst of their deliberation it was as if nature
itself had relented, as if all fate had made a single
dizzying turn they saw a pin-prick of light! "They
saw a light some distance off the road, and went to it.

"They found some Indians encamped, and Mr.
Swaney got two of them to slip down in the direction
of the road and ascertain what had become of the
two men who had followed them.

"In a few minutes the Indians returned and re-
ported that the two men had dismounted and were
taking positions behind trees." Swaney knew the ban-
dits would wait till day if need be: daylight and
night time were equal in the wilderness.

"Mr. Swaney told Craighead that then was the
time to elude their pursuers, and mounting their
horses, they struck out through the woods and kept
parallel with the road for about three quarters of a
mile, when they returned to the road ; then, quicken-
ing their pace to a gallop, they rode on ten or twelve
miles without stopping, leaving the robbers far be-
hind." Craighead was liberal with the spur : he had
a deadly fear to speed him: "Mr. Craighead would
not consent to stop to feed their tired horses or to
eat anything themselves until nearly noon next
day "

Swaney, riding almost weekly through the Trace,
had many a brush with the bandits. Passing, Mason

128

One of the Boldest Soldiers

himself would often halt the mail carrier: "He was
always anxious to know what was said of him by
the public." He would ask news of the towns, of
events; the bandit and the rider would chat peace-
fully a bit, by the roadway; even in these short in-
terviews the strange hypocrisy of the man, his fran-
tic clutching at respectability is evident: he hints
at oppression and betrayal ; his lip skims back from
the wolf-tooth and he swears that he has been driven
to the wilderness, that he abhors bloodshed; all he
asks is justice.

But if he seeks justice he goes about it deviously.
There was another night:

"That night Mr. Swaney was very sleepy, and
stopped after dark, made his horse fast, wrapped
himself in his blanket and slept soundly until about
a hour before daybreak, and found that he had slept
longer than he should. Mounting his horse he started
at a lively gait, and just at daylight he was descend-
ing a little hill to the Boage Tuckalo. . . ." One can
see him topping the rise in the dew of the morning
with the tree tops, emerald-green in the sunlight,
beneath him. He heard voices, somewhere concealed
below.

"He heard some loud talking. Hoping it was the
boatmen, who were always anxious to give Mr. Swa-
ney something to eat and in return to get from him
the news, he began to blow on his bugle and rushed

129

The Outlaw Years

down the hill." He stumbled on the climax of swift
tragedy.

He heard a man's voice shout, "Surrender!" He
heard a shot, and another shot. A great tree had ob-
scured his view but as he passed it he saw a mounted
traveler, pale, cursing helplessly, his emptied pistols
smoking in his hands ; facing him, a bandit, his fea-
tures unrecognizable in war-paint, his musket raised.

Coolly, the robber fired. The man on horseback
jerked about suddenly, then fell face forward, his
body slipping down across the saddle-horn. "He fell
across the path with his pistols in his hands." At the
shot, Swaney's horse had shied; his hoofs caught in
the underbrush and the letter carrier, clinging, was
almost thrown. In that instant the robber vanished,
darting swiftly into the canebrake. When Swaney
had his mount under control (it took but a moment)
the Trace lay clear and sunny again, save for the
one, the traveler, who lay sprawling, dead.

Across the hollow Swaney heard the sound of gal-
loping horses pounding up the hill. Putting spurs to
his own mount, he soon overtook two men, terrified,
riding furiously back along the trail: the one a
Major Ellis was a friend, and the other the young
son of the slain man. His name had been Robert Mc-
Alpin; his home was on the Apalachie River, in
Georgia.

Guided by the letter carrier, they rode on to an

130

One of the Boldest Soldiers

Indian settlement known as the Pigeon Roost, to
get reinforcements. A few of the Indians agreed to
help them, and so the little cavalcade rode back
again to the scene of the murder. When they re-
turned, they found that the robbers had been there
in the meantime. McAlpin's horse had been taken,
and with it all the money in his saddlebags ; the body
had been stripped to the underwear. Curiously, how-
ever, a belt of money which he had worn around his
waist next the skin, had not been noticed. Young
McAlpin he was a boy in his teens took the belt
and tied it in his saddle roll.

There was not much they could do. Swaney and
Ellis cast about, here and there, in the canebrake,
seeking trace of the bandits' trail. They found none.
The Indians were in a hurry to be off. So at last,
with some cut branches, they roughed away the soil
in a shallow hole, laid in the body, and covered it
well with stones. Before leaving the boy had
watched everything, white-faced, silent "Young
McAlpin . . . cut a large chip from a tree, made
the place smooth, and cut on it with his pocket-
knife :

" <ROBT. MCALPIN

MURDERED & KILLED

HERE JULY 31'"

Mason had now been something more than a year
on the Trace, and yet it is doubtful if at this time

The Outlaw Years

the man considered himself definitely committed to
a career of outlawry. In those days the conception
of law was crude, Germanic : a man was judged on
his own cognizance, and his past was rarely inquired
into. So often, when an affair of love or of credit
grew too pressing or when a brawl had ended blood-
ily, a man would disappear from the settlements:
he would wander, hunting with the Indians, living
all life was predatory then in any way he could ;
years later, perhaps, he would reappear stepping si-
lently out of the wilderness, to resume his customary
existence.

Thus Jim Allen, at the Chickasaw Agency. Thus
Sam Houston a young lawyer, in eight years' prac-
tice he had risen to be elected Governor of Ten-
nessee; he was respected, handsome, "of gallant
bearing, standing six foot six in his socks, and his
fine features were lit up by large, eagle-looking eyes"
suddenly, one day, his friend Willoughby Wil-
liams found him sitting in a room at the Nashville
Inn: "I am a ruined man. I will exile myself," he
was saying. No one knew what had happened, but
his wife had broken with him; he had resigned his
office. That night, in disguise, he left town, travel-
ing north, eating "a little common hog and hominy
and sleeping on his own blanket before the fire" at
wayside inns. He joined the Cherokees, in the tribe
of the noted Chief Jolly: once he marched with

132

One of the Boldest Soldiers

them, unrecognized in the feathers and paint of a
Cherokee warrior, through the very streets of Nash-
ville. He came back to the towns three years later ;
before he died he had commanded the Federal
troops in the war with Mexico, and had been twice
elected President, and once Governor, of Texas.

There were many similar metamorphoses among
less famous personages; perhaps Mason, lurking in
the wilderness with his sons, and his son's wife, and
her two children, still hoped to be a Justice of the
Peace again.

The killing of Kuykendall at Red Bank had been
of a nature that was readily excusable in that time.
The murder of Captain Dunn was another matter
but Havard had paid for that; besides, the Kentucky
settlements were far away. As for his activities along
the Trace, there were few victims who had survived
to identify him, and these few were scattered all
over the river country. A man must trust to luck.
And he was one who hankered after respectability;
he was fat with his own self-esteem.

So he hung about the Trace when the letter car-
rier was passing; he quizzed him about the towns and
the politics and the people ; with his mildest face he
protested that he only asked for justice, and a chance
to reestablish himself among honest men. And at last,
one day in the Fall of 1801, he and his son John rode
down to Natchez, to put the matter to the proof.

133

THE END OF MASON

NATCHEZ, at the beginning of the century, was al-
ready rising toward the commanding position it was
soon to occupy and for fifty years to maintain on
the lower River: in commerce, second only to New
Orleans; in beauty, "the handsomest city in Amer-
ica, next to Charlestown" ; in romance, richest of
them all.

Everywhere about it lay the virgin wilderness,
but here and from here southward through the
Spanish country how extravagant and various in
growth!

Trees : "the black-willow, the black-ash, water ma-
ple, pecan, pawpaw, cypress, sweet-bay, magnolia,
katalpa, persimmon, locust, dogwood, wild plum,
tulip-tree, white-oak, black-oak, swamp-oak, chest-
nut-oak, the red cedar, broom pine, buck-eye, wild
cherry, palmetto or 'cabbage tree,' cassina yapon
(from which the Creeks and other Indian tribes
make their 'black drink' liquor for councils and fes-
tivals), the beech, the chestnut, the chincopin. . . ."

Many of these, in their abundant foliage and
wealth of bloom, might almost seem more flower
than tree but twining among them, palely or gaudily

134

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The End of Mason

petaled, "the China root, the passion flower, mi-
mosa instia, saracinia, three or four handsome spe-
cies of the water-dock, poke, sumac several species;
many vines, as the trumpet flower, the mistle-
toe "

IX/Vs.

Through all this, forever winding, forever roll-
ing, the mighty River: "Its margins are not wanting
in musick, from a great variety of 'sweet songsters
of the wood' " ; the pelican "It is asserted that they
are very fond of musick; their pouches are fre-
quently dried and converted into bags and purses,
for the use of the ladies" had its haunt along the
River. "The banks of the River, especially below
Natchez, are lined with groves of Orange trees,
whose delightful fragrance and the beautiful ap-
pearance of their flowers, has a charming effect on
the feelings. Here the bois d'arc (bow-wood) or yel-
low dyewood, is sometimes seen. It bears a gold-
colored fruit as large as the egg of the ostrich; its
deep green foliage resembles that of the Orange tree;
and no forest tree can compare with it for orna-
mental grandeur. . . ."

In the midst of this luxuriance, where the Trace
and the Spanish Road and the few straggling plan-
tation trails fed in like a tangle of wilderness vines
and knotted at the city's center, stood Natchez.

"The city of Natchez occupies a very handsome
situation. It is built on a hill nearly perpendicular of

135

The Outlaw Years

about 200 feet in height above the surface of the
River." Below, on a narrow clay shelf between the
base of the Bluff and the River, lay the Landing:
in Murrel's time this spot would be famous all over
the country as "Natchez-under-the-Hill ... the
nucleus of vice upon the Mississippi" ; already it was
"covered with a number of dwellings, low taverns,
dram-shops and trading houses" for the flatboat-
men whose craft lay moored in ranks along the shore.

"At the foot of the bluffs are long straggling lines
of wooden buildings. Above, a pile of gray and white
cliffs with here and there a church steeple, a roof
elevated above its summit, and a lighthouse hang-
ing on the verge. The whole appearance of the place
is highly romantic." Thus from the River; it was
not until one climbed the steep path up the hill, lined
with "Orange and Liquor shops," that he entered
the true city, Natchez itself.

Natchez: the town was booming. Doctor Nutt,
bringing cotton seed from Mexico, had planted it
at the settlement of Petit Gouffre Petty Gulf, later,
Rodney thirty miles upriver from Natchez and
now all over the lower country the land was being
cleared and fields laid in seed: "Many of the cotton
plantations yield from $5,000 to $20,000 a year. The
owners indulge in every luxury, and set an example
in dissipation." Natchez catered to them. "The vice
of Natchez is proverbial throughout America."

136

The End of Mason

Natchez: "It contains about 300 houses, and 2500
inhabitants." There was a pulse in the place, as two
temperaments Spanish and American met, jan-
gled, or joined in a curious throbbing overtone.
'The houses in Natchez are mostly frame, with a
great many doors and windows, for the admission
of the cool breezes, in the hot months ; they are low,
being generally but one story high" : they were, for
the most part, Spanish-built; so was the theater, "a
large commodious building, constructed of brick,
with arched entrances." The iron grill-work and
vaulted corridors within the principal buildings re-
flected the same foreign architecture; without, the
shallow-sloping roofs, extending far beyond the
walls to shelter the tiered piazzas or galleries and
supported by arcades of slender columns, marked
how the Spanish style had changed and altered.

Natchez : "The principal street runs east from the
edge of the bluff." Here were the banks, the fancy-
stores they were rather like bazaars: "The stores
are turned inside out every morning, to adorn their
fronts and create zig-zags on the sidewalks," while
among the piles of merchandise strewn all over the
walk, the pedestrian must pick his way as best he
might. But few men walked. "A circumstance that
soon arrests the attention of the stranger is the num-
ber of gentlemen with riding whips in their hands.
Here all are horsemen." Ladies drove in from their

137

The Outlaw Years

plantations in gigs, and were wheeled through the
esplanade at the edge of the Bluff in well-appointed
carriages but even then the husband or lover who
attended them rode usually on his own mount, beside
the carriage wheel. Most of the men wore "white
blanket coats and broad-brimmed white hats; this
is the dress of the planters."

Wealth was profuse, almost unavoidable among
the landed classes, but life still held a frontier as-
pect: on the plantations, many a costly dining-table
set with silver teetered on a home-made puncheon
floor ; in Natchez, men strolled and drawled, fought
duels, chaffered for slaves, drank themselves under
the table, were cheated by commission merchants and
gambled wildly on their own horses at the races
all in a curious mixture of the uncouth and the ele-
gant that is difficult for us to picture to-day.

Women were held in almost Turkish seclusion,
save when one of the great public balls enlivened
the season ; then they went attired in lace and jewels,
surrounded by a rosy haze of chivalry. Men, marry-
ing late, retained all their lives the pleasantest at-
tributes of bachelorhood: they lounged about the
bars, occupied the life of the town, haunted the slave
sales, dined in groups of cronies at the inns.

Natchez : its strange punctilio, its unexpected bar-
barisms; its dreaming mansions, jessamine-shaded,
and its raucous, teeming streets : "negroes, negresses,

The End of Mason

fashionably-dressed young men with slender riding-
whips in their hands, wild fellows in linsey-woolsey,
with long locks hanging over their eyes and shoul-
ders, Kentucky boatmen" into all this, riding sud-
denly out of the wilderness, came Mason.

He had a friend in Natchez: Anthony Glass (or
Gass) was his name. This Glass, in the town, had
the reputation of an honest merchant; he had his
store, well-stocked in dry-goods, hardware and gen-
eral merchandise ; he was prosperous, affable, a good
mixer: in reality, for Mason, he filled the double
role of "fence" and informer, sending word ahead to
the bandit when a rich prize was coming up the
Trace, or warehousing and marketing a boat-load of
produce, when Mason robbed along the River.

So now, when the robber wanted to mingle with
the quality, his agent helped him out. He saw to his
rooms at Walton's tavern; he towed the fat-faced,
heavy-bodied interloper about the town, introducing
him vaguely as a planter from upstate, hinting still
more cautiously that his protege had a pocket of gold
for spending.

And for a time their little deception prospered,
until one day perhaps as he lounged at the Market,
slapping his riding-crop against his waxed boots;
perhaps as, with his long head tilted sidewise, he
sipped his glass at Monsieur Ude's and raised his

139

The Outlaw Years

whining voice in the tap-room conversation one day
Mason was recognized.

One can picture it: the loitering group suddenly
disrupted; the stranger pointing, accusing; Mason
staring, mouth agape: "That's the man I The man
that robbed Baker!" For the town, it was a seven
days' sensation. For Mason, it was the collapse of
all his hopes.

With his son, he was thrust in the old stone-walled
Spanish jail. Together, a few days later, they ap-
peared for trial. The Baker robbery appears to have
been the only charge brought against them, and a
clever pleader Wallace, by name did his best to
mitigate their share in that: he won the sympathy
of some of the populace, but not of the magistrates.
The sentence handed down was: thirty-nine lashes
each, publicly administered, and followed by twelve
hours in the town pillory. 1

The town turned out to watch the spectacle, and
to learn how men, by sheer insisting, can almost make
their own lies true. For Mason, through it all, still

*This was mild punishment. There were at that time no less than
eleven crimes which carried the penalty of death, ranging from murder,
arson, rape, through forgery, manslaughter or horse stealing (second
offense) to slave stealing and selling a free person for a slave: an inclu-
sive list. The penalty for a first conviction of horse stealing in Tennessee
was that the offender be "branded with a red-hot iron on the right cheek
with the letter H, and on the left with the letter T, stand in the pillory
one hour, be publicly whipped on his bare back with 39 lashes well laid
on, and at the same time have both his or her ears nailed to the pillory
and cut off." It was not until about 1829, when the Penitentiary system
was generally adopted in the West, that these ferocious penalties were
appreciably modified. Mason, therefore, it will be seen, got off easy.

140

The End of Mason

clung to his martyr's role. As the whip fell, and they
hung there, backs bared, sweating and straining with
the pain of it, their cry was, "Innocent!" still. "I
witnessed the flogging, and I shall never forget their
cries of 'Innocent!' at every blow of the cowhide.
Until the last lash was given, they shrieked with the
same despairing cry of 'Innocent! Innocent!' "

Whipped, they were locked neck and wrist in the
pillory; to Mason, this was the bitterest punishment
of all. No one can tell what savage thoughts he had,
clamped in the uncouth device while the townsmen
gawked, but by his future actions they must have
been savage indeed. Released, he celebrated his free-
dom by the first act of wild and abandoned defiance
that this schemer so smooth and calculating before
had ever been known to commit: "The elder Ma-
son and his son, they shaved their heads, and strip-
ping themselves naked, mounted their horses and
yelling like Indians, rode through and out of the
town." So, roaring drunk, obscene and turbulent, the
two kicked along the dusty streets of Natchez and
vanished.

A few days later, one of the jurors at the trial rode
out toward the Trace. He was stopped just beyond
the town limits : Mason, lurking there, leaped out
and confronted him. The fellow flopped from his
horse, pleading and crying: he had a wife, children;
they would starve. "I've got a wife," said Mason.

141

The Outlaw Years

"Children, too." He raised his gun. "Did I ever do
you any harm?" he demanded. No, said the other.
"Did you ever hear of me murdering anybody?"
No, said the other. In the end, Mason kicked him
over, spat in his face: "You ain't worth killing!" he
said, and rode away.

That was the last to be seen of Mason for a long
time. But the killings, the robberies went on. Mr.
Anthony Glass, now a little suspect among the mer-
chants of Natchez, rode north along the Trace ; with
him, all unsuspecting, traveled a rich Kentuckian,
Campbell by name. Campbell's body was found
later, robbed and mutilated, in the cane; crudely
marked on a nearby tree was a legend: "Done By
Mason Of The Woods." Glass, a month or two after-
ward, turned up in the town of Walnut Hills and
started in business all over again.

A party of Kentucky boatmen, roaming up the
Trace, had camped "in what was called Gum
Springs, in the Choctaw Nation." They were mak-
ing ready for the night when one man, rummaging
in the underbrush, stepped full on a robber lying
there. The bandit fired his gun, yelled for the at-
tack; in an instant the camp was in a turmoil, the
Kentuckians, half-clothed, leaping panic-stricken
away among the trees.

142

The End of Mason

They stayed there, quaking and starting, all night
through. In the morning, the letter carrier came up
with them. "Mr. Swaney came along, and seeing the
campfires burning, rode about, but could find no one.
He knew something was wrong, and began to blow
his bugle." One by one, the boatmen appeared,
crawling miserably out of their hiding-places. 'They
were the worst scared, worst looking set of men he
ever saw, some of them having but little clothing
on, and one big fellow had only a shirt.

"They immediately held a sort of council of war";
they decided to make a fight of it. Everything had
been taken, their firearms as well as their money,
but that did not discourage them. Each man seized
a knotted branch, a heavy stone, and they set off to-
gether, whooping and swearing and loudly boasting :
they would rush on the robbers, belt them and flay
them ; they would meet their fire and withstand it,
and if a few fell in the first volley, let the remainder
rush in with their shillalehs, to revenge their com-
rades.

Leading them all, ran the shirt-tailed giant, im-
placable until he found his pants. a The big Ken-
tuckian found his pants, in the waistband of which
he had sewed four doubloons and, to his great joy,
the robbers had not found them. After this it was
noticed that the big Kentuckian's valor began to fail
him, and he was soon in the rear." The rest plowed

H3

The Outlaw Years

on through the cane, finding here and there dis-
carded fragments of their property saddle-bags,
trousers, jackets ripped and plundered. Their fury
was fading; those in the lead found excuses to linger,
those in the rear nudged them on.

So they came to where the robbers waited for
them. "They were suddenly hailed by Mason and
his men, who were hid behind trees, with their guns
presented." At this the lurching little mob halted,
gulped "Clear out!" yelled the bandits. "We'll kill
every last one of ye!" and stampeded. "The big
Kentuckian outdistanced the whole party in the race
back to camp."

The tale of Mason and the big Kentuckian's pants
was to be told again and again, and greeted with
shouts of laughter, around many a frontier fireside,
but most of the bandit's escapades had a grimmer
cast. He had developed a wild new audacity, a kind
of blatant vengef ulness. He placarded his crimes ; he
scrawled "Mason" in the blood of his victims.

He was seldom seen; never again did Swaney
meet him, unctuous and plausible, waiting along the
Trace. Once, after a peculiarly bitter massacre, a
party of men set out in search of him. He had be-
come elusive, a flitting menace; no one knew his
hiding-place but by good luck, finally, they sighted
him and the chase went crashing through the cane.

144

The End of Mason

But Mason outdistanced them; they lost the trail,
found it again ; in the late afternoon they came down
to the edge of a lonely bayou where the robber must
have passed. As they hesitated there, choosing a
crossing, a rifle spoke from the opposite thicket;
one of their men fell, killed. Across the water, a
figure appeared, waving his arms wildly. "Do ye
want Mason? I'm Mason!" he yelled, and plunged
away.

It was obvious that his organization was growing.
His men robbed the River and the Trace simultane-
ously. On February 10, 1802, the new Governor of
the Mississippi Territory, William C. C. Claiborne,
wrote to the Spanish Governor General of the Prov-
ince of Louisiana ; he stated that a number of daring
robberies had been committed "upon some citizens
of the United States who were descending the River
Mississippi on their passage to this town
(Natchez) ." He pointed out that it was "uncertain
whether the bandits were Spanish or American,"
and he hinted, in the cautious diplomatic way, that
he would be glad to concur in any system of policing
the common frontier which would help in capturing
the outlaws.

On February 28, the Spanish Governor General
Manuel de Salcedo replied. He was a little queru-
lous. He pointed out that he had given his officers

The Outlaw Years

"the most positive orders to take the most efficacious
means of discovering and apprehending the crimi-
nals that can be adopted, and I assure your Excel-
lency that if the criminals are taken they will be
punished in such manner as to serve as an example
to others." He took occasion to complain, however,
that the "people of the States and Western Settle-
ments, having the freedom and use of the navigation
of the Mississippi," came down into the Spanish
province in great numbers, among them many "vaga-
bonds who have fled from, or who do not, or cannot
return to, the United States."

Claiborne had been working toward some recipro-
cal agreement by which the police of either com-
monwealth might be permitted to pursue criminals
across the boundary into the jurisdiction of the other.
But the Spanish Governor General had his own
ax to grind, and the suggestion was disregarded.

A month or two after this exchange of notes had
been made, Colonel Baker appeared again in
Natchez. He had again run foul of Mason and his
men, this time on the River, flatboating his produce
down to New Orleans. He reported the incident di-
rectly to Governor Claiborne : how a troop of ban-
dits in pirogues, led by Mason, had boarded him;
how a battle had followed, and how, eventually, the

146

The End of Mason

robbers had been driven off, but not before several
men on either side had been wounded.

The Governor took action, sending letters to all
commanders of military outposts along the River or
the Trace, informing them that Baker, as well as
many others, had been attacked, "near the mouth
of the Yazou River," and urging them to search out
the robbers and capture them. The letters contained
one detail of gruesome importance: it was related
that "a certain Wiley Harpe" was believed to be a
member of Mason's gang.

And so again, like some pale flower of vicious odor
and uncertain season, the memory of the terrible
Harpes bloomed along the wilderness trails. For
five years the elder brother's head had moldered in
the crotched tree near Red Bank and men had al-
most forgotten that Little Harpe, with the "down-
cast countenance/' was still at large.

Men had hoped, if they considered the matter at
all, that he had left the country, that he had died,
that in some obscure affray of knives or pistols he
had been killed; learning that he lived, a kind of
superstitious terror engulfed them, Men went about
wondering, muttering: where in those three dark
years had he been wandering? what mad deeds had
his fury driven him to? what strange events and
unrecorded disappearances, until then unexplained
and half forgotten, had marked his bloody passage?

The Outlaw Years

Later, digging as among gnarled roots in the
twisted testimony at Mason's trial, they were to un-
earth the answers to a few of the questions. There was
the tale of young Bass, a Tennessee farmer: riding
north along the Trace, a stranger had accosted him.
They rode along together ; Bass was not well : he had
a "misery" in his stomach; the stranger was most
helpful along the way. So they rode on to the Bass
homestead; there the stranger lingered a few days,
to rest When he rode away again, young Bass' sister
rode with him: he had courted her, married her;
they were setting out for North Carolina together.

A few days later, the stranger returned to the set-
tlement, alone. With looks full of sorrow, he related
how his young wife's horse had run away; she had
been thrown, dragged ; before he could help her, she
was dead. People believed him; there was no reason
to do otherwise : in the end he had sold her few be-
longings and ridden away again. Later, when by
chance they suspected that Harpe and the amiable
stranger were identical, they opened the grave : the
girl had been beaten to death, and cruelly mutilated
afterward.

But as for now, all this was still mystery and vague
conjecture a kind of fog of doubt and foreboding,
in which men saw Mason and his still more terrible
partner Little Harpe moving, evilly peering. A few

148

The End of Mason

weeks after Claiborne's communication, rewards to-
taling $2000 had been offered for their capture.

A month later, definite news was had that the
gang's hideout lay near the Rocky Springs, forty
miles north of Natchez along the Trace. A general
hunt was started. Men plunged into the thicket,
reached the camp, but found it deserted. Thwarted,
they spent their energies digging for the treasure the
bandits were supposed to have buried there. They
found none ; none has ever been found but there are
still vague rumors that Mason's hoard lies some-
where there, sunk in the swampy ground.

While the posses dug for gold, the letter carrier
met the young wife of Tom Mason, stumbling along
the Trace. "When Mr. Swaney met her she was
making her way through the Chickasaw Nation on
foot carrying her baby." The rest had abandoned her,
pregnant: she had borne the child, alone, in the wil-
derness. "Mrs. Mason begged Mr. Swaney to assist
her, allowing her to ride until he got tired walking,
when she would walk and let him ride and hold the
child." So he brought her down to Natchez; she re-
vealed that the others had fled across the River, into
Spanish territory. Soon after, the rumor passed that
the robbers had set up headquarters on Stack Island,
also called "Crow's Nest," in the Mississippi about
fifty miles north of Vicksburg.

149

The Outlaw Years

The robberies, murders, continued. The Frankfort,
Kentucky, Palladium quoted "a letter, dated Nat-
chez, June ii, from a gentleman who lately de-
scended the River, containing the following intelli-
gence : 'We were attacked by robbers near the mouth
of the White River. They hailed us from the shore,
telling us they wished to purchase rifles, and on our
refusing to land, they commenced the pursuit, in
pirogues, having in each six men well armed. They
were commanded by a person named Mason, who
scours the road through the wilderness.' "

This was a common stratagem of Mason's. A mer-
chant named Owsley, lazying down the River, had
been hailed from shore by a party of men. They were
emigrants, they said ; they needed rifles and would
pay well for them. When the bargain had been made,
the loaded guns were suddenly presented at Owsley's
head; he and his crew were put in the small-boat
and set adrift. He was lucky to escape witlj the loss
of his stores; another boatload of travelers, held up
at the point of their own weapons, were killed to a
man, their bodies disembowelled and sunk, their
goods sent on down to Vicksburg and sold to An-
thony Glass. "He will never betray us," said Mason.

No one betrayed him. With a price on his head,
with the police of two nations scouring both sides of
the River in his search, with all travelers warned of
his exploits and his name known all through the wil-

150

1 .

a
* ?

"$ 6

8!

The End of Mason

derness, he yet survived for six months longer. In the
end, he betrayed himself.

On January n, 1803, one Pierre Dapron, shuffling
and embarrassed, appeared before the Spanish magis-
trates in the town of New Madrid. Asked his busi-
ness, he related that he had just returned from the
settlement of Little Prairie, some twenty miles down-
stream; while there, his friend Ignace Belan, a voya-
geur, had told him of having seen four men loitering
at the outskirts of the town ; Belan believed them to
be members of the Mason gang, and had asked him
to report the matter.

The magistrates looked wise, and considered the
information; in the end, they decided to instigate a
quiet inquiry among such citizens of Little Prairie
as might have come to Court Day. Almost immedi-
ately, they uncovered fresh news.

Georges Ruddell, among others, admitted that he
had seen the newcomers. According to him, there
were eight men and one woman in the party. They
had arrived a week before, well armed and well
mounted. They had rented ten acres and a house
from a farmer named Lesieur; they seemed peace-
able and industrious. There was but one thing about
them that was suspicious: one man, heavily armed,
was always posted like a sentinel at the cabin door;
they seemed wary of passers-by. The magistrates

The Outlaw Years

deemed it advisable to turn the matter over to the
police, for investigation.

Next day a party of four men, headed by "Don
Robert McCoy, Captain of the Militia," rode down
to Little Prairie. A dozen regulars under Corporal
Felipo Canot had already been detailed there, to as-
sist him. Hardly had the little party dismounted,
jingling their spurs, in the village green, before Ma-
son himself appeared.

All honest-eyed and unctuous, he greeted the as-
tonished commander. He asked news of New Ma-
drid, if the court still held. "I hear there's talk going
around, about me," he said. "I'm a decent man, and
I'm sick of these stinking tales. I hear only a couple
of days ago somebody was up before the Court
spreading false accusations against me. I'm going up
there myself and set matters square. I want to live in
peace."

McCoy was no fool. He decided to play up to the
man's story. "I suppose you've got your passports?"
he demanded. "Yes," Mason told him. "Well," said
McCoy, "I'm just down here on inspection tour and
it's no affair of mine, but I did hear that there was
a complaint about you. Now, I've got some business
to attend to about town first, but if you want to, after
that, you can get your people together and I'll come
over to your cabin and check up your papers. Then
I can report back to the Commandant to-night and if

152

The End of Mason

everything's all right you won't have to go to town
at all." Mason, gratefully, agreed ; it was a good idea.

That afternoon, when McCoy, alone save for an
orderly, rode up to the cabin, the whole family
awaited him. The Captain bustled about, opened his
dossier, settled himself at a table. Then he looked
about the room where all had been gathered. "Is
everybody here?" he demanded. Mason beamed.
"Yes indeed, your Excellency," he chanted.

"Then arrest them!" shouted McCoy. Mason,
whitefaced, started to his feet but he was too late.
The house had been surrounded; the militiamen
poured in, guns ready. "Do you call this fair treat-
ment?" Mason demanded, almost weeping. McCoy
ordered them all to be put in chains.

They gave their names: Samuel Mason and his
sons, Thomas, John, Samuel Junior; John Taylor;
Marguerite Douglas, wife of John Mason, and her
three children. Then, in the laborious Spanish way,
an inventory of their belongings was taken: it in-
cluded a hoard of bolted silk, muslin and cotton,
$7,000 in United States money and a miscellany of
gold and silver pieces, numerous rifles and pistols old
and new, a field stove, camp equipment even such
trivial items as a box of salt and a side of bacon were
noted. This done, they were transported to New Ma-
drid. On the morning of January 17 they were
brought to trial.

153

The Outlaw Years

The trial itself is a curious record of pompous
jurisprudence and frontier offhandedness. The Court
was Spanish, but testimony was taken in French;
it was then read, translated, to the deponents, who
signed it. No attempt at cross-examination appears
to have been made, save in the occasional interjec-
tions of the examining magistrates: each witness
and they were innumerable: townsmen, travelers,
tavern-keepers was called, sworn "on the cross
of his sword and by the Holy Scriptures" to
tell the truth, and then each was allowed to tell his
story. The magistrates were soon adrift in a welter-
ing sea of fact, conjecture and miscellaneous hypoth-
eses but occasionally, as lie follows lie eddying
around the circle, we see the figures of Mason and
Taylor, like two men caught in a whirlpool of
strange passionate hatred, spinning, staring, sinking.

Mason's turn came first: he broke out immediately
into a sorrowful tale of persecution. Other men's
crimes had hounded him all through the wilderness ;
he had been driven out of Natchez, he had been
driven from the River, he had been driven across
the border he had enemies unprecedented in their
maliciousness by a tyranny of false accusation. And
now, an old man, broken, coming to settle on Spanish
soil and start life over again, he was met at the very
outset by an echo of the same pernicious conspiracy.
He was an honest man. It was a little hard.

The End of Mason

Where had he gotten the money, the seven thou-
sand dollars? He had found it in a bag, hanging on
a bush near the site where one night, in the wilder-
ness, they had camped. Travelers, fearing such rob-
bers as he had libellously been nominated, often hid
their cash in the thicket: this, he supposed, had been
forgotten by some careless traveler; he was only
keeping it in trust, for the rightful claimant.

Why had he lived hidden, never appearing to an-
swer his charges? He knew how strong a case his
enemies had made against him. Why was he known
to have consorted with ruffians and criminals? Be-
cause honest people had cruelly spurned him. But
now, though it cost him his life but was it not the
custom to ease the sentence of a man who offered
important information to the State? he would tell
all. The Commandant admitted that such information
was construed as a sign of repentance and was usu-
ally met with lenient treatment. Mason whispered
that John Taylor "And he sometimes goes by other
names which I can not recall" was one of the guilty.

Mason, blown with a kind of puffing self-right-
eousness, stepped down. Taylor testified. Unlike the
windy Mason, he spoke little and answered sullenly:
"He was always downcast and fierce, his hair red,
his face meager and his stature below that of the
average man." But he grew eager in his own vindi-

155

The Outlaw Years

cation; he grafted his own lies neatly enough on
those of Mason.

True enough, his name was not Taylor; it was
Setton John Setton. He was an Irishman born; had
come to America in 1797 and enrolled as a soldier
but he had soon deserted "near the high coast": it
was then he had changed his name. Thereafter, he
had wandered out through the wilderness. He was
an honest man and a workingman : once at Nogales
across from Vicksburg he had worked three weeks
"f or His Majesty the King of Spain," after which he
had signed as carpenter aboard the "row-galley
Louisiana" and worked his way down-river to New
Orleans. He had lived anyhow, as a man might, but
always honestly. For two years, he had "hunted with
the Chaquetaw Indians," but that had ended when,
in Arkansaw territory, he was recognized by a former
officer of his and jailed as a deserter.

It was thus he had been led to the Masons. With a
man named Wiguens, another soldier, he had es-
caped from jail ; Wiguens, an evil fellow, had intro-
duced him to Samuel Mason.

Here the Commandant halted him : "You say your
name is Setton?" "Setton, sir." "Do you know the
name, or the man, Harpe?"

There was a moment of silence, a heavy silent mo-
ment while Setton gulped, hesitated. He did not

156

The End of Mason

know the man, he said at last, but he had "heard of
the name." He went on with his story.

His life with the Masons had been the history of
one long fruitless attempt to escape. A dozen times
he had tried to run away, always to be caught, re-
captured. Once at a settlement, when a "military
gentleman" had been pointed out to him as the leader
of a search-party, he had edged near the man, had
tried to attract his attention: Mason had come up
behind him with the point of a dagger pricking his
side. They took him away, and kept him bound and
gagged for days. From that time on, he had been
allowed neither powder nor firearms : to escape then,
in the wilderness, would have been suicide..

And again, threatening death, they had made him
sign all manner of false affidavits, confessing the
Owsley robbery, confessing the robbery of Campbell
and Glass "though it was known that Glass was
Mason's man at Natchez" confessing that he had
robbed Baker on the Trace, and had taken "twenty-
five hundred piasters in gold, silver and bank-notes."

So he went on, lumping all the random accusations
he could think of, against Mason. Mason was a great
drinker ; when drunk Mason had beaten him but he
was loose-mouthed and had revealed many secrets,
telling of his adventures in the Revolution, and how,
when his daughter married, he had invited a great
crowd to celebrate and then ordered his gang to

157

The Outlaw Years

waylay them. Mason had admitted that he had sev-
eral subsidiary highwaymen operating separately but
under his orders.

Circling again, it was Mason's turn to talk. Yes,
he had held Setton captive, and sometimes by force;
he had hung onto him because he knew the man to be
guilty of many crimes for which he himself had
been wrongfully accused. Thus the Owsley robbery,
and many murders along the Trace: he had held
Setton, hoping that some day he might trick the man
into a public confession, to clear his own fair name.

So in the little log cabin courthouse, through the
chill January days, the strange ring-around-a-rosy
game of lies continued. Mason had told Setton that
he had fifty highwaymen at his call. Setton had told
Mason that if he were ever pursued he could sum-
mon a troop of five hundred Choctaw braves to de-
fend him. And the son, John Mason : his father had
always tried to "live a decent life" ; Setton was the
villain.

But by now the judges had heard enough. On Jan-
uary 31, 1803, they finally directed that "the pro-
ceedings of this trial, originally set down in writing
on 91 sheets of paper written on both sides, as well
as the pieces of evidence tending to conviction, to-
gether with seven thousand piasters in United States
banknotes, be forwarded to the Honorable Governor
General by Don Robert McCoy, Captain of the Mi-

The End of Mason

litia, whom we have charged to conduct the pris-
oners, Mason and consorts, to New Orleans with the
view of their trial being continued and finished, if it
so please the Honorable Governor General."

They started down the River the Captain, his in-
terpreter, a guard of five men, Setton, the four Ma-
sons, the woman, the three children : it was a crowded
boatload, and the trip took two full weeks; one can
picture them, sullen, venomous, split apart by hatred
and hedged round with rifles, drifting to their des-
tiny down the lazy-rolling River.

They came to New Orleans; the High Court re-
viewed the case. The High Court decided that since
all the crimes of which they severally and together
stood accused had been committed on American soil
they should be turned over to the courts of the Mis-
sissippi territory for trial. At the beginning of
March, 1803, they were carried aboard a small sail-
ing sloop, and the journey upriver to Natchez began.

The weather was stormy; turbulent currents and
a wind that came clapping down in gusts from every
quarter combined to delay them. They were almost
a month on the way and still they were more than a
hundred miles south of Natchez, and here abreast
the little river town of Pointe Coupee fate touched
them.

A townsman saw it all, saw through the rain and

159

The Outlaw Years

the gray water the little sloop tossing and churning,
saw her luff into the wind and then, caught by the
next gust, heel over terribly, saw the sails crack and
the mast splinter : "The mast of their vessel broke, a
part of their men were sent on shore to make a new
one, and the rest were left to guard the prisoners. In
a short time they threw off their irons, seized the
guns belonging to the boat and fired upon the guards.
Captain McCoy hearing the alarm ran out of the
cabin, old Mason instantly shot him through the
breast and shoulder ; he with the determined bravery
of a soldier, though scarcely able to stand, shot him
in the head. Mason fell and rose, fell and rose again,
and although in a gore of blood, one of his party
having shot a Spaniard's arm to pieces, he drove off
McCoy's party and kept possession of the boat till
evening." But by now the landsmen had been
drummed into a boarding party; a dozen skiffs set
out to attack them: "Discovering a superior force
they left the boat, the women and children following
with great precipitation. There is a party of Caroles
after them and it is supposed they will succeed in
taking them. The Commandant at this place has of-
fered one thousand dollars for taking old Mason
dead or alive. They will be pursued with the utmost
diligence by a set of determined fellows."

The escape had been made on March 26, 1803; in
spite of all pursuit, for more than six months longer

1 60

The End of Mason

the veteran highwayman resisted capture. In June,
he was sighted, armed to the teeth, by a party of
travelers along the Trace; after an exchange of
shots, he disappeared. In July, a stranger named
James Mays (but undoubtedly the Samuel Mays
who rode away at Henry Havard's death) appeared
in Natchez to report that he had been held up and
robbed by Mason, on the Trace.

He procured fresh supplies and plunged into the
wilderness again, in search of the bandit. And now
the woods were alive with searchers; men, blood-
hounds, Indians everywhere went crashing here and
there through the thicket: it seemed no man could
elude them but Mason did. And in October Mays
came toiling back to Natchez. With him was the man
Setton ; he was arrested at sight, and Mays with him.
Both were clapped in jail but_speedily freed again,
and now Setton had guaranteed to guide Mays to
Mason's hide-out, and help to capture him. They set
out together in a canoe, crossing toward the Louisi-
ana side.

They came back within the month, with a large
lumpy ball of clay, dried hard, in the bow of the
canoe. They had found the bandit hiding in the
swampy area around Lake Concordia, west of Nat-
chez. Setton's presence had disarmed old Mason's
suspicions; they had joined him, helped him cook his
meal, sat with him afterward around the fire; that

161

The Outlaw Years

night they had tomahawked him, cut off his head.
"They took Mason's head back to Natchez in the
bow of a canoe, rolled up in blue clay, to prevent
putrefaction." How else could they prove his death
and claim the reward?

Before the magistrates at Natchez they broke the
clay ball open and revealed its gruesome burden.
Mason was dead. Where was the money? In the
midst of the parleying, a stranger burst into the
room: he had recognized, among their horses, two
that had been stolen from him some time before.
Hardly had the inquiry into this matter been started
when another stranger, a Captain Stump from Ken-
tucky, moved closer to Setton, staring. "Why, that
man's Wiley Harpel" he said.

Until now, no report of the findings at New Ma-
drid, as to the identity of Mason's mysterious part-
ner, had reached Natchez. Here was news indeed.
To be sure, Captain Stump had been none too cer-
tain in his identification: under Setton's indignant
protests he had wavered, said that he couldn't be
absolutely sure. The suspect was put under double
guard, and proclamations were posted at the inns,
along the waterfront: let any man who had known
Little Harpe, and could identify him, come to the
town jail, where one was held suspected to be he.

Several boatmen appeared. "That's Harpe all
right," they said. He denied it. But at last a man

162

The End of Mason

named John Bowman, from Knoxville, Tennessee,
made identification absolute: "If he's Little Harpe,
he'll have a scar under the left nipple of his breast }
because I cut him there in a little difficulty we had,
one night at Knoxville." Harpe, still bluffing, pro-
tested but they tore off his shirt: the scar was there.

They escaped, and were almost immediately re-
captured in the town of Greenville, some twenty
miles north of Natchez, and there, finally, they were
tried and convicted. On February 8, 1804, they were
led from the jail and out through the town to the
"Gallows-Field," to be hanged.

In the general custom, condemned prisoners would
be driven to the field in a wagon, with their cof-
fin for a seat on the way. Still in the wagon, the
noose that hung from a beam between two forked
trees would be fitted around their necks; then the
driver would give a "Gee-up!" to his horses; the
wagon would move away beneath their feet and the
men would swing there, hanged.

In the case of Harpe and Mays, however, for some
reason the procedure varied: they walked to the
Gallows-Field with their hands tied behind their
backs; under the noose, a ladder was braced: they
were forced to climb it till their necks came under
the rope. They stood there a moment Harpe sullen,
wordless to the last; Mays, protesting: "Mays com-

163

The Outlaw Years

plained of the hardship of his fate, said he had not
been guilty of crimes deserving death and spoke of
the benefit he had rendered society by destroying old
Mason" in the midst of it, the ladder was knocked
away, and they swung there until they were dead,
hanged.

After the execution, their heads were cut off. The
head of Harpe was mounted on a pole along the
Trace, a little north of the town ; the head of Mays
was mounted on a pole and placed a little south of
the town, along the Trace. Their bodies were buried
in the town graveyard but at this a furor arose : fam-
ilies whose relatives had been buried there protested
at such company. The night after the burial, they
came with picks and shovels, dug up their own dead
and carried them away to a field beyond the town and
buried them again.

It was as well that they did so. In a few years, as
the Trace widened and deepened under heavier traf-
fic, it encroached on the old graveyard along whose
borders it ran. Wagon wheels, horses' hooves, rutting
the soil, wore open the shallow graves of Little
Harpe and Samuel Mays. The day came when a
teamster's dog, burrowing, dragged out the crum-
bling bones and scattered them ; when the graves be-
came only two ruts crosswise on the road, in which
the heavy wheels bounced or the horses' hooves

164

The End of Mason

stumbled among whitish splintered fragments mixed
indiscriminately with the dust; when finally, by the
rains and the roadmenders 5 shovels, and the grind of
traffic, the surface of the way was leveled off again
and even the last vestiges of the burying place of the
two bandits were obliterated.

165

1

a:
-5:

it

if

fi

o

tfc

.-

IV
MURREL

A MAN IN A BOLIVAR COAT

ON JUNE i, 1833, a young man named Virgil Stewart
set out from the town of Jackson, Tennessee: he had
sold his farm and a brace of negro field hands; he
had turned the cash into trade goods bolted calico,
bullet molds, cutlery, tin ware and he was heading
south into the newly opened territory of the "Choc-
taw Purchase."

This was that belt of swamp and canebrake,
stretching across the northern half of the state of
Mississippi, which had in the earlier years formed so
dangerous a barrier to traffic along the Natchez
Trace. Mason had hidden there; Hare and the
Harpes had made it their headquarters : hunted over
by the Indians and haunted by highwaymen, it had
remained dark and treacherous still, while to north
and south of it the towns were springing up and the
forest being cleared away.

But now even this last outpost of the wilderness
was to be cleared and cultivated. Old General Coffee
had made a treaty with the Choctaw chieftains: the
Indians had ceded the land and moved out west of
the Mississippi: in the Fall of the year, at the town
of Chocchuma, a great land sale would be held, to

169

The Outlaw Years

open the region to settlers. Young Stewart had de-
cided to get down there early.

He was a Georgian by birth but he had always been
a wanderer. His father had died early; his mother
had left him to shift for himself; he had drifted
westward, working from plantation to plantation, un-
til finally he had landed in Jackson and settled there.

He was a good-looking young fellow, well set up,
blond, blue-eyed, and with a hardy cast of counte-
nance. He had seen hard going and he had learned
to keep a tight jaw but he knew how to make friends :
in Jackson old Parson John Henning and his wife
had been almost father and mother to him. Henning
had lent him money to get his farm going and Stew-
art was grateful to him, yet even the Hennings had
not been able to argue him out of his determination
to move into the new country. He was a stubborn de-
termined young man at bottom.

He made his way south, by flatboat and mulepack,
peddling his goods along the way. He still had a con-
siderable supply on hand when, early in July, he
reached the town of Tuscahoma in the Purchase,
where he planned to spend the summer. He decided
to take his stock to the general store at the settlement
and sell out.

The storekeeper at Tuscahoma was Edward Clan-
ton, and he was quite willing to strike a bargain.
He took Stewart's goods and gave him credit for

170

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

their value; furthermore, Stewart agreed to tend
store for Clanton, in return for his board and
lodging.

It developed that Clanton was away a good deal,
on business trips through the territory, and Stewart
was left pretty much in full charge of the store but
it never occurred to him to question that. And Clan-
ton was very agreeable: he introduced the young
man to a most friendly couple, a Mr. William Vess
and his wife. Soon an arrangement had been made
for Stewart to board with the Vess family, instead of
at Clanton's bachelor cabin.

So the life of the small community grew up around
him and enfolded him. Clanton was a rich man, as
the town knew riches beside the store, he owned a
large plantation, and an unconscionable number of
slaves and his friendship was helpful to the young
man. Vess was of different caliber : he was a journey-
man carpenter by trade but he was a lazy one and
little inclined to stay on the job. He would vanish for
days at a time, and reappear again to talk vaguely of
"projects" and sprawl in the sun on the doorstep.

Mrs. Vess was a bouncing woman, red-haired, with
an almost truculent heartiness of manner. But she
was kind to Stewart sometimes he felt that there
was a hint of something more than kindness in her
approaches and she was an excellent cook. It was
hard to understand where the money came from,

171

The Outlaw Years

with Vess so shiftless, and yet their table was always
plentiful.

They even had coffee with every meal, and coffee
real coffee in those times was a luxury. Most of
the settlers served it only for Sunday morning break-
fast, and brewed concoctions of Evans root or dried
pea-pods the rest of the time. But Mrs. Vess couldn't
put up with makeshifts.

"I like a good cup of coffee, and there's nothing
else'll do," she said. And when Stewart came in from
the store at sundown she always had a potf ul waiting
for him, along with a platter of hoe cake and dodger
cake, a rasher of bacon, plenty of eggs, broilings of
hung beef and maybe a cup of custard for the evening
meal.

So, when the land sales fell due at Chocchuma in
the fall, Stewart didn't bother to bestir himself. He
was now, tacitly or otherwise, a partner in Clanton's
store, and business, with the inrush of homesteaders,
was booming: he was quite satisfied where he was.
Winter set in, the dull and dreary, rainy season of the
year. True to the native superstition that a hog will
root out and kill a rattler, he helped Vess herd his
pigs down to the snake-infested lower pasture; he
helped him hive in the other cattle. Finally, toward
January, he decided to pay a visit to his friends, the
Hennings, up in Jackson.

Clanton said he could spare him ; Mrs. Vess fixed

172

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

him a snack of hoe cake and bacon for his saddle bags
and bantered him about the pretty girls he would
meet along the way; Vess grinned and spat, shuffled
his feet and said nothing. On January 18, 1834, young
Stewart was riding north again along the Natchez
Trace, into Tennessee. Not in his wildest surmise
could he have guessed the terrible mission that lay
before him, nor the changed condition that awaited
his return.

He arrived in Jackson a week later, toward eve-
ning ; he rode directly to the Hennings' cabin ; he was
not long in discerning that a certain preoccupation
clouded the welcome the old couple gave him. After
he had been fed, and the puncheon table cleared of
its platters, the cause of their worry was made clear.

Someone was stealing the parson's niggers. One
had been stolen some time ago, and now two more,
prime field hands both, had vanished in the past
week. A good working negro was worth, in those
days, anywhere from seven hundred to a thousand
dollars; the loss was serious. Henning had not the
cash to buy others, and he was too old to work in the
fields himself : he was beginning to wonder where he
was going to turn.

Stewart stared, and then at the thought of the
kindly old couple thus brought so close to ruin his
heart began to pound a little : he'd like to lay hands

173

The Outlaw Years

on the robber, he thought "Well," he demanded,
"who d'ye think got them?"

Henning shook his head slowly. "I ain't no idea,"
he muttered, but his wife interrupted. "You have so,
John, and you know it!" she cried.

The old man remonstrated : he would rather lose
ten times the value of the slaves than accuse an inno-
cent person, he said, but she was at the end of her
patience. "I'll say it if you won't," she cried. "It's
that slick deceiving rascal Murrel!"

And now the story came out. There was no fact,
no definite circumstance on which they could base
their accusation; it was still a matter of suspicion
only, but backed by observation of the equivocal ac-
tivities, the furtive comings and goings of the man.

Murrel was a recent settler in the region. He had
come and hints of doubtful doings had come with
him from somewhere down near Memphis. He had
a wife and a younger brother, but no children; he
had bought land and opened up a big farm, and he
lived there royally.

He was evidently a man with almost a passion for
magnificence. When he rode and he was always
riding out on some mysterious mission of his own
it was on the finest specimens of horseflesh obtain-
able; his clothes were tailored down the River in
New Orleans; his boots and his hats he bought in
Philadelphia. All this and his air of wealth, his

174

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

free-handedness with his money, the plausible gal-
lant pridef ul way he had gave him a certain weight
in the community: there were many who swore by
him and courted him. And yet, even to these,
there was something about the man that was faintly
repellent.

He was too well dressed: he was too much the
type of "modern dandy" that old Judge Breazeale
was railing against, "with his superfine cloth panta-
loons strapped on at both extremities of his person,
his shirt fastened with tape, ribbons and gold but-
tons, a superfine cloth coat upon his back, a dandy
silk hat with a rim three-quarters inches wide upon
his head, and right and left calf -skin boots upon his
feet" He was too handsome, with his smooth sallow
cheeks, his sleek dark hair, and his wide eyes always
lit as if with some inner ironic meaning. He carried
his head high but there was something in the pose
that suggested a snake about to strike and there was
always about him a faint imponderable hint of evil,
like the effluvium that is supposed to emanate from a
poisonous reptile. In spite of his many friends and
many of these were vaguely suspect the Hennings
were not alone in doubting him.

And Murrel had learned of this. "He wrote me
a letter," Parson Henning explained. It was a flow-
ery affair, written after the orotund manner of the
day: he spoke of his "long and earnestly continued

175

The Outlaw Years

friendship," deprecated their suspicions, insisted that
all his activities were "clear and open as the day."
He stated that he was leaving on January 25 for a
business trip to Randolph, Tennessee, a town just
north of Memphis on the Mississippi, but on his
return he would welcome their fullest investigation.
Stewart sat with the Hennings, studying the situa-
tion, wondering how he could grapple with this
strange man. He had, he noted, one great advantage :
Murrel, so far, had no knowledge of him at all. This
advantage, he also saw, could be held only so long
as he kept himself invisible in the town ; there were
many older settlers who would remember him
and his friendship for the Hennings, and Murrel
would inevitably be put on the alert And so in the
end it was decided that Stewart would lie hidden in
Henning's cabin through the next two days, and
when on the twenty-fifth Murrel rode out on his trip
to Randolph, Stewart would intercept him, trace
where he went or, better still, try to win his confi-
dence and learn his secret Young Stewart was blos-
soming forth as a detective.

The morning of January twenty-fifth dawned
clear and cold. The better to cover his movements,
Stewart had ridden down the night before to Den-
mark, a small town about four miles west along the
trail Murrel would follow. And now, hardly after

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

the first birds were peeping, he set out, riding slowly,
waiting for his man to overtake him.

He reached the settlement of Estanaula, and here
there was a toll bridge across the Big Hatchee River ;
here he halted. u Do you know a man named Murrel
from up by Jackson?" he asked the toll gate tender.
Yes, the gateman knew him; Murrel often passed
that way. "Well, when he passes to-day I want you
to point him out to me, but don't let him know
about it."

Stewart waited. There was not much traffic along
the Trace. Occasionally a traveler would come rid-
ing up, his horse's hoofs ringing with the clear sharp
sound they have in frosty weather; he would pay
his toll, go clattering across the loose-planked road-
way of the bridge, and vanish down the trail. After
each had passed, Stewart looked questioningly at the
gate tender and the other shook his head. No, that
was not MurreL

But then at last another man came riding, a hand-
some man with the glossiest beaver hat slanted over
his insolent eyes, and a wide-skirted coat, fastidiously
cut, well brushed and immaculate, buttoned tightly
about his form. A brace of silver-mounted pistols
showed at his saddle holsters, and his horse's flanks
steamed and quivered as he drew rein at the toll
gate, tossed a coin to the tender, and spurred on
again.

177

The Outlaw Years

When this jaunty rider had crossed the bridge, the
gateman turned to Stewart "That's Murrel," he
said. "The man in the Bolivar coat."

Stewart caught up with him a mile or two down
the Trace. He gave him good morning. Murrel an-
swered courteously he had a clipping, "high-toned"
way of speaking but his manner indicated a cer-
tain aloofness, as if to discourage further advances.
Stewart, however, persisted : "Cold day for riding,"
he went on and, distantly, Murrel agreed.

Stewart played the game as he had planned it. He
overflowed with confidences. "Lost a horse," he ex-
plained, "or more likely 'twas stole, I reckon. Any-
ways, I'm out to find it."

Murrel turned an enigmatical eye on him, and for
a moment Stewart felt a cold quiver of doubt at his
heart. The man had the flat pale glance of a killer.

But he answered non-committally: there was a
good deal of robbing and rascality going on here-
abouts, Murrel ventured.

Stewart assented. "There sure is, stranger!" he
cried. "And I don't know as how I can blame them.
Why, look here!" he argued. "The times is that hard,
and it's such a tight squeak for a fellow to make
his living that if he sees a prime piece of horseflesh
and is sharp enough to seize on to it, why I say he
deserves it. Always excepting," and he slapped his

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

thigh and laughed, "when the horse happens to be
my own!" He noted that MurreFs face was relaxing
in a smile as well.

"There are some slick ones about," said Murrel.
"Right here in Tennessee there is a company of
rogues so sharp that nothing can be done about
them."

Stewart held his line; he was getting surer of
his ground. Rogues? He objected: was the rich man
a rogue when he flooded a whole county with worth-
less currency? Was the boomer a rogue when he
sold out a township in sites at ten times the land's
value? No; the only rogue was the poor man, and
for his own part he held it all to be the rankest
injustice. "Sir, my doctrine is, let the hardest fend
off!"

"It is the law that settles all these matters," Mur-
rel remarked sententiously. "Let a man learn the
use of the law, and nothing can touch him." He
hesitated, stroking his chin, while the two horses
jingled onward, flank to flank. Doubtless he knew
that he ought to say no more about such matters
but he was a vain man, proud of his own shrewd-
ness, and here was this baby-faced youngster gaping
at him: he could not resist some slight parading
where was the harm, if he spoke in the third per-
son always? His face loosened in that fatuous depre-
cative grin that oils a man's mouth when he tells

179

The Outlaw Years

of his own triumphs and Stewart, watching, knew
that he had his man hooked at last. Flattery was
all the bait he needed ; thenceforward on that long
strange journey Stewart admired and Murrel ex-
panded and ruined himself in the process.

As they rode, Stewart made notes of the conver-
sation. He scratched names and dates with a pin on
his saddle-skirts ; whenever they halted and he could
find means to be alone for a moment he would write
down all Murrel had told him on the pages of a
blank-book he carried in his pocket. In the end, he
had a sort of scenario recounting, episode by epi-
sode, the man's whole criminal career as it moved
toward the planned culmination, his dream of a
pirate empire in the West.

It was toward the climax of that plot that he was
then riding and even as he rode, step by step, he be-
trayed it. Only in the wilderness could so mad a
scheme have been conceived or its recital have been
plausible, and so it is against that dark background,
like horsemen on a frieze, that we must picture them,
as the slow tale unfolded.

They rode cautiously. "The weather was very cold
and the road much cut up and then hard frozen,
and covered with sleet. It was bad traveling and
they got on but slow." Murrel's beginning was
equally cautious. "Now, there is that company of

1 80

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

hellions I spoke of," he began. He told of the two
brothers "keen, shrewd fellows" who were at its
head. "The eldest brother is one of the best judges
of law in the United States. They all work under
him, robbing and stealing, and he paves the way
for them so that the law can never reach them."

A slick one, said Stewart, admiring: that's a man
to make his way in the world!

"You are right, sir! Why, he has stolen more nig-
gers than you could count, and always got off with
it" He told how, not long since, he had been caught
with three niggers sworn to belong to a neighbor
named Long. "They took him before an old fool
of a squire that had vowed to convict him, and the
people all thought he was good for the penitentiary,
but he laughed at them: it was only a finable of-
fense, he told them, and they could make the most
of it and be damned to them!

"Well, sir, when Court-day come the house was
thronged to hear it He had employed the most emi-
nent lawyer at the bar, Andrew L. Martin, but dur-
ing the evidence he took his lawyer aside and cursed
him. 'Damn you!' says he. 'I pay you my money
and now I must show you how to work I' He gave
him hell, and he got him into the way of the law.
Martin is a flowery fellow, but he has not dived
into the quirks of the trade like his client"

Finding they could not jail him, the citizens had

181

The Outlaw Years

taken other measures: "They formed a company,
which they called Captain Slick's company, and ad-
vertized for all honest men to meet at the school-
house to bind themselves against him. But he could
read their notices as well as any, and he got some
of his own strong friends into the company, and
they told him when to make ready.

"So one night they came against him; there were
over two dozen among them, but he had got to-
gether an immense quantity of guns and ammuni-
tion, and he had eighteen friends with him, primed
for an engagement. He had prepared his house and
outbuildings with portholes and placed his men with
the skill of a general. So they marched up, and
took one look, and they marched off again, and a
fine thing for them they did, for he was situated to
cut them all down! And the law would have upheld
him, too!"

Stewart was all gapes and stares. A man of won-
derful talent, he exclaimed. Such a man might be
a general or a statesman, if the country knew how
to use him.

Murrel's eyes narrowed. "He may yet be a gen-
eral," he announced darkly. "And a statesman, too!
He may surprise them all!" he burst out. They had
slowed to a rambling walk, but now he pricked his
horse and started suddenly ahead, stiff and tense in
the saddle, as if the force of his own passion had

182

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

swept him forward. Stewart, amazed, trotted after
him down the trail.

Murrel slowed soon ; his smile was gone. He was
suspicious. "How might your name be?" he de-
manded. Stewart told him, Hues Adam Hues. He
said he was from down on the Yalo Busha River,
in the Purchase; he told a pretty straight story.
Murrel relaxed a little. And they rode along the
wintry sun rose high but its light was white and
chill, there was no warmth in it, and now a cold
raw wind came to press against their faces ; though
Murrel gave no heed, Stewart was numbed by it:
he pulled out a flask of brandy to warm him, and
shared it with the other and soon Murrel was talk-
ing again.

A man was a fool not to know the law, he said.
"There ain't a dozen men in the Valley that know
the law," he declared. "The Judges? All they know
is what they can read in the 'Justice's Form Book/
and any other man can do the same. I've seen them
all. Old Judge Haywood up in Nashville he lays
around all day on a bull's hide under a tree, and he's
so fat it takes three niggers dragging at the tail to
haul him into the shade what's he know about the
law? A smart man could tie him into knots 1"

Like this elder brother they were talking about,
Stewart suggested. Murrel assented warmly: "He

The Outlaw Years

has discovered a point or two that he uses to ad-
vantage," he admitted.

Stewart asked : "What age is this wonderous man
you speak of?"

And Murrel : "He is about thirty, I suppose, and
his brother just grown up ; he is a smart fellow too,
but not half the experience of the elder. I will tell
you of one of his routes on a speculation a few
months passed, and you can judge of his talents. . . ."

They had topped a rise, and looked down on the
scattered cabins of a tiny settlement, set in the thickly
wooded valley. The smoking chimneys showed how
snug it must be within doors and the thought only
made them more cold and miserable: "The smoke
from the cabins had settled among the heavy timber
of an extensive bottom in large black columns, as
if the trees were wrapped in mourning. . . ." They
went clattering down the trail and along the frozen
road between the houses. No one appeared to hail
them : "all were closely housed, and around the fire."
They rode on, into the forest again.

Murrel was recounting the exploits of the mys-
terious "elder brother." Running off slaves, for in-
stance : he told how he had figured to beat the law
in that Stealing a nigger would be a prison offense,
but he was too shrewd: he persuaded the niggers
to run off of their own free will, and then he would

184

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

hide them, waiting until the owner advertised a re-
ward.

"Now, sir, that advertisement amounts to the same
as a power of attorney, to take his property, the nig-
ger, and hold it for him. And if a man chooses to
make a breach of trust in this case, and instead of
carrying the nigger to the owner converts him to
his own use why, that is not stealing, and the only
way the owner can get at him is in a civil action."
And this shrewd fellow cared nothing for a law-
suit: he owned no property; all his funds were in
cash.

Murrel leaned over, grinning, and gave Stewart
a jog with his elbow: "And who do you think owns
the bank where he keeps his cash? Why, one of
his own clan, that would stand with him no matter
what happens 1"

"His clan . . ." Stewart was to remember that.
He had heard rumors. . . .

Murrel went rattling on. This shrewd elder
brother sold his niggers time and time again : some-
times he would make as much as three or four thou-
sand dollars out of one of them. But, Stewart ob-
jected, each time the nigger ran off, there would be
rewards out for him, with descriptions : in the end,
the whole Valley would be looking for him, and
what then?

The Outlaw Years

Murrel leaned close again, with a thin smile on
his lips and his eyes hard. "There is an easy way
of getting rid of a nigger, when he is likely to be
recognized," he said. Once, coming north along the
Trace, this sharp fellow had sold a stolen nigger
to a settler. He got six hundred dollars for the boy,
and that very night he met the nigger, as he had
directed, under a China-tree in the lane beyond the
plantation and carried him off again.

It was quick work, but the previous owners were
after him : he hurried on up the Trace to the home
of a friend of his "a rich man and well respected,
but one of the clan, nevertheless" he hid the nigger
and felt safe there.

But next day, in the town tavern, he saw a placard,
advertising the boy as a runaway and describing
himself as the probable thief: they were hot after
him. "It was squally times, and any port in a storm.
He took the nigger out on the bank of a creek which
ran by the farm of his friend and shot him through
the head. So he got rid of him."

But the body, asked Stewart; how did he get rid
of the body?

"Oh! That is easy. He cuts open the belly and
scrapes out the guts, and then fills him up with sand
and throws him into the river to feed the eels. . . ."
The trail had dipped through a grove of poplars;
the sun was setting, and its red glow reflected a

1 86

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

dim light that was more like a haze, rosy and pal-
pable, from the white-stemmed trees, now whiter
still with their glaze of frost Murrel stopped talk-
ing suddenly and drew rein; he sat staring. "That is
a beautiful scene," he remarked.

Night fell: they rode by moonlight with every
bare branch in the forest around them glistening in
its sleety casing.

"Did you ever travel much by moonlight?" Mur-
rel asked.

"Not much, sir."

"It is the best time, sir."

And again Stewart had dropped behind: a wave
of apprehension had suddenly gripped him and he
rode, fingering his pistol, staring at the other's back
Murrel turned, all unconscious, and beckoned him
forward : "Come, sir, ride up. I have a friend farther
on who will give us a bed for the night, but it is
some way to go, and we had best pass the time as
lively as possible. I will tell you another feat of
this elder brother."

He told how shrewd the man was at deception.
"He is tall and well proportioned. He is a damned
imposing fellow. Sometimes he goes dressed in the
Methodist order. He is well versed in Scriptures
and preaches a hell of a fine sermon." After the

187

The Outlaw Years

preaching, it was easy to pass off counterfeit money
on the congregation.

They stayed that night at the friend's house. Stew-
art, worn out, dragged himself wearily up the lad-
der to the loft and went to bed immediately: as
he dozed, he heard the two men Murrel and his
friend talking softly in the room below. Next day,
Murrel rose before him: "Murrel rose very early
and had the horses caught and saddled, ready for
a start by clear daylight." They rode on again.

And as yesterday the talk had been of robbery
only, now it was of murder: it was as if the man
had unbuttoned his sleek outer coat, opening it on
the bloody garments underneath. Now at last Stew-
art was seeing the assassin in all the cold nakedness
of his intent, and it sickened him.

This elder brother it was dangerous to cross him.
He had friends everywhere. His confederates robbed
on the River and on the Trace, and he took a share
of revenue from all of them. He had friends in high
places, too. Once, traveling down-river with a stolen
slave, a gambler informed on him to the Captain,
who seized the nigger. But when they reached New
Orleans he got his friends to go to the Mayor, and
before you knew it the nigger was loose and the Cap-
tain was in jail. "And as for the Captain's pretty

188

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

friend who knew so much, he soon had a nurse that
tended him day and night, until he found his way
to the bottom of the River. . . ."

Murrel turned suddenly. "Look here! I am going
over to Arkansaw, and why don't you come along
with me?"

But Stewart was looking for his horse.

"Damn the horse! It's a cross-and-pile chance at
best that you ever find him. Let him go to hell 1 A
man with as keen an eye as yours should never spend
his time hunting after a damned horse!"

But Stewart hadn't money enough for the trip.

"I will let you have money if you give out. I have
thousands of friends over there; it will not cost us
a cent if we stay six months, and I'll guarantee you
a better horse than the one you're hunting. I'll learn
you a few tricks if you come with me 1"

Stewart said he would consider it, and yet as he
spoke, he knew with a sick certainty that there was
only one possible answer he could make. He must
keep on. He could not stop. The invitation, in the
moment he refused it, would become a command:
Murrel would not let him leave now. He knew too
much.

Stewart said he would decide in the morning.

That night they stayed at a roadside inn: "The
place will never be forgot by Hues.

1 80

The Outlaw Years

"So soon as they were warm they were lit to their
lodgings. It was in a large open room, and the bed
tick was stuffed with corn shucks, which made as
much noise when they got in, as riding a new saddle.
The covering consisted of a thin cover-lid, and cot-
ton counterpane.

"Murrel lay and cursed the landlord all night,
and Hues lay and shivered like he had a hard ague
until morning.

"Next morning Murrel inquired for the bill
it was i2-pence each, for the lodging. ( WhatF
says Murrel. 'A 'leven-penny bit for riding such a
colt as we rode last night? He has not been curried
since the day he was foaled. Damned high for lodg-
ing in the shuck pen!' "

They had hardly started before Murrel, with his
cool easy smile of limitless assurance, put the ques-
tion: "Well, Mr. Hues, what say you of the trip
to Arkansaw this morning?"

The decisive moment had come, and still Stewart
hesitated. "I have not fairly determined of the mat-
ter, but I think I will go."

"Go? Yes, damn it, you must go! I will make a
man of you."

"That is what I want, sir."

"There is some of the handsomest girls over there
you ever saw. I am in town when I am there!"

190

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

"Nothing to object to, sin I am quite partial to
handsome ladies."

"Oh I Well, go with me to Arkansaw, and damn
me if I don't put you right in amongst them, and
they are as plump as ever come over, sir!"

They rode all morning. Toward noon Murrel re-
marked that they had made good time on the way:
"We are within half a mile of Wesley. We will have
a warm there."

Stewart answered vaguely : they might eat at the
tavern, he said . . . buy some brandy. . . .

"We will get the brandy, but I have lots of pro-
visions in my portmanteau," said Murrel.

The approach to the town of Wesley presented
a new problem to the harassed Stewart. He had
three very good friends there ; he knew they would
be sure to hail him: "They would divulge his proper
name and appear suspicious to Murrel, for Murrel
believed him in a country where he was known to
no person, and in all probability one of them would
begin to inquire about his friends in Madison county,
who lived within 5 miles of Murrel's house, and
so the whole matter would be upset. . . ." It was
a ticklish situation, but the mention of the brandy
had given him an idea.

They rode on. They were entering the town. Stew-

191

The Outlaw Years

art reined in. "Is that sign the tavern, sir?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, that is the Wesley Inn. We can warm
there."

But Stewart had another suggestion. He had made
up his mind to go to Arkansaw, he said, but first he
must see after his missing horse. He would stop at
the general store which he noticed a little way down
from the inn, and post a notice and a reward for
the horse; meantime, the other might go on to the
inn, get the brandy, and wait for him there.

Murrel agreed. "Do your writing quick, and come
on to the tavern," he said. "I will see to the fire
there the first thing I do." He cantered off.

Stewart hurried on to the store ; it was owned by
one of his friends and had, he knew, the only license
to sell retail liquor in the town. Here he learned that
two of his friends were out of town. There remained
only Colonel Bayliss, who they told him was sitting
in the tavern.

Stewart slipped into the street again and ducked
behind a paling. He was in time to see Murrel stroll
out of the inn and start across the road toward the
store : as Stewart expected, he had asked for brandy
at the tavern and had been told that he must buy it
at the store. As soon as he was out of sight, Stewart
dashed for the inn.

"He found Colonel Bayliss in a back room, and
apprized him of his designs, so that the Colonel

192

A Man In A Bolivar Coat

passed him as a stranger while in the presence of
Murrel"; in addition, he borrowed a pistol from
Bayliss and tucked it in his waistband beside his
own. He felt safer now.

When Murrel returned, he found his friend Hues
seated calmly beside the fire in the inn-common,
toasting his boots at the fender. They had a glass
together, and then they were out on the road again.
Murrel rode silently now.

He seemed ill at ease; he twisted about in the
saddle to peer back along the trail. At last, at a bend
in the trail, he spurred suddenly into the forest.
Stewart felt for his pistol grip he had no idea what
this strange man's next move might be and fol-
lowed blindly.

Murrel led him to a clearing, well hidden from
the trail. Here they dismounted. "We'll have a bite
of cold victuals," said Murrel.

He pulled a slab of jerked beef from his saddle
bag; they sat side by side on a fallen log, hacking
at the meat with their case-knives, chewing huge
mouthfuls. Murrel took a swig at the bottle and
looked with a grinning eye at his companion.

"Well, Hues, I will be damned if I can't put you
in a better business than trading with the Indians,"
he said.

Stewart said he had no doubt of it.

"Did you ever hear," asked Murrel, grinning

193

The Outlaw Years

broader still, "of those devils, the Murrels, up in
Madison County, in this state?"

Stewart he knew now what was coming replied
that he was an entire stranger to them.

"Well, sir," said Murrel. "I might as well out
with it I am that elder brother I have been telling
you of!"

194

SUCH GENTEEL MANNERS

MASON, HARE and the Harpes were all dead and
much of the wild bitter spirit that had animated
them was dead too. In the early days men had lived
hived in their narrow cabins like animals in a
lair, and the early riders of the Trace had robbed,
fought passionately, killed, with the same fierce un-
premeditated animal intensity. It had been a dark
time ; every gesture men made had been as if preg-
nant with strange menaces and at last, in 1812, war
was born of their strivings.

It came at the sign of a comet in the sky, and
with the forewarning of earthquakes, driving fam-
ilies in terror from their houses, while "the earth
quivered like a fallen beef that has been shot through
the brain." It lasted two years and when it ended
men awoke with a sudden exhilaration to a sense
of new freedom. All the fears that had oppressed
them of the Spaniard, the Englishman, the Indian
existed no longer. The Valley was free to grow,
to spread out, to expand in every direction, and peo-
ple went about clapping each other on the shoulder,
as if intoxicated by the limitless possibilities of the
nation.

195

The Outlaw Years

Politically, it was the "era of good feeling" and
the same tolerance extended into the social aspect
of life as well. A drunken man never bothers to
count his change : every man he meets is his friend
and a good fellow, and the Valley was drunk with
its golden expectations, dizzy with huge prospects:
it could even grin good-naturedly at the sharp fel-
lows who picked its present pocket

It was a queer time. Ladies whose sole idea of
literature had been drawn from the pages of Burgh's
"Dignity of Human Nature" or Fanny Burney's
"Evelina" borrowed from the score or so of books
in the Coonskin Library now sent their daughters
to Miss Allison's High School, for Young Ladies at
New Orleans, or to Mrs. Wilkinson's French Acad-
emy at Cincinnati, where they learned "Good Order
and Propriety" at meals, and were taught French,
Sewing, the Analysis of Participles and the Lessons
of Morality: terms, $50 quarterly, paid in advance.

Everybody was hot after culture. Young maidens,
struggled with charcoal pencil and drawing paper,
composed mournful "elegies," laboriously knotted
stray strands of hair into wreaths, spider-webs, lace
garlands and pasted them in huge "hair albums,"
made scissor silhouettes in hopeless emulation of that
consummate genius Miss Honeywell, who possessed
"the rare talent of executing with a common pair
of scissors, by holding them in her mouth, every

196

Such Genteel Manners

object in nature or art with the greatest ease to her-
self." Miss Honeywell's "Gallery of Cuttings" was
everywhere a sell-out, at the admission of a shilling
apiece, including a profile cut by the artist herself,
but then everybody was going to lectures.

It was a rich time for quacks and charlatans of all
description, and the mountebanks came pouring to
profit by it. A generation earlier, people had be-
lieved that Seneca Oil was a sure cure for rheuma-
tism and skunk oil for colds; that if a rattlesnake
bit you on the leg you must hold the injured member
higher than the head "so that the swelling would
ascend" ; that the sulphur water of Yellow Springs
on the Little Miami was a panacea for all ailments,
as witness the case of the Kentucky lady who had
even been cured of cancer by imbibing the waters
(or rather nearly cured, for "she was hurried away
too soon by her friends, who lived a considerable dis-
tance away": as a result of this precipitancy the lady
had died) and that the same water, if distilled off,
left a residue which might be used to make an ex-
cellent paint, "equal to any Spanish brown"; that
an expectant mother should drink plenty of Missis-
sippi river-water to insure against a miscarriage.

And now they listened with the same credulity to
the lectures of Webster the Mesmerist, Doctor Cald-
well the Phrenologist, and watched in awed wonder
while Signor Diego (known to Europe as The Great

197

The Outlaw Years

Magician) descanted on the Hindu Miracles and
demonstrated his "Wonderful Flight of a Young
Lady, a Feat Never Before Attempted": tickets,
50 cents.

Mrs. Trollope toured through the valley, her
small mind dazed by the exuberance she saw about
her. Stopping at Cincinnati, she reported that "it
was by no means a city of striking appearance; it
wants domes, towers and steepels": she could not
understand that to rear almost overnight a city
of 20,000 population in the wilderness had been
achievement enough, without bothering about
beauty. When she rented a house for a season there,
she was principally preoccupied with the fact that
at parties ladies could expect lots of food but little
attention from the men-folks, and that the city had
no sewers at all !

She wondered what to do about her garbage. A
delicate subject, but she finally appealed to a neigh-
boring gentleman. "Why, just take it out in the mid-
dle of the street and dump it, ma'am. The pigs'll
soon take it off," he told her. "But mind it's in the
middle," he added, "for we have a law as forbids
dumping such things at the side, to clutter up the
walks." One can picture the tall Westerner, toler-
antly eyeing the prim little busybody, with her
strange questions.

And other towns lacked even more important

"They took the body, one by the heels and one by the
head, and heaved it'out over the edge of the ravine."

A print from
"The Life and Adventures of John A. Murrell"

Such Genteel Manners

items than sewers. The pioneers had been content
to clear a corn patch and live the labored life of
the soil but the newcomers, the smart men, were too
shrewd for that. They cleared townships and sold
the sites. Sometimes they did not bother to clear
the sites ; sometimes they did not bother to build the
towns: the climactic feat in townsite booming was
perhaps that perpetrated by a genius whose name
or more probably his alias was William Haddock.

A group of some fifty or sixty Easterners took pas-
sage on a packetboat down the Ohio : they wanted
to be carried as near as possible to that thriving in-
land, town of Rolling Stone. Curiously, none of the
boatmen, it appeared, had ever heard of the place,
and that was odd because, from all the evidence, it
must be a busy and booming town indeed. The trav-
elers displayed maps and circulars, which the agree-
able gentleman who had sold them their townsites
had given them. They displayed a splendid engrav-
ing, showing in "perspective view" the animated
spectacle its Main Street presented at noonday.
They even produced several copies of the town's
weekly paper, the "Rolling Stone Messenger," its
columns filled with items of the city's social doings
and the feverish activities of its marts of trade.

The boatmen remained skeptical: there was no
such town, they said, and all this ballyhoo was a
fake. But the immigrants insisted and finally, hav-

199

The Outlaw Years

ing studied such maps as they had, the travelers were
disembarked at the nearest point to where the town
might possibly be. So they wandered off, the whole
sad company, into the wilderness. It had been toward
the close of a chill autumn; such supplies as they
had brought were unseasonable and unpractical;
winter closed in and they were still wandering, hunt-
ing vainly for the mythical township.

For it had all been a myth: the maps, the rich
engravings, even the weekly "Messenger" with its
plausible make-up had been part of a vast Gargan-
tuan lie invented by the boomer, Mr. Haddock, to
sell his town-lots. Some of the immigrants gave up
the search; some others cleared land and settled;
still others, worn out by cold and privation, died.
Mr. Haddock went on, to sell more town-lots.

It was a rich time for the smart men. There had
been an honesty at least an openness of intention
in the old lawlessness, but now that the land was teem-
ing with laws and lawyers legal dishonesty was the
rule: "Accounts came from that sunny land of fus-
sing, quarreling, murdering, violation of contracts
and the whole catalog of crimen fahi. It was ex-
tolled as a legal Utopia." The courts were a mass
of confusion : "They moved to quash everything. In
one court, forthcoming bonds to the amount of some
one hundred thousands of dollars were quashed be-

200

Such Genteel Manners

cause the execution was written 'State of Missis-
sippi,' instead of The State of Mississippi.' "

Even in criminal cases, the same disorder was the
rule: "Almost anything made out a case of self-de-
fense a threat a quarrel an insult going armed,
as almost all the wild fellows did shooting from
behind a corner, or out of the store door, in front or
from behind it was all self-defense."

As with the law, so with finance. Floods of worth-
less currency poured into the Valley; wild-cat bank-
ers flourished. The procedure was simple: any one
could procure a bank charter, issue currency, unload
it in the settlements. In the end the profusion of these
practically counterfeit notes almost cut off trade.

Clerks, cashiers and business men went armed
with copies of the various Bank Note Detectors,
such as that published by R. T. Bicknell in Phila-
delphia and advertised as "a handsome super royal
sheet, published weekly at $2 per annum. The plan
is to give the names and locations of all the Banks
in the United States that are in credit, stating the
discount on their notes at Philadelphia. To give
also a list of all the broken banks, and a list of all
the counterfeits known to be in circulation."

Consulting this, the harassed merchant would
know at a glance which bills were worth a dime on
the dollar, which were worthless, and which might
be accepted at half, one-third or full value. But few

20 1

The Outlaw Years

customers would take these rulings tamely and most
traders, to avoid dispute, preferred to carry their
funds in gold. Which made matters simpler for the
bandits who overtook them on the way.

For the bandits still persisted. Vast projects were
constantly being unfolded for railroads that would
cut the wilderness and span the continent, but men
still traveled horseback, mule-pack along the Trace.
As early as 1811, Zadock Cramer reported the ex-
periments of "a Mr. Rosewalt, a gentleman of en-
terprise," with boats "propelled by the power of
steam," and remarked that "it will be a novel sight,
and as pleasing as novel, to see a huge boat working
her way up the windings of the Ohio, without the
appearance of sail, oar, pole or any manual labor
about her moving within the secrets of her own
wonderful mechanism, and propelled by power un-
discoverablel" And in the same year the steamer
New Orleans was launched at Pittsburgh and made
the journey, in spite of earthquake and hurricane,
down-river to Natchez.

But it was to be many years before these primitive
craft could carry much more than their own weight
and a few cotton bales, and meantime the flatboat
and the flatboatmen ruled the River as before and
all down the current the outlaws waited hived in
their hiding-places, to pounce on the unwary.

Diamond Island was still a nest of brigands, as

202

Such Genteel Manners

it had been in the days of Kuykendall's courtship.
Control of the Cave-in-Rock had been usurped by a
most mysterious gentleman, named Philip Alston :
"dressed in ruffles, broadcloth and lace," he went
about the dirty business of scuttling Kentucky -boats
and murdering their crews : he was supposed to have
been a native of Natchez, of the bluest blue blood,
and the tale goes that in the end, when his Luck
crashed, he escaped to Mexico and there rose again
to high dignity moving still among the Spanish
gentlemen, courteously formal, dressed in his -ruf-
fles, broadcloth and lace.

He was succeeded at the Cave by a stouter char-
acter named Sturdevant, who lived surrounded by
a small army of retainers : "He could, 1)7 blowing a
horn, summon some fifty to a hundred armed men
to his defense." He dealt in counterfeit money and
did an immense business, selling one hundred dol-
lars in bills at the rate of sixteen dollars, gold. The
law at that time was only a vague conceit; justice
was largely a matter of personal bias and expedi-
ency: it is typical of the nebulous ethics of the time
that "the few farmers around, while not at all im-
plicated in his crimes, rejoiced in the impunity with
which he practiced his schemes." Sturdevant \ras a
good fellow and a copious entertainer: his neighbors
were little disposed to bother him.

Similarly, some distance down the river, James

203

The Outlaw Years

Ford for years combined the functions of Justice of
the Peace, ferryman, and bandit chieftain. Even
after the towns had arisen, and the conception of
man's abstract civic duties had been formalized,
Ford in his unique position succeeded in straddling
the barrier between the lawless and the law-abiding,
to his own profit. His ferry catered to travelers com-
ing up along the northern extension of the Trace.
His bandits robbed them. His court listened to their
complaints. It was an unassailable position, and he
held it with despotic rigor.

He was a tall man, "about six feet and very
strong and broad." His head was large, and his fea-
tures heavy : "On the whole, when in repose, he gives
one the idea of a rather surly bull-dog." When
aroused, he was a fury. His downfall came, not
through interference from without, but through a
split in his own gang. One of his pals, a man named
Simpson, quarreled with him: Ford shot Simpson.
A few nights later, "as he sat on the porch in his
great arm-chair," one of his men approached with
a note for him to read : to give him light, the fellow
held a candle over his head. Thus illuminated, Ford
made a perfect target: a confederate, hidden behind
a rosebush in the yard, shot him dead. 1

1 A great mass of legend grew up, for some reason, about Ford and his
activities. Many of his gang figure in tales of which most are familiar
variants of ancient bandit dramas the highwayman who kills his wife
by mistake in a hold-up, the robber returning in disguise who is assassin-
ated by his father and mother, etc. Ford's crimes became almost mythical

204

Such Genteel Manners

So, strung out along the Trace, the wilderness
trails and the River, the bandits kept their strong-
holds safe. Once in a long while, a sporadic attempt
would be made to oust some of the more flagrant
offenders. Thus, in 1831, a party of Regulators was
formed and descended on Sturdevant at the Cave,
but were repulsed. Or again, a number of flatboat-
men all of whom had been attacked the previous
year at the Crow's Nest, Mason's former headquar-
ters in the Mississippi banded their boats in fleet
formation and fell upon the bandits there, and killed
nineteen men in a savage battle upon the beach. But
in general, the policy was "live and let live." It was
a time of smart men and smart doings, and even
among honest men, it was every man for himself.

The outlaws, in fact, in all that turbulent disor-
dered time, were the sole class of men who retained
their solidarity. There were invisible lines of com-
munication through all the underworld, a network
of common interest binding closer and closer all their

in grandeur: how he would fasten the head of an offending slave in a
vise, and then burn out his eyes, tongue, nose ; how he poisoned a friend
to marry the friend's widow; how finally, when they came to bury him,
the sky suddenly clouded, and it thundered heavily, and the Devil's
hand reached up from the open grave and snatched Ford's coffin down
to Hell straightway. Set against these, is the charming romance of
Charles Webb, who escaped from a floatboat attacked by Ford's gang,
dragged himself, wounded, to the bank, where he was found by Miss
Cassandra Ford, daughter of the pirate: she carried him home with her,
nursed him while he lay helpless in the robber stronghold, and at last,
love having been born in both their hearts, eloped with him to the West,
where they married and made their fortunes.

205

The Outlaw Years

scattered hiding-places, and the gentlemen who
strolled on Chartres Street in New Orleans, who bid
in on the nigger jockeys at the Slave market on the
Gallatin Road outside Nashville or bet on the flying
mare Polly Medley at the races, who ferried across
from Natchez to Vidalia, in the misty mornings or
at sundown, to settle at the pistol's point their deli-
cate affairs of honor, who preened and swaggered in
the uneasy exercise of a new-found leisure were
pacing more narrowly near the edge of anarchy than
they knew.

John A. Murrel was born in 1804. The exact place
of his birth is uncertain: it is known only that it was
in Tennessee, in the middle valley, and probably
near the town of Columbia, some fifty miles south
of Nashville on the Natchez Trace. His father was
the proprietor of a small wayside tavern, and from
this it might be deduced that the bandit had been
born on the very highway he was later to terrorize,
except that in equal likelihood his father's inn may
have been located on that other trail which forked
south from Columbia down to Fort Hamilton, or on
still another, known formerly as the "Tennessee
Path," which curved east and north through the
Cumberlands to the Gap.

Of all this his youth, his parentage, his birth-
place we have little more than his own random

206

Such Genteel Manners

reminiscences for information, as he chatted with
Stewart on their ride together. It seemed that his
father had been an industrious and decent citizen:
"My father was an honest man, I expect"; he left
the management of the inn in his wife's hands and
she was of a different caliber entirely.

"My mother was of the pure girt: she learnt me
and all her children to steal so soon as we could walk.
At ten years old I was not a bad hand." Later, being
clever and adroit, his mother made him her chief
aide in her exploits : she herself, it would seem, was
complaisant enough to linger occasionally in the
traveler's chamber after lighting him to his room
and after she had left and the exhausted guest was
sleeping the son would come: he had developed a
certain skill in opening locks. "The first good haul
I made was from a peddler who lodged at my
father's house one night. I had several trunk keys
and I unlocked one of his trunks, and took a bolt
of linen and several other things, and then locked
the trunk." Next morning the boy waited apprehen-
sively while the peddler loaded his packs but the
man had not suspected : he rode off down the trail.
Murrel, as he told the tale to Stewart, smiled at the
memory of his youthful exploits: "I thought that
was not a bad figure I made," he commented.

Curiously, however, this was not to be the last
he would see of the mulcted traveler. The youth

207

The Outlaw Years

soon surpassed even his mother's teachings: when
he was a little past sixteen years of age he was
by now dabbling in highway robbery and had
hooked up with a gang of horse-thieves over the line
in Mississippi he turned his skill to opening the
family treasury. He found fifty dollars ; he took the
money and headed north for Nashville and there,
as he strolled across the Public Square, the peddler
suddenly confronted him.

But the man, as it turned out, held no grudge : he
was in the same game himself. His name was Harry
Crenshaw ; he was a stocky burly hearty fellow with
a fat face and a jolly eye, and he had mixed in every-
thing from highway robbery to murder : he had even
made a voyage out from Barataria with Lafitte's pi-
rates, and had been wrecked off the Isle of Pines.
He took Murrel in hand ; he had connections in the
town : a few days later, the two of them were riding
east on the Wilderness Road, with a drove of the
gang's stolen horses, to be delivered in Georgia.
They had not traveled very far before young Mur-
rel had a chance to show his mettle.

They were coming up through the Cumberlands,
and here they fell in with a young trader : he was a
willing talker. "Crenshaw soon knew all about his
business." His name was Woods, and he was from
South Carolina. "He had been to Tennessee to buy

208

Such Genteel Manners

a drove of hogs, but when he got there pork was
dearer than he had calculated, and he declined pur-
chasing." He was heading home again now, with the
price of the hogs still in his pocket That was all
that Crenshaw had wanted to know.

"Crenshaw winked at me; I understood his idea."
The road was skirting the edge of a ravine; there
was no other traveler in sight; it was as good a time
as any to get the job done. "Crenshaw asked me for
my whip, which had a pound of lead in the butt. I
handed it to him. . . ." The rest was almost ludi-
crously simple. Murrel, pointing out across the val-
ley, uttered a sudden exclamation. Woods, gaping
like a clown in a circus, turned his head to stare.
And Crenshaw, reining close in on the other side,
brought the butt of the whip crashing down on his
skull.

He fell from the saddle. "We lit from our horses
and fingered his pockets. We got $1,262." Woods was
not killed, only stunned, but they had no time to fin-
ish him : at any moment some one might come spur-
ring along the trail and surprise them. So they took
the body, one by the heels and one by the head, and
heaved it out over the edge of the ravine. It was
a good drop down, and they watched the man go
whirling to crash in the banked tree branches below.
"That ought to break him up some," said Crenshaw.

They flung the saddle and bridle and all his equip-

209

The Outlaw Years

ment after him; they haltered his horse in with the
rest of their drove and went riding on down to
Georgia.

They made a long sweep westward through Ala-
bama, heading for New Orleans; before they fin-
ished the trip two incidents occurred, both of which
left a deep impression on Murrel's mind.

The first was a minor matter indeed. Coming out
of Georgia Murrel had felt dizzy and chill by turns;
his body ached and his eyes felt leaden; when they
crossed into Alabama he could go no farther and
they halted at the little town of Columbia on the
Emussee River : he came down immediately with a
hard fever.

He lay tossing and raving for a day or two ; when
he woke to his senses his body felt hollow and un-
corporeal and he stuck to his bed for three days
more: the innkeeper's daughter nursed him. She
brewed infusions for him, brought him cup-custard
to eat and noggins of milk to drink, and he lay there
with his pale face on the pillow and his dark eyes
staring, watching her.

He said very little, even when the time came and
he rode away. Crenshaw joshed him: "Your little
Miss back yonder had an eye for you, sure!" he said.
"I heard her telling her pappy that you had such
genteel manners as she never had seen." Murrel said

210

Such Genteel Manners

nothing, but years later, at the height of his prowess
along the Trace, a sudden impulse gripped him and
he rode straight across the state to Columbia again,
to seek out the girl and marry her. She was dead.
He came back and took a girl from the "Gut," the
red light district of Memphis, instead.

The second incident had an even more lasting in-
fluence on his mind. The time was about 1821, and
until two years earlier Spain had hotly contested
the claim of the United States to southern Alabama.
The claim had finally been ceded and the state ad-
mitted in 1819 to the Union but the dispute had left
disorder behind it: there was trouble everywhere.

In one community a rumor, causeless or otherwise,
had spread that the negroes planned an uprising.
Already, in most towns, the slaves outnumbered the
whites; the fear of what might happen if the blacks
ever did rebel was always worrying the settlers. At
the merest hint of such a calamity, whole counties
would spring to arms.

So Murrel and Crenshaw, when they entered the
town, found shops shut, streets deserted, armed
guards patrolling everywhere. Negroes were warned
not to leave their cabins after nightfall : they would
be shot on sight. Women went with a shotgun escort
whenever they ventured out of doors. In the general
excitement of chasing niggers nobody paid much at-
tention to the two rovers, and they were quick to

211

The Outlaw Years

take advantage of the opportunity. They helped
themselves to what funds they needed one night at
the local store, waylaid a few late strollers and
cleaned their pockets and rode away again in a day
or two, unsuspected : everybody blamed the niggers
and proceeded, no doubt, to justify their suspicions
on a number of black carcasses.

The two gentlemen who had caused the disturb-
ance rode on down to New Orleans. Crenshaw, fat
and jolly, was in fine fettle, looking forward to the
fun he would have in town with the girls, but Mur-
rel all the way was thinking. He had seen the con-
fusion that even the threat of a negro uprising could
cause, and what chances for easy pickings there were
for a smart man, in the hullaballoo. Suppose, then,
a real rebellion could be brought about and not one
sporadic and local but planned, skilfully engineered
to sweep the country what a rich opportunity there
would be for looting then! It was just an idea a
kind of dream of the bandit's heaven but it lay in
the back of his mind fermenting, until the time came
when, years later, in his scheming, even dreams be-
came plausible and he tried with an almost insane
ferocity to put the project into execution.

They rode down to New Orleans : they took cover
in the "Swamp," that region of shanties and shacks
in the mud flats across the River, with its hive of

212

Such Genteel Manners

barrooms and gambling joints, and settled down for
some fun. "We dressed ourselves like young lords.
We frolicked for a week or more, and it was the
highest larks you ever saw." It was a walloping time.
They haunted the bordels: "We went to Mother
Surgick's and had a real frolic with her girls. We
commenced sporting and gambling, and lost every
damned cent of our money."

So he woke one morning in some frowsy lady's
bedroom, felt for his purse and found it empty, and
set out for the road again. He still had his horse,
but at Natchez he sold the animal for what he could
get, bought supplies, and trudged out along the
Trace. He tramped wearily for four days; he was
in a bitter mood when finally, late in the afternoon,
he sighted a well-mounted traveler coming spurring
toward him.

As he approached, Murrel pulled his pistol and
leaped in front of him. The man pulled up with a
jerk and hoisted his hands; he was pale: he looked
as if he were going to vomit. Murrel told him to
dismount, then ordered him to walk ahead down a
pebbly creek bottom that led away among the trees.
Silently, hopelessly, the man obeyed.

"We went a few hundred yards until we got out
of sight of the trail. Then I hitched the horse and
ordered the fellow to undress. He commenced to
strip, and at length stood all undressed to his shirt

213

The Outlaw Years

and drawers. Then I ordered him to turn his back
to me."

And now the one terror-stricken question bubbled
to the man's lips. "He asked me if I was going to
shoot him: he had evidently withheld the question
before. I made no answer. He stretched his hands
toward me, and begged for time to pray before he
died." But Murrel had no time for such whims : he
told him to turn around and be done with it. So now
the man knew what he must expect; his eyes wid-
ened and he looked about staring: "He looked wish-
fully up and down, and at last he turned from me
and dropped on his knees, and I shot him through
the head. I felt sorry for him, but I could not help
it. I had been obliged to travel on foot for the last
four days.

"As soon as he fell, I drew out my knife and
ripped open his belly and took out his guts. Then I
scooped up a lot of sand, stuffed it in the vacant
stomach and sunk the body in the creek." So, having
rid himself of the body, he set about searching the
pockets of the man's clothes: "I found in all four
hundred and one dollars and thirty-seven cents, and
a number of papers I did not take time to look into."
He did, however, have an eye to the garments them-
selves.

The man's coat was a rich one, and his own by
now was well-wo.rn and dusty, but he did not dare

214

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Such Genteel Manners

exchange: it might be awkward later if he were
found wearing the dead man's garments. The boots,
though, were another matter: "They were brand-
new and a perfect fit!" And his own had never been
made for hiking; after four days on the Trace they
were in tatters. He kicked off the old shoes and
pulled on the new ones. He swung into the saddle
of his newly-acquired horse and spurred it on
through the trees to the Trace again. Next day he
was back in Natchez, sauntering in his glittering
boots through the criss-cross of narrow alleys al-
ready known up and down the River as "Natchez-
under-the-hill."

Natchez had grown from the straggling days
when Mason knew it, and the Public Square where
the whip had raked his back and the pillory had
chafed his neck in the long penance was now a pleas-
ant park, fresh with green grass and cool with the
shade of the Pride of China trees which were spaced
along its walks. The Court House "a fine large
square building surmounted by a cupola" stood in
the center of the Square; along the streets which
bordered it were the stores, the business offices, the
lawyers' chambers and the commission merchants'
establishments all housed in solid substantial build-
ings, many of which were of brick.

Natchez was rich: "The city ships more than

215

The Outlaw Years

50,000 bales of cotton annually." Most of the plant-
ers enjoyed almost princely incomes and the beauty
of it all was that no one ever needed to hurry, no
one needed to worry: in that lush soil, under that
tropical sun the seed burst and the cotton grew
fluffy and long-fibered almost of itself; what there
was to be done the niggers could take care of, and
the gentlemen were free to loiter down Main Street
past the old tumble-down "burying ground," to doze
on the deep piazzas of Parker's Hotel, to cluster in
gossiping groups under the Grecian portico of the
Agricultural Bank, as their own spendthrift sense
of leisure inspired them. It was a time that was al-
most timeless, and feudal in its careless magnificence,
and the life of the town moved to the same dreamy
slow tempo.

That was Natchez above the Bluff: "under the
Hill" was another town entirely. There were two
narrow streets, and a criss-cross of narrower alley-
ways between, all spread out over the shelving mud-
flat which ran down from the base of the cliff to
the water's edge. The place was wide open, literally
and figuratively: barrooms and gambling hells over-
flowed into the streets; brothels had nothing more
than a curtain hung across the doorway and the girls
would lounge there, wrapped revealingly in lace
shawls or thin silk jackets, calling and beckoning

216

Such Genteel Manners

toward the dim room within, with its bed and its
shoddy fittings, where they plied their trade.

It was a stale sordid sodden place, reeking with
mud and garbage : it was heavy, too, with the more
impalpable smell of sweaty lusts and savage pas-
sions.

Murder was common there. Big Jim Girty,
nephew of the renegade Simon Girty, met his end
at Natchez-under-the-Hill. He was a famous bully
of the River: "Instead of ribs he was said to be pro-
vided with a solid body-casing on both sides, with-
out any interstices through which a knife, dirk or
bullet could penetrate." He came swaggering into
Marie Dufour's saloon one night; he was spoiling
for a fight and he got it. A gang of gamblers rushed
him; Big Jim went down but Marie stood over him
he was her lover with a smoking pistol and drove
them off. When the fight was over and the room
cleared she looked at Jim and saw that he was done
for. She reloaded her pistol again and shot herself
through the head.

And again : as one of the early steamers was cast-
ing off from the Landing a man sprinted out of an
alley and ran up the gang-plank. He was pale,
breathless; he paid his passage and started back
along the boat's deck. As he did so, a rifle spoke
from somewhere among the huddle of houses. The
man gasped, fell, shot dead.

217

The Outlaw Years

The steamer's paddles were set back and she edged
into the landing again; the body was put down on
the shore. It lay there all day, until finally some one
called the coroner. He made a brisk inspection, pro-
nounced his verdict: "Murder against a person un-
known by a person or persons unknown." The body
was rolled into the river and nobody bothered any
more about it.

The flimsy shanties stood so closely crowded that
an outer fringe of buildings had been as if shoved
bodily off the bank : they stood now with their rear
ends propped on pilings, hanging swaying out over
the current. Sometimes at the height of a roaring
evening the rotted shoring would sag in the suck of
the River: a building would cant over drunkenly;
there would be a squealing, screaming stampede of
the inmates before the loose-built frame structure
folded in on itself and slid down bodily into the
water. Sometimes the collapse would come at night,
and the sleeping occupants would drift away with
the building, still locked in the postures of their last
drunken passions. Nobody bothered.

Natchez on the Bluff never interfered with
Natchez-under-the-Hill. The sense of caste was
strong, and still stronger was the frontier feeling that
every man must be left to do as his own desires dic-
tated, without interference from anybody. Whores,
boatmen, gamblers, bruisers they wanted, appar-

218

Such Genteel Manners

ently, to live like animals and so, like animals, let
them live. So long as they kept to themselves, nobody
was disposed to bother them.

Sometimes a gentleman, strolling out through the
pleasant park at the Bluff's top to finish a late cigar,
would have his pleasure in the warm evening shat-
tered by the uproar and brawling that went on be-
low: "Whilst smoking my cigar here, the murmur
of a fray came up to me, borne upon a light breeze.
The tumult grew in loudness and fierceness; men's
hoarse angry voices, mingled in hot dispute, came
crashing upwards as from the depths of hell.

"I bent anxiously over the cliff" he stared down
at the crazy pattern of flaring lights and dark
shadows spread out beneath him "a louder burst
ascended, then Crack! Crack! went a couple of shots,
almost together: the piercing shrieks of a female
followed. . . ."

There was a silence, and then the tinny pianos,
the plinking banjos in the bars took up their beat
again: you could hear a girl's voice singing some
bawdy song, and the men laughing drunkenly. The
gentleman above on the Bluff sat down on one of
the stone benches in the park and gazed out philo-
sophically over the heavy-rolling moonlit River.

No one bothered about what went on in any of the
red-light districts of the towns along the River. That
such places might breed bitterer passions than any

219

The Outlaw Years

prostitute could satisfy still more, that there the
outlaws might meet and combine increasingly until
no project would seem too great for them, not even
the overthrow and general massacre of the upper
world above them seems hardly to have occurred
to the tolerant gentlemen on the Bluff, until Mur-
rel's conspiracy revealed it to them, just in time.

Murrel was thinking, planning, studying. He soon
perceived that the old days of wanton banditry were
nearly ended. Men like Mason and the Harpes could
run amuck in the wilderness, and the very unpre-
meditated fury of their movements had saved them
from capture. But nowadays travel was swifter ; news
got about more quickly: a lone outlaw could be
tracked, hedged in, surrounded almost as soon as
his identity had been discovered. The communities
were in closer touch with each other than the early
settlements had been : the outlaws must organize in
their turn. "I soon began to see the value of friends
in this business," he told Stewart. He set about mak-
ing friends, and Natchez-under-the-Hill was a good
place to begin.

He met a man named Carter. Carter, when he
dropped down under the Hill, was as wild a roarer
as any: he had a little shifty-eyed quadroon girl
there, and he would sit with her and his bottle in
Walton's tavern-bar, quoting Scriptures endlessly at

220

Such Genteel Manners

her until some obscure instinct would drive her to
fury and she would leap at him, spitting and scratch-
ing : then he would seize her and go into shouts of
laughter while she stared at him, wild-eyed in his
embrace.

On the road, however, Carter changed as if by
magic. He traveled disguised as a Methodist
preacher: he was "as slick in the tongue as goose
grease." From him Murrel learned to shout sermons
and sing psalms; he soon perceived how easy it
would be to lay down counterfeit currency, to run
off niggers and unload stolen slaves, unsuspected, in
the frenzied atmosphere of the camp-meeting.

In those days, the arrival of an itinerant preacher
was a magnet to draw in settlers even from the deep-
est wilderness. Everybody came: "I have seen from
fifty to a hundred ladies, walking barefooted to the
meeting, carrying their shoes and stockings in their
hands" ; reaching town, they would sit down by the
side of the nearest "branch" or creek, wash their feet
and put on their shoes. Men would come, stiff in
their home-woven, home-sewn jeans. Sometimes a
family would drive in with a wagon-load of produce
as well, to sell for market. Hucksters put up stalls ;
traders and peddlers followed the evangelists as
gypsies follow the fair. Saloon-keepers would move
their whiskey barrels out to the edge of the field
where the exhorter had taken his stand : camouflaged

221

The Outlaw Years

in booths "composed of bushes, cut and piled up,"
they would be filling bottles for the thirsty gentle-
men among the congregation.

The service itself was a frothing frenzy. 2 "I have
seen a hundred women with the 'jerks' " : they would
fall on the ground, screaming and foaming. There
would be hails of "Hallelujah! God grant it!" from
the "workers" who went stamping and clapping their
hands up and down the aisles. Men would be seen
to start forward, ripping their clothes away, stag-
gering down to the "bull-pens" under the platform
where the reclaimed sinners rolled and slavered in
the straw. Everything went by rhythm: the "work-
ers" with their hails, the exhorters stamping and
repeating their set phrases, the evangelist breathless
and incoherent but timing his utterance to the tom-
tom thud of a stave on the platform railing a
rhythm that beat faster and faster, with the whole
assembly swaying in time to it, crying out in un-

*The "shouting revival" was introduced to the territory in the year
1802 by an itinerant preacher named Grenade: he had great success,
was called "the wild man," and left a trail of "shouting congregations"
after him. The year following, a Reverend Doak startled a revival
meeting by suddenly pitching from the pulpit and rolling all the way
down a hill in a fit of the jerks; when he came climbing back to the
stand again, he explained that "the Devil had nearly gotten him, but
God had prevailed," and went on with his sermon. Soon no sermon was
complete without a seizure; astonishing incidents occurred: once a man
who had been sitting astride a white horse, listening to the sermon, ran
amok through the crowd, spurring madly, shouting hallelujahs, until
he fell from the saddle, rigid. Several people were trampled and one
killed, but the event was hailed as a signal manifestation of divine
favor.

222

Such Genteel Manners

natural voices hoarse or high and squealing, fran-
tically gesticulating, screaming, jerking, the
women's very hair "popping like the crack of a
whip," the men straining with gritted teeth until
in the final pitch of pandemonium sometimes even
the preacher himself would catch the contagion and
fall in a fit of the "jerks," pitching and tumbling
down in the midst of the congregation.

After the meeting would come the let-down.
Passions long pent in loneliness and now strained
intolerably would give way. People would dash into
the woods crying that the millennium was at hand,
to be gone for days before they returned shaken and
bedraggled. Others gave themselves up to long
drinking bouts or fell to fighting savagely upon lit-
tle or no provocation. Still others, young men and
girls, fused their religious ardor with more personal
impulses: "There may be some who think a camp-
meeting is no place for love-making," wrote a con-
temporary with considerable insight. "If so they
are very much mistaken. When the mind becomes be-
wildered and confused, the moral restraints give way
and the passions are quickened and less controlla-
ble. For a mile or more around a camp-ground the
woods seem alive with people; every tree or bush
has its group or couple, while hundreds of others
in pairs are seen prowling around in search of some
cozy spot . . ."

223

The Outlaw Years

With Carter for a companion, Murrel made a
long circuit through the Valley: "In all that route,
I only robbed eleven men, but I preached some
damned fine sermons, and so scattered a lot of queer
money among the pious." Carter was a "queersman" ;
through him Murrel got in touch with the counter-
feiters at the Cave and in the dives along the River :
perhaps also it was in this way that he made con-
nection with those "influential friends," whose pres-
tige meant so much to him.

He was traveling almost constantly. He met two
gay young blades in New Orleans : Tom Phelps and
Johnnie Haynes were their names. They belonged to
a gang called the "Smashers"; they robbed along
the Trace, Haynes was one of the "true girt" but
Phelps was squeamish: he would not kill. "He has
been robbing men on the highway and then letting
them go on," Murrel told Stewart. "But that will
never do for a robber; after I rob a man he will
never give evidence against me." And true enough,
misfortune overcame the fellow: he landed in jail
in Vicksburg. "I fear he will hang," said Murrel,
"for it would be too dangerous for us to try to get
him out . . . There is but one safe way in this busi-
ness," he added, "and that is to kill. If I could not
afford to kill a man I would not rob."

He worked his way up the Trace with the pair of
highwaymen; they gave him a li&t of their friends

224

Such Genteel Manners

and confederates and then at the Tennessee Line he
left them. He rode off alone, on his own oblique and
dangerous errands. He moved here and there,
through the years that followed, watching, studying:
always his mind was twisting, coiling like a spring
tighter and tighter about that one great impalpable
idea, trying to squeeze it down to the final essence
of certainty.

The great bandit captains who had preceded him
had been the type of the true outlaw: they had
broken loose from society, plunged into the wilder-
ness: they had, as it were, declared war on the social
order, and they fought openly. But Murrel's attack,
though no less vengeful, was more subtle. He worked
from within. He married, built a home; he culti-
vated friends. Instead of renouncing law and order,
he studied both. He delved in the tangled jurispru-
dence of the day, and out of the mix-up he evolved
that complicated argument to defeat a charge of
slave-stealing which he had been at such pains to
explain to Stewart.

He studied the naive passionate life of the day.
Carter had shown him how easy it was to hoodwink
a man, once his religious fervor had been aroused,
and Murrel followed Carter's example. He traveled
disguised as a minister, flooding the settlements with
counterfeit; more often, he used the same disguise

225

The Outlaw Years

in selling his stolen slaves : he found people less in-
clined to inquire into antecedents or to haggle over
prices when dealing with a sanctimonious preacher
who could say an Amen over the sale.

And slave-stealing was his principal source of in-
come. There is no possible manner now to learn how
many negroes he stole, sold over and over, and finally
murdered, but that they numbered more than a hun-
dred cannot be doubted. Murrel himself hardly
knew; he remembered only those who had in one
way or another struck his fancy, or whose presence
had gotten him into scrapes.

There was one called Tip : "He was the liveliest
devil," a frolicsome young black boy and very fond
of the wenches. Murrel grew to like him; he in-
stalled him as his personal servant and took him
along everywhere. But the time came, as with all the
others, when Tip became too dangerous a commod-
ity. There were too many rewards, too many descrip-
tions of him circulating among the communities.
"I felt truly sorry for him," Murrel said. "But there
was no taking chances." And so the clownish Tip,
pattering along with his master on some lonely high-
way, saw the pistol muzzle swing down to bear on
his forehead, halted unbelieving, shrieked perhaps,
and died.

There was another nigger named Clitto: "I got
into a hell of a scrape with him." Murrel found him

226

Such Genteel Manners

working in a field on a lonely plantation far down
in the Choctaw country, and stopped to talk with
him : "I am a great friend to the black people/' he
explained. Soon he had the old darky complaining
about the cuffings he got from his master.

"I'll see that you get out of that!" cried Murrel.
"I have carried off a great many like you, and they
are all doing well, all got homes of their own and
making property up North. I'll push you through.'*

In the end, Clitto agreed to run away that night.
But Murrel perhaps had made his sales talk too
strong, or Clitto was too affectionate in his nature:
when he came to the rendezvous he brought his wife
and three young pickaninnies with him.

This was more than Murrel had bargained for,
but still he thought he could handle the situation.
They struck down for the River : Murrel was mak-
ing for the Arkansaw side. There was a swamp in
the way, but Clitto said he knew a path through it:
they all plunged in together.

The trail was a continual quagmire ; finally, Mur-
rel had to loose his horse and travel afoot, like the
others. But it was messy going. At every step, their
feet sank ankle-deep in the sludge, and there were
always the strange, menacing swamp-sounds the
heavy bark of the alligator, the hissing withdrawal
of a snake among the leaves to trouble them. The
woman tired: they piled. up on a patch of high

227

The Outlaw Years

ground and slept through the rest of the night When
they woke next morning, Clitto confessed that he was
lost

Murrel was raging, but now he was tied to his
victims ; he was determined to get some profit out of
them. He took the lead. They wandered that day
and the next: "We finally killed a nest of varmints,
skinned them and ate them." At last they struck an
Indian trail through the bottom: it led them to the
head of a bayou, and here they found a bark canoe
tied along the bank.

And now the old negro chose this worst of all
possible moments to rebel. Where were they going,
he wanted to know: how could they be sure what
kind of treatment they would get across the River?
All through the famished mud-soaked journey Mur-
rel had held his anger tamped down like a musket
charge plugged in the barrel ; at this faint spark of
opposition it exploded.

Without a word, he whipped out his pistol, shot
the negro dead. As the old man fell, the wife uttered
a scream of horror. Murrel swung on her ; clubbing
the pistol, he smashed it savagely in her face. She
dropped, dazed. The children had scattered like
chicks, and he plunged after them, kicking, pitching
them headlong: when he had done with them, he
returned to the mother, still sprawling; he loaded

228

Such Genteel Manners

his pistol, killed her. Then at last, alone, he paddled
off across the River into Arkansaw.

He had already established headquarters there,
near the Shawnee village in the swamps along the
River. Here his men met, made their plans, and
rode out again on their murderous errands. It was
a hideaway when pursuit grew hot, a clearing-house
for counterfeit coin, a depot where stolen goods and
stolen slaves might be kept until it was safe to release
them again.

And his organization was growing; its power was
spreading everywhere through the territory. Murder
increased : travelers rode out on the Trace and van-
ished. Slaves disappeared in increasing numbers:
when occasionally the outraged owner tracked the
thieves down and demanded his property he found
his claims ignored. Witnesses turned suddenly
tongue-tied in court. The sheriff, "usually a friendly
man," winked while prisoners escaped. Brought to
trial, an accommodating jury usually gave a verdict
of acquittal. Most of the settlers robbed or de-
frauded, however, seldom dared go so far as to seek
prosecution: they were, literally, afraid. "During
the latter years of Murrel's career, the lawless ele-
ments of society undoubtedly had the upper hand
of the law-abiding. The citizens lived in apprehen-
sion." So far, throughout the growth of the terri-

229

The Outlaw Years

tory, the law had been weak and the settlers' atti-
tude toward it disdainful. Now the time was coming
when a new law was arising that of the outlaw.

And still Murrel was riding, twisting in and out
of the settlements. His genteel manners and his
prideful bearing gained him acceptance everywhere.
"He possessed a quick mind, and a remarkably pleas-
ant and gentlemanlike address. He had a great nat-
ural adaptability, a certain frank, cordial manner.
He was vain and eager to lead. Murrel was undoubt-
edly a character for whom nature had done
much. . . ." He was quite willing to do something
for himself, as well.

Memphis had been a boom town. At the begin-
ning of the century, it had been the site of a military
outpost and a few scattered dwellings, known so far
as it might be said to have a name, by that of the
hill on which it stood the Chickasaw Bluff.

In 1819, however, a grant of the Tennessee Legis-
lature gave 5000 acres in grant to John Ramsey and
John Overton. Andrew Jackson wrote an article for
the Philadelphia "Portfolio," descanting on its beau-
ties: its streets "wide and spacious," its "ample va-
cant space reserved as a promenade." The place, at
the time, consisted largely of vacant space but with
such enticing advertisements the settlers were not
slow in arriving. The boom began. Old Major Win-

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Chester the Indian fighter opened a store there.
Paddy Meagher opened a tavern. Davy Crockett
came along on one of his political tours, got drunk,
wandered out on the Bluff to look at the River:
"Hell!" he said. "I'll lay a gallon of whiskey I can
jump further into that bay, make a bigger splash
and wet myself less than any man here!"

"I'll take that bet, sir!" one of the gentlemen with
him retorted. Crockett took one look at him: the
man was a three-hundred-pounder in weight. "I
give in!" he yelled; like a sportsman he paid the
bet: he paid it a hundred times over. He ordered
a barrel of whiskey and there, sitting out in the
moonlight overlooking the rolling Mississippi, they
drank it by dipperfuls. It was a wonderful party:
"the biggest drunk ever known on this bluff."

tip on the Bluff it was a gay, rowdy, careless life;
down among the shanties below Market Street the
life was a little bitterer. This was the "Pinch-Gut,"
"so called perhaps because the people down there
pinched their guts for whiskey": as at Natchez-
under-the-Hill, it was a hive of prostitutes, a haunt
of gamblers, rowdy flatboatmen. Paddy Meagher's
Bell Tavern became their headquarters, and his
daughter Sally was the queen of the district: "She
had a head of hair and pair of eyes that would have
made an ogress beautiful. She could dance the socks
off any of her fair competitors in the dance."

231

The Outlaw Years

Paddy died. Sally married a dapper lad named
Tom Ruling, a gambler, and carried on as before.
Other dives and brothels opened Sam Stodgen's
place, the Pedraza Hotel along " Smoky Row," the
main thoroughfare of the region. The people on the
Bluff looked on tolerantly. Flatboatmen fought and
carried on with the girls ; gamblers killed each other
over the gaming tables or lay in wait with knives
along the gloomy alleys ; it was their nature to do so
and nobody bothered. Honest people had no business
in the Gut anyway.

Even the town's officials left the region alone. At
times there would be hundreds of flatboats ranked
along the Landing, moored there waiting for the
spring freshets to clear the River. Sometimes there
would be a thousand or more boatmen loitering
in the lower town. All these boats and all these men
were supposed to be paying wharfage fees to the
wharf-master, but that dignitary seldom collected.
The boatmen drove him off ignominiously whenever
he appeared.

"I have seen the Wharf -master streaking it up
the hill, with a dozen or more fellows after him,
lashing the ground at his heels with long cane poles."
They would lure him out on the boats, promising
to pay their fees; then they would shove off from
shore and go barging downstream, to maroon the
unfortunate fellow on some island and leave him

232

Such Genteel Manners

there, yelling vainly after passing boats until some
one would row out from town and rescue him.
Everybody laughed at his discomfiture the mer-
chants as much as the rowdies.

Sometimes, indeed, the belles of the Gut would
grow too flaunting. Moved perhaps by an obscure
impulse toward vindication, they would come trip-
ping up the hill to edge into the life of the upper
world; they would go leering and jeering along the
Bluff where the quality promenaded.

Then the good citizens would rise in their might
and drive the intruders forth again. The town
boasted a little hand-operated fire engine: it was
called the "Vigor." They would haul the engine
out, load it full with a mixture of soap-suds and
lampblack; they would pen the painted damsels in
a corner of the promenade and flood them with the
unholy liquid until they ran, bedraggled and curs-
ing, back where they belonged again. Everybody
laughed the gamblers as much as the townsmen.

A definite code of mutual forbearance obtained
between the outlaws and the citizens, in Memphis
as at Natchez, Vicksburg and all the other towns.
This code had been born of the early pioneering in-
dependence; it had continued largely because the
forces of law and order were never quite strong
enough decisively to suppress the lawless. So a kind
of balance had been reached between the two factors

233

The Outlaw Years

of society, and that balance had remained level all
through the growth of the region. But now a crisis
was coming: on the one hand as towns grew and
trade expanded, the need for a settled government
made itself felt; on the other, the same rise in pros-
perity and spread of traffic brought a greater number
of bandits, more determined, more closely allied, to
prey on it. The whole system of piracy by land and
river, born in the Harpes' crazy killings and devel-
oped through Hare and Mason, was coming to its
dark climax : the balance was swaying and Murrel,
shrewdly calculating the weakness of the one side
and the passionate bitterness of the other, was wait-
ing, watching his chance.

He was reaching out everywhere, seeking to turn
every possible circumstance to his advantage. In his
dealings with the slaves, he had usually represented
himself as believing that the blacks should be freed.
Now, throughout the North and even occasionally in
the South, a powerful anti-slavery sentiment was
growing. Murrel watched its progress with great
interest.

As early as 1826 Fannie Wright and Robert Dale
Owens had settled in Memphis. She strode about
the streets, "a tall, masculine-looking woman, with
a coarse voice like a man." She organized meetings ;
she preached against marriage, against the Bible.

234

Such Genteel Manners

Suddenly she bought a plantation, stocked it with
slaves : she was going to free the South.

Her idea was that each negro should be required
to do only the absolute minimum of work necessary
to keep the plantation in order. For any work in ex-
cess of this, he would be credited with a regular
wage, until a sufficient sum had accumulated to equal
his purchase price. He would then be freed and,
out of the farm's profits, another slave would be
bought, who in turn might work out his freedom.
The settlers looked on non-committally, but Fannie
was jubilant: she pictured her plantation as a sort
of human mill, through which if she, or rather the
negroes, worked fast enough the whole slave popu-
lation of the South might be ground.

Unfortunately for the experiment, fast work was
just what the negroes didn't want to do. The first
batch she bought were so little excited by her no-
tions that, far from doing excess labor, they failed
even to do the required minimum. In a year or two
the farm went broke, and the scheme was aban-
doned.

Elsewhere, however, when confronted with the op-
portunity of earning freedom, slaves worked man-
fully. Even in Memphis, Major Winchester kept a
credit account open for his slaves, so that any who
wished to do so might eventually work out his eman-
cipation, and here and there throughout the South,

235

The Outlaw Years

various kind-hearted slave-owners adopted similar
expedients.

Others developed more fantastic plans. Hinds
County, Mississippi, was the headquarters for a so-
ciety whose purpose was to persuade the planters to
ship their slaves bodily back to Africa, there to be
incorporated in a little republic of their own: its
name, appropriately, "Mississippiana." And of
course, all through the North, good ladies and ex-
cellent gentlemen with powerful convictions and no
very clear understanding of the facts in the case,
were writing pamphlets 3 and listening to lectures
designed to portray the slave-owning Southerner as
nothing more or less than a cannibal, and agitating
for the Government to do something about it.

How far Murrel dabbled in this mixed-up busi-
ness may not be known. But that he had been in

"These pamphlets were of the most inflammatory description. "Lives,"
"Narratives," and "Adventures" of various escaped slaves "Sojourner
Truth," "Moses Grandy," "James Williams," etc. were innumerable.
One, "A Picture of Slavery Drawn from the Decisions of the Southern
Courts," affords an interesting example of how easily a series of facts
individually true can be combined in a conglomerate falsehood. In this
case, the author apparently went rummaging through all the southern
statutes and court decisions, emerging with abundant data to prove, as
the chapter-headings proclaimed, that "The Slave is Nobody He is
Like a Horse or an Ox;" "The Slave Power prevents even his Master
from being Kind to Him;" "A Slave cannot avenge the Grossest Indig-
nity Perpetrated on his Wife ;" while a Georgia statute prohibiting harsh
treatment of slaves, and using the words "unnecessarily biting or tearing
with dogs/ 1 gave an excellent opportunity for the writer to dilate on
the question of how much biting and tearing was considered necessary.
The haze of bitterness these philippics aroused in the North still remains
to cloud the true picture of slavery in the South.

236

Such Genteel Manners

communication with many of the Northern Aboli-
tionists is certain, and it is also true that several of
his clansmen seem to have been attracted to join him
because of their convictions against slavery. Further,
he is supposed to have shown Stewart a long letter
from "a prominent Gentleman of Boston," praising
his efforts to free the slaves and suggesting that
"could the blacks effect a general concert of action
against their tyrants, and let loose the arm of de-
struction among them and their property, so that the
judgments of God might be visibly seen and felt, it
would reach the dirty heart of the tyrant . . ." And
that, as a matter of fact, was just what Murrel him-
self was coming to believe.

He was getting closer to his idea. He was focus-
sing all his schemes, trying all sorts of large experi-
ments. One which, at about 1829, he undertook with
Crenshaw, is interesting in its curious similarity to
that other development the Underground Railway.
This was a plan to organize a chain of under-cover
stations stretching west to Texas, then part of the
republic of Mexico : through these stations, as along
a railway, a continuous stream of stolen slaves might
be smuggled out of the Valley and sent on for sale
in the Far West. It was a pleasant scheme : it would
permit nigger-stealing of wholesale proportions, with
no bother about pursuit afterward. So Crenshaw

237

The Outlaw Years

was sent ahead, to arrange connections, and Murrel,
having corralled a dozen or so stolen slaves, followed
after.

They had no success. Some of the negroes died,
some lost themselves or escaped in the wilderness;
there was the constant threat of Indians all about
them : it was too risky, and they never tried it again.

Murrel, however, went on down through the Span-
ish countries on a tour of inspection. "I wanted to
see if there was no opening for a speculation in those
countries. I thought I might get some strong friends
there, but of all the people in the world, the Span-
iards are the most treacherous and cowardly." This
was certainly the opinion of an expert, at least in
treachery. He was soon on the road for home again.

On his return, in 1832, the bitter blow fell. While
in Nashville, he was arrested for the theft of an
ornery mare (it had belonged to "a widow woman in
Williamson County") ; he was tried; he was sent to
jail. '"The verdict and judgment was that Murrel
should serve twelve months' imprisonment; be given
thirty lashes on his bare back at the public whipping
post; that he should sit two hours in the pillory on
each of three successive days ; be branded on the left
thumb with the letters H. T.' 4 in the presence of the
Court; and be rendered infamous."

The sentence was carried out to the letter. He was

4 That is, "Horse Thief."

238

Such Genteel Manners

whipped ; hooted and jeered at, he spent his period
in the pillory; on the third day he was brought in to
be branded. "At the direction of Sheriff Horton,
Murrel placed his hand on the railing around the
Judge's bench. With a piece of rope, Horton then
bound Murrel's hand to the railing. A negro brought
a tinner's stove and placed it beside the Sheriff. Hor-
ton took from the stove the branding iron, glanced
at it, found it red hot, and put it on Murrel's thumb.
The skin fried like meat. Horton held the iron on
Murrel's hand until the smoke rose two feet. Then
the iron was removed. Murrel stood the ordeal with-
out flinching. When his hand was released, he calmly
tied a handkerchief around it and went back to the
jail."

But if he was calm without, he was not so within.
He served his year's time, and each day his anger
went deeper, his rage grew more intense. "When they
turned me loose I was prepared for anything," he
said. "I wanted to kill all but my own girt." A mad-
ness had come upon him. His mind that had been
coiled so tightly now like a released spring flew open
and that fantastic scheme of his, for the Mystic
Confederacy and the negro rebellion, was born.

Instead of urging slaves to run away, he would
persuade them to rebel. Instead of selling them, he
would organize them: at his signal all should rise
together. His friends among the outlaws should each

239

The Outlaw Years

have his regiment. He himself of course should be
the supreme commander of them all. And when the
time came, with his army of slaves behind him, with
the outlaws around him, with his powerful friends
paving the way before him and in every river town
and wilderness crossroads a gang of skulking ruf-
fians eagerly awaiting his coming, he would sweep
in bloody and destructive fury through the country,
pillaging, sacking, burning, looting until "all but
his own girt" had indeed been killed, and he himself
had been raised, in omnipotent magnificence, to rule
his pirate kingdom !

This was the plan of MurreFs great "conspiracy."
It was a crazy scheme at best, but not so crazy then
as now, and it is interesting to speculate how far he
might have gone with it, had he not been betrayed.
In the end of course there is no doubt that he
would have failed. The towns would have risen,
the honest people mobilized, the soldiers have poured
in if already his unruly troops had not wrought
their own defeat by internal quarrels.

But the towns were far apart, the citizenry scat-
tered, the Government forces far away, and before
they could all have been marshaled to combat this
eruption of the outlaws Murrel would have seen
blood enough to satisfy even his insatiable vengeful-
ness, in the massacres at lonely plantations, the fu-

240

Such Genteel Manners

rious encounters in swamp and wilderness that must
inevitably have followed.

At any rate, once his scheme had burst upon him,
Murrel gave no heed to its flaws. He was in the rnood
for the long chance ; he had given over logic, and the
outlaws in the main agreed with him. He rushed back
to New Orleans : "I collected all my friends at one
of our houses, and we sat in council three days, be-
fore we got our plans to our notion ; we then deter-
mined to undertake the rebellion at every haz-
ard. . . ."

He went galloping up and down the territory. He
formed his Clan, with its hierarchy of officers and
underlings. He mapped his ground and apportioned
his districts. He sent his agents quietly proselytizing
among the bewildered negroes. He organized regu-
lar meetings at a carefully chosen headquarters. He
laid out his plan of battle and his lines of com-
munications.

He had everything ready. He had a nucleus of
some eighty officers and about three hundred lesser
agents banded together. He had set the date Christ-
mas Day, 1835 and the first objective Natchez
of the uprising. In all this, he showed no small skill
as an organizer and a general "as a soldier," a con-
temporary commented, "he would have had a bril-
liant success" but his fate was that the same in-
stincts of pride and vanity that had driven him in the

241

The Outlaw Years

development of his scheme were to ruin him, just
short of its fulfilment

No more grandiose conception had a more futile
conclusion. He stole two niggers from an obscure
parson, and a young man named Stewart rode out
after him to trace the stolen property, and he told
that young man everything.

242

DOWNFALL

MURREL AND STEWART went riding slowly on. Mur-
rel, now that he had revealed his identity, told every-
thing. He even told how he had decided to take the
younger man into his confidence, and there is some-
thing ludicrous in the spectacle of him, hooked by
his own bait and yet not knowing it, explaining fatu-
ously: "I knew you had the true stuff in you from
the first, but I wanted to test it.

"Give me an hour with a man," he said, "and I
can tell you what stuff he is. I turn the talk to some-
thing shady, and if he takes the bit I give him more,
until I know what he will stand. But if he seems to
start back, then I make a joke of the matter and say
no more. But I could see hell dance in your eyes from
the minute I started talking about that elder brother.
. . . It's all in knowing how to take a man," he ex-
plained patronizingly. Stewart fetched a grin, shame-
faced but admiring, as of one who must admit that
the joke is on him.

Murrel talked on ; he mentioned at last "a matter
of more importance than nigger-stealing" : the Con-
spiracy.

243

The Outlaw Years

"This is a matter that is known only to a few of
our leading characters," he said. "The clan are not
all of the same girt"

But Stewart was to be inducted, forthwith, into
the inner circle : "The first class we call the Grand
Council. The second class are those we have to do
what we are not willing to do ourselves. This class
we call the 'strykers.' We have already about four
hundred of the Grand Council and near six hundred
and fifty of the strykers.

"But by the time we start off on Christmas Day,
I expect we will have more than two thousand in the
Clan."

He told how, all through the territory, the Clan's
agents were at work, stirring up dissatisfaction
among the negroes, prodding the vicious ones, in-
spiring them with stories of how Toussaint POuver-
ture, in the West Indies, had led blacks like them-
selves to freedom and glory.

How, Stewart wondered, did he take care of the
danger that some simple nigger might up and give
the whole show away?

Murrel assured him there was no danger there:
the Clan kept them in a state of superstitious terror.
"Every one that engages with us," he said, "is sworn
to secrecy." And they made the matter binding in a
way well calculated to impress the childlike nature
of the negroes. "We have a long ceremony for the

244

Downfall

oath, and when we give it we show them a monstrous
picture of a great devil, to teach them obedience, and
the skeleton of a man, to show them what will hap-
pen if they are unfaithful. . . ."

Murrel's friendship was overwhelming : like some
wild beast grown suddenly fawning, he seemed only
the more dangerous for his flattering advances. "I'll
make a man of you," he said.

"By God I" he said. "I'll show you the plumpest
girls that ever come across 1"

He would make the lad his personal aide. "Hues,"
he said, "I want you to be with me at New Orleans
the night that the niggers commence their work!"

He explained how the rebellion was to begin si-
multaneously in several places; then close in on it-
self, gathering strength as it were centripetally ; then
sweep triumphantly down the River.

His bitterness had sunk deep: all his hopes now
were focussed on the destruction of others: "I in-
tend to head the company that attacks New Orleans.
I have always wanted to smash that city. Think of it,
Hues even the British couldn't take it!"

He was reminded of a curious incident that had
occurred in his earlier days, when he robbed along
the Trace. He had been jogging northward toward
the Tennessee country, when a very paragon of clc-

245

The Outlaw Years

gance came spurring behind him. "I was overtaken
by a tall and good-looking young man, riding an
elegant horse, and the young gentleman's whole get-
out was the richest that could be had." They saluted
each other, as travelers will ; they fell to talking.

"We rode on, and soon got very intimate, and
agreed to be company through the Choctaw Nation."
Murrel himself was a pridef ul dresser : each admired
the other's outfit "We were two damned fine-looking
men, and to hear us talk we were very rich.

"I felt him on the subject of speculation, but damn
it, he cursed the speculators, and said he was in a bad
condition to fall into the hands of such damned vil-
lains, as he had the cash with him that twenty nig-
gers had sold for." At this, Murrel needed no fur-
ther encouragement.

It was a lonely country. The tall young man rode
on, loose in his saddle, gesturing, boasting; Murrel
waited his chance.

They came to a place where the Trace crossed the
dry bed of a creek. Murrel said he was very thirsty ;
he said that, up the creek a ways, there was an ex-
cellent spring. They drew up, their horses prancing.
"You first, sir," said Murrel courteously, and the
proud young gentleman went clattering ahead up the
gully. Murrel followed, until they were out of sight
of the trail.

"I drew my pistol and shot him through. He fell,

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dead." And that was where the joke came in. "Well,
sir, I commenced hunting for his cash. I found a
large pocketbook and it was stuffed full; when I
began to open it I thought it was a treasure indeed.

"But Oh! The contents of that book! It was filled
with copies of songs, and forms of love letters, and
clippings of poems and some of his own writing
but no cash.

"I began to cut off his clothes with my knife, and
examine them for his money. ... I found four dol-
lars and a half in change, and no more I Well, thought
I, and is this the amount that twenty niggers was sold
for?" The joke had been on himself, and Murrel
laughed, but a little bitterly: "The damned young
hypocrite. But it served him out as he deserved !"

They rode all day, and that night they stopped at
a small inn that lay just back from the Mississippi
River; the inn was kept by a man named Jonathan
Champeon. This was to be their last day on the
Tennessee side.

For three days Stewart had been riding, gaping,
nodding, admiring, listening to this man's tales of
lust and blood and murder. "He had heard him re-
count the black deeds of his life until his blood had
frequently chilled. He was not willing for Murrel
to escape justice any longer": and yet at the thought

247

The Outlaw Years

of what lay before him his blood grew colder still,
with fear.

For next day, they would cross into Arkansaw.
Next day they would be in the Clan's headquarters.
So far, after all, he had had but one man to outwit,
one man to face if it came to fighting, but over there
he would have not one but dozens of enemies to con-
tend with, and on their own ground, in their own
headquarters. He knew that once he crossed the River
he would be abandoning all hope of resistance or
escape; he knew that if by the merest chance or
error he were betrayed it would mean his certain
end, and worse, no word of his ending would ever,
perhaps, be heard. Crossing the River, the young
man felt, would be like crossing into death itself and
like even the most disheartened suicide he wanted
to leave some message to explain his going. He could
not bear to face, without a word, such total oblivion.

They were the only lodgers at the little inn ; that
evening they sat in the common room with the land-"
lord, talking by the fireplace. The landlord was a
lank quiet fellow, imperturbable and slow; he lis-
tened a great deal and said very little: he resisted
MurrePs best efforts to draw him out. Stewart
watched him ; the man seemed honest. But honest or
not, Stewart felt he must tell somebody, or break
down completely.

And so next morning when Murrel and he had

248

Downfall

traveled some little distance from the inn, he mut-
tered something about a pair of gloves and came
rushing back to Champeon again.

He must have made a bewildering figure, starting
in on the tavern-keeper, glancing back over his shoul-
der and then blurting out his incoherent tale of nig-
ger-stealing, conspiracy and murder. He hurried
his words: he was almost babbling. No, there was
nothing he wanted; nobody could help him; he had
to go on, alone. Only, if he didn't come back, he
wanted to ask that some word of his going would be
sent on to Parson Henning. Champeon, in his slow
way, promised that the message would be delivered.

And again, Stewart asked, could the other spare
him a pistol? He would feel safer. Champeon gave
him a pistol.

And then Stewart darted away again, hurrying to
rejoin the waiting Murrel.

Murrel, when he got back, was grumbling: "You
took a long time about a damned pair of gloves I" he
said.

They got down to the River, and there their trou-
bles began. It was high water: the flood had swept in
through the low lands along the bank, blocking the
trail to the bayou where the Clan's private ferry was
hidden. So they pushed on up through the bottoms,
slipping and sliding sometimes where the swamp-

249

The Outlaw Years

mud had frozen, sometimes plunging knee-deep in
the icy water when the crust broke beneath their
weight.

At last they emerged at a tiny clearing and cabin,
owned by a Parson Hargus. He had a boat, an old
skiff, but so rotten and leaky that it seemed it would
hardly carry them. But the rage that always flamed
in Murrel when an obstacle blocked him was blaz-
ing now: he would take that boat and cross in it, or
sink.

They set out, rowing furiously, but the rip of the
current caught them and swept them into the bend.
They made back for the shore again; they landed
three miles lower down, at a Mr. Irvin's plantation.

They rested there. Murrel did a bit of business: he
said he was a negro-trader; after his errand across
the River had been accomplished he was going back
into Tennessee to fetch a bunch of slaves for sale
down the River. Irvin spoke for three field hands,
and Murrel agreed to deliver them in two weeks'
time.

Then they set out again in the skiff, and this time
they made the crossing. They landed just opposite
the mouth of the Old River, in the break of the
Chickasaw Bend.

Here there was nothing but swamp and desolation,
a long flat rain-stricken freezing stretch of cane-
brake and swamp-willows. Murrel led the way, strik-

250

Downfall

ing out along a trail that only he could trace ; Stew-
art, following through the dim trees and the misty
silence, felt himself already half a ghost.

They came to a lake, and a hut on its bank. There
were a couple of men lounging in the doorway, and
a couple more at a table inside, drinking. There were
four negroes sitting quietly, backs to the wall, in a
corner of the room. The men were wild-looking fel-
lows, heavily armed. They saluted Murrel ; then one
led the way down to a landing and ferried them over
the lake. And then Murrel and Stewart plunged into
the swamp again, slogging through the mud, climb-
ing over rotted logs. . . .

Murrel put his hand to the other's arm and halted
him. "Do you see yonder cottonwood that rises above
the other trees?"

"Yes. I see it."

Murrel gave his arm a little intimate exultant
shake. "That stands in the Garden of Eden. That is
headquarters !"

The clan's headquarters was a large low building
of fresh-cut logs, built like an Indian council-house,
with one long room and a number of smaller cham-
bers opening, alcove fashion, along the side. The
place was sparse of furniture : there were bear hides
and piled straw-bedding in the alcoves ; in the large

251

The Outlaw Years

room, save for a few chairs and a long trestle table,
the furnishings consisted mostly of what the previous
passing tenants had left behind. There were old
shirts, worn boots, empty bottles, a ripped pair of
breeches, shoved aside here and there in the vacant
corners; a rusted knife, bits of shattered crockery
lying half-embedded in the earthen floor.

Pegs had been driven between the logs in the wall,
and here were hung the belongings of the present
occupants, their saddle bags and holsters, shot-
pouches, leather shirts. All the old smells that each
article harbored the rain and the swamp-damp had
revived again : the place reeked of sweat, stale whis-
key, leather and manure.

Some ten or eleven men were grouped about the
fireplace where a huge log was burning; Murrel
made for it, for a dry and a warm. The others made
way for Stewart and saluted the chief ; later, a dozen
more men drifted in, as the news spread that Murrel
had arrived.

There were greetings and questionings. Why
weren't there more men on hand, Murrel wanted to
know. They told him, many had been held at their
homes by the hard season and the cold ; several who
had come had waited a day or two and then gone off
again, thinking Murrel himself had decided not to
come : "They had got uneasy about him."

252

Downfall

Murrel fell to cursing, explaining how the high
water and the rain and the difficult crossing had held
him up. He had had a hell of a time and he blamed
it all on that "fool Henning: the damned old preach-
er's niggers had cost him more trouble than any he
had ever stolen in all his life." Stewart, who had al-
most forgotten that he had started out originally to
trace his friend's slaves, pricked up his ears.

Where, Murrel demanded, were the niggers? A
man named Lloyd spoke up: in the chief's absence
he had taken charge. He said that "the niggers had
come in badly frost-bit, and so they thought it best
to push them as soon as possible. They had sent the
two niggers and three others and seven horses down
the River on a trading boat, to the Yazoo market
And they had given the men in charge several thou-
sand dollars in counterfeit, to sell along the way."

There was drinking. Stewart was introduced, and
made a member of the Clan. "They gave him the
two degrees in signs, which belong to the two classes.
He first received the sign of the stryker" : this was a
wave of the hand, with the wrist bent in a peculiar
fashion. "Then they gave him the sign of the Grand
Counsellor": a hand-shake with the fingers closed
against the palm.

It was a childish business, no doubt, but one in
which the minds of those primitive ruffians delighted.

253

The Outlaw Years

They hailed the new member and shook hands with
him by turns. "He was practised by them until he
could give and receive the signs as well as any."

More whiskey was drunk. Everybody was fuming
up for a real stamping thrashing smashing drunk;
they pressed Stewart to drink, but he dared not.
There is a moment when antipathy must show itself
if not in words at least in the look, or the gesture,
or the single freezing instant when the only possible
expression is disgust and he felt that moment was
rapidly approaching. Drunk, he would be sure to
betray himself ; even, sober, he could hardly contain
himself.

It began to seem almost as if they were egging
him on. Murrel was blustering, boasting: what
wouldn't he do to old man Henning, some day! By
God! He would give five hundred dollars to have
him over into Arkansaw, and he went on to say how
he would torture him. But as far as that went, let
him stay in Tennessee ; they would haul him out of
his bed some fine night and give him his dressing
down: two hundred lashes on his bare back might
teach him to mind his business. Stewart listened with
a frozen grin.

And at last he felt he had to get away. He called
Murrel aside; he told him he was going. "I'll wait
across the River for you, at Iryin's."

254

Downfall

Murrel, half drunk and riotous, laughed at him.
"You don't want to go now. Fun's just beginning!"
Anyway, there were plans to be discussed to-morrow:
stay till to-morrow.

Stewart said he would leave his vote in Murrel's
hands and Murrel, flattered, nodded. Weaving, he
tried to find another argument: "Look here! To-mor-
row we'll get in a load of Arkansaw girls and have a
regular frolic!"

Stewart said there was a girl at Irvin's he wanted
to see. At this, Murrel grinned and winked and
poked him jovially. So that was it! Well, then. . . .

Stewart, with a relieved heart "he breathed easy,
he felt, for the first time in four days" ferried back
across the River. He stayed that night at Irvin's; he
told the man his story, and arranged with him to
have a guard concealed about the house when Mur-
rel came back from Tennessee with his slaves. In this
way, they could catch him with the goods.

And next day, when Murrel came across the River,
the two rode out again, toward Madison County and
home.

They rode as far as Wesley together, and here they
parted, for Stewart pretended that he was bound
down south for the Yalo Busha. As he left, Murrel
wrote out for him a long list of nearly one hundred

255

The Outlaw Years

names all clansmen he might meet along the way.
Stewart started south ; in a mile or two he doubled
east, to cut in ahead of Murrel on the road to
Madison.

And three days later, when Murrel rode in at his
plantation, a dozen armed men were waiting for
him. Murrel took the matter with the utmost con-
fidence : he had been arrested before.

They questioned him. Where had he been? Over
into Arkansaw on a business trip. Alone? No, a
young fellow named Hues had ridden with him most
of the way. A friend of his? Hardly, he had met
the fellow for the first time in his life at Estanaula.

And then the farmers sprang their surprise. "Mr.
Hues," the sheriff called, and Murrel saw his young
friend pushing forward from the crowd. At the sight,
Murrel's nerve almost broke: "Murrel for the first
time lost his spirits and fortitude. He appeared as
though he would faint, and they gave him water
several times before he recovered."

But later, as he was being transported under heavy
guard to the county jail at Jackson, he recovered his
bravado. "Who is that fellow Hues? Does he live
around here?" he asked.

The officer, who had been told to keep Stewart's
identity secret, replied non-committally: Hues was
a stranger in those parts ; he didn't know much about
him.

256

Downfall

"Well," said Murrel, "he had better remain a
stranger. I have friends."

It was a strange situation. Stewart had planned to
capture Murrel at Irvin's, when he might be taken
with stolen slaves actually in his possession. But the
long-thwarted farmers at Madison had overruled
him, and now the only evidence against Murrel was
the testimony of Stewart himself. They set out to
find some corroboration for that.

A sheriff's posse rode down with Stewart to the
River, and crossed into Arkansaw; they searched the
swamp from end to end, and they found nothing but
the abandoned camp and the hut on the lake : word
had passed ahead of them, through the Clan's mys-
terious channels, and all the men they sought had
flown.

They rode down the River, hunting the boatload
of slaves that had been bound for the Yazoo Market.
That, too, had disappeared.

They posted a guard at Iran's, on the chance that
some other agent might come in to sell the slaves. No
one turned up.

Murrel lay quietly in jail, chatting with his
guards; his wife visited him daily. He seemed so
docile that at last the guards grew careless, and one
night with saws smuggled in by his wife, with a

257

The Outlaw Years

horse waiting outside supplied by an unsuspected
townsman he broke jail and vanished.

But the sheriff's men rode hot on his trail, and an
easy trail it was to follow, for it was strewn with ar-
ticles known to belong to Murrel a hat, a pistol, a
writing pad, an overcoat and they galloped heartily
along until the trail led them into a swamp and ended
there with a mocking suddenness. Murrel had
planned his escape so well as to have arranged be-
forehand that one of the Clansmen should lay down
this false scent for the pursuers. He himself had been
smuggled out of the State and, into Alabama, con-
cealed in a wagon-load of grain.

But they caught him; he was recognized in a
tavern near the Muscle Shoals, on the old military
road to Fort Deposit. They brought him back to
Jackson and there, like a wildcat raging against the
bars, he was jailed again. Trial was set for July.

Murrel was not the only man to worry about the
situation : he had sent word to the Clansmen confess-
ing that he had given Stewart a list containing many
of their names, and now these accomplices saw sud-
den ruin staring at them : "Many of them had stood
fair in society, and they were desperately pestered
for what would happen." So far, Stewart had not
revealed his list, he had hardly more than hinted at
the existence of the Conspiracy: he was saving all

Downfall

that for the trial, and all up and down the Valley
shady bankers, slippery traders and cozening mer-
chants and smart men generally who hadn't objected
to mixing a dishonest penny or two with their honest
ones, were scrambling and sweating for some way to
forestall the disclosure.

And the way, after all, was clear, "There were but
two alternatives : they must either destroy the char-
acter of Stewart, or he would destroy them." Stewart
was the sole witness; they must, obviously, destroy
his claim to credibility.

And so, all through the territory, vague and ugly
rumors began to circulate. Stewart's father had been
a horse thief in Georgia and the son was no better.
People down in the Choctaw Purchase had left off
trading at his store: everything he dealt in was
shoddy; his partner had left him, swearing he was
a robber. He had been ducked in mud and caned off
a river boat, for cheating at cards. He was wanted
in Alabama, as a counterfeiter.

In all this, Murrel's boasted legal knowledge stood
him in good part. He occupied his time in jail in
drawing up a sort of circular letter, which he sent
out through his lawyers, ostensibly to aid in accumu-
lating evidence for his defense. Actually, it was de-
signed to destroy the value of Stewart's testimony,
first by attacking his character and, more directly, by

259

The Outlaw Years

proving that he had a personal interest and profit to
be derived by obtaining Murrel's arrest.
The letter was in the form of a certificate :

"This day personally appeared before us, etc.,
Jehu Barney, James Tucker, Thomas Dark, Joseph
Dark, Wm. Loyd, etc., etc., who, being sworn
in due form of law, do depose and say that they
were present and saw . . . Steward of Yellow
Busha, in the evening of the first day of February
last, in company with John Murrel, at the house
of said Jehu Barney, over the Mississippi River;
and that he the said Steward informed us that he
was in pursuit of John Murrel for stealing two
negro men from Preacher Henning, in Madison
County near Denmark; and that he had told Mur-
rel his names was Hues, and he wished us to call
him Hues in Murrel's hearing. We also recollect
to have heard him, the said Steward, say distinctly
that he was to get five hundred dollars ($500) for
finding the said negroes and causing said Murrel
to be convicted for stealing them. Said Steward
did not say who was to give him this reward, but
he stated that he held the obligation of several rich
men for that amount.

Signed "

Lloyd, Barney, Dark and the rest had been chosen
because, aside from their association with the Clan,

260

Downfall

they were occupied as merchants, wood-traders, etc.,
in the Arkansaw country, and lived on the outskirts
of the swamp where the Clan had met

Consequently, if Stewart admitted having confided
in Irvin and Champeon on the east bank of the River,
it might be adduced that he had confided in others,
ostensibly as honest, on the farther bank. According
to this representation, the Clangs headquarters be-
came nothing more than a sort of winter camp in
the swamp, where a group of honest toilers of the
neighborhood met to disport themselves, and into
which Stewart, under an assumed name, had intruded
himself, while his supposed admission that he was
to get five hundred dollars reward for the arrest gave
ground for the assertion that he had invented all the
evidence on which Murrel had been arrested, purely
to collect the money.

At the same time, Murrel inclosed an explanatory
letter, with his circular, touching on Stewart's char-
acter by a clever innuendo which was given added
force by his manner of mentioning the matter in
an aside, as if of something too well known to need
insisting:

"The above is a copy given to me, by one who
heard him make the admission therein contained
in your presence. You will therefor please send me
the names of all that will testify to these facts in
writing, and also send me die names of all and

261

The Outlaw Years

every man that will certify these witnesses to be
men of truth.

J. MURREL

"P. S. But above all things, arrest him for pass-
ing the six twenty dollar bills. You will have to go
out into the Yellow Busha County, near the cen-
tre, for him. Undoubtedly this matter will be
worthy your attention, for if it be one, two, or
three hundred dollars, the gentleman to whom he
passed it, can present it before a Magistrate and
take a judgment for the amount, and his provision
store, etc., is worth that much money.

"My distressed wife will probably call on you,
and if she does, you may answer all her requests
without reserve.

Yours, etc., etc.,

J. MURREL."

So, in growing venom, matters moved on into
Spring. Stewart had been chased out of Kentucky
with the irate father of a girl he had ruined at his
heels. Another man had it on good authority that the
reason Stewart had left Yalo Busha was because the
man at whose house he boarded had objected to
Stewart's attentions to his wife.

Stewart had always been a wanderer; he was a
young fellow, completely alone : against such rumors,
issuing from sources of such impregnable respecta-

262

Downfall

bility, he was more or less powerless. People who had
been his friends now avoided him. It began to look
as if not Murrel, but Stewart himself, were on trial.

Almost the only place he had ever struck foot down
and settled was at Yalo Busha, and so now, in his
dismay and consternation, he decided to return there,
until the trial. He would go back to the Vess family,
who had always had a pot boiling with coffee on the
stove for him; to Clanton, who had helped him so
kindly with his affairs.

His return was a fresh disillusionment

Vess met him at the cabin ; he "looked very wild
and confused." Mrs. Vess gave him a heartier greet-
ing almost, again, too hearty but there was a
straining tension in the air: they watched him fur-
tively. Like a sudden flood of dirty water spurting
up through a thousand crevices, the hidden currents
of the underworld had inundated the territory; in
Tennessee it had almost sucked him under and now
he saw the tide had carried even here: here it had
swamped the foundations of his life. For the first
time, he began to feel actually afraid.

How much he had to fear he was soon to discover.
He had arrived late ; Vess and his wife had finished
their meal but Mrs. Vess insisted on fixing up a
snack for him. He refused in his discouragement
he had no appetite for food but she pouted and in-

263

The Outlaw Years

sisted. At least, he would have a cup of coffee, like
he always used to : a cup of coffee and a piece of hoe-
cake, after his travels.

She flounced out into the kitchen lean-to, and
came back after a time with a hot cup steaming. He
stared at it: he could not touch it. And suddenly, all
the coaxing faded from her face, and it was hard
and bitter with some unreadable emotion. Stewart
got up wearily and went out into the dooryard. "He
walked out and got under a cart bed which was lean-
ing against the house": standing there unobserved
and at first unobserving, he saw what went on within
the house.

The cat jumped up on the table ; it prowled over
to the cup he had left there, stuck out a tentative
tongue. Mrs. Vess saw it; she whirled, cried out, and
snatched the animal away. Vess made some grum-
bling comment. His wife replied, "Never mind. It's
my catl" And then, with great care, she took up the
coffee cup, carried it out to the rear door, and poured
the contents on the ground.

It was all so odd that at first it seemed incompre-
hensible to the stunned Stewart. And then, in a
flash, he understood. The cup had been poisoned!
They had meant to poison himl

A few days later, he had a strange confirmation of
all his suspicions. He had moved, with all his be-

264

Downfall

longings, to the cabin of an old bachelor named
Sanders. But he was restless: he spent a good deal of
his time wandering out beyond the town in the sur-
rounding forest, pondering the strange situation into
which he had been projected.

And as he walked, one day, a stranger came rid-
ing : a man with a big bulldozing bearded face and
a holster of pistols swung from the saddle before him.
A picture of the desperado, as he came booting his
jaded horse along. When he came abreast of Stewart
he hailed him.

He asked directions to the town, and Stewart told
him. And finally the great bulky fellow blurted out
the question, "Do you know of a man named Virgil
Stewart, living there?"

Stewart, suspecting everybody, had already been
wondering what the man's errand might be, and now
he was sure of it. He calculated his answer to seem
a little cold. Yes, he said, but as if the subject dis-
pleased him, he knew Stewart.

The rider seemed surprised at the tone. "What!
Don't you like him, sir?"

"I have seen people I like as well."

The man settled himself crosswise in the saddle
and stared, then grinned slyly. "And why don't you
like him, if I may inquire?"

"Why," said Stewart, still affecting a certain re-

265

The Outlaw Years

serve. "It seems to me that he interferes too much in
things that don't concern him."

And now, cautiously, the rider gave the sign of
the Clan. Stewart answered it, and the man let loose
with a burst of loutish satisfaction. "Oho!" he cried.
"So you are up to it, eh?"

Stewart was up to it, and the fellow, with almost
childish pleasure, dismounted awkwardly to chat
with his new friend. His name, he said, was George
Aker. "I am sent on by the Council to stop the
wind of that damned Stewart, and I want you to
help me." With all his bluster, murder seemed not
to be an errand he liked to tackle alone.

Stewart told him just enough to make him tell
more that his name was Tom Goodin, that he him-
self had been after Stewart, but waiting his chance
for a sure kill and soon Aker was revealing every-
thing.

He told how Vess had been given one hundred dol-
lars to poison Stewart, and how that had failed. He
told how Clanton as well was a power in the Clan:
"The fellow with whom he works is a good friend
to us." Clanton had promised to make charges that
Stewart had embezzled funds from the store, and
had passed counterfeit money in the town, but he
had some compunctions still: "Clanton has always
been friends with him," said Aker, and he told how

266

Downfall

Clanton's friendship had taken a curious paradoxical
turn. "He will make no charges against Stewart while
he is living, do you see, but directly he is killed,
Clanton will come out with it."

Vess, too, would charge adultery against his wife.
Others were ready to appear, swearing that Stewart
had dealt out counterfeit money to them. It only re-
mained, then, to get Stewart killed: to accomplish
this he, George Aker, had been sent; he was to be
paid two hundred dollars if he succeeded.

If he failed, then the Clan's last resort would be
to send a posse of subsidized officers of the law from
Arkansaw, to extradite him thither on a charge of
counterfeiting. And Aker grinned: "When we get
him back over the Mississippi, we will give him hell ;
we will give him something to do besides acting the
spy; we will speechify him!"

The conversation ended in an extraordinary pro-
posal : Aker offered to split his two hundred dollars
with Stewart, if he killed that sneaking hypocrite,
Stewart! And Stewart gravely agreed. He urged
Aker to camp out of town that night, in order not to
put Stewart on his guard by the arrival of a stranger;
and they parted, Stewart agreeing to meet him again
next day, with the news that Stewart was dead.

Stewart never saw the man again: discreetly in-
quiring, he learned enough to conclude that the
blundering fellow had learned of his error, and had

267

The Outlaw Years

decamped. But thenceforward, until the day of the
trial, Stewart slept with a barred window, and never
moved without a brace of pistols ready.

The trial was held at Jackson, at the sessions of
the Circuit Court, in July, 1834. Murrel came well
defended ; his chief counsel was no less a personage
than the Honorable Milton Brown, Esq., who was
ten years later to attain worthier fame by introducing
in Congress the bill by which Texas was annexed to
the United States. In the present instance, he was
chiefly distinguished for the savagery with which
he attacked the testimony of Stewart.

The whole matter, as had been foreseen, had
boiled down to the question as to whether or not
Stewart's story could be believed. He was the State's
only important witness ; he stood in the little railed-
off docket before the judges' seat and read out, pains-
takingly and conscientiously, the entire transcript he
had made of the conversations with Murrel on that
famous ride.

It took hours ; it occupied a whole afternoon and
morning of the court's proceedings but he read every
word. There were loud guffaws and consequent
poundings of the judges' gavel when he read off,
portentously, Murrel's remarks on the girls in Ar-
kansaw. There were heavy silences, mixed of incre-
dulity and amazement, when the Conspiracy was

268

Downfall

mentioned, and all the ramifications of Murrel's or-
ganization appeared. There was almost a riot, when
Murrel's list of Clansmen was read and partisans
and enemies of the men named hooted or cheered.

When Stewart stepped down, the State's case, save
for a number of character witnesses to vouch for his
honesty, was at an end. It was noon of the second
day, and the Court adjourned for dinner. In the
afternoon, the defense had its turn.

Murrel had planned to call to his aid an imposing
array of his friends but these, as the matter pro-
gressed, had one by one deserted him : all the smart
men who had been hand-in-glove with him were
withdrawing the hand, and the glove was left very
limp indeed.

Brown, however, had discovered a point that he
rather fancied, in the fact that Stewart admitted
having taken the Clan's oath and accepted its sign-
ritual, only to betray it. With this for entering wedge,
he hammered home a bitter and relentless attack on
Stewart himself. He was noted for his sharp wit and
his acid phrases, and to-day he surpassed himself.

He dragged out all the scandalous rumors that had
been circulated and paraded them; he spoke of Cain
and Abel; he maintained that an oath, however
taken, was forever binding, and the man who broke it
was a sneak and a knave. He roared and thundered,
but it was all empty shouting and everybody except

269

The Outlaw Years

possibly Stewart who sat in a pale tense heat of re-
sentment through the long jeremiad knew as much.

At the end of the afternoon, Milton Brown waved
his hand, wiped his high portentous brow that was
now glistening with sweat, and sat down.

Half an hour later, John A. Murrel, found guilty
of negro-stealing and of selling stolen negroes, was
commanded by the Court to rise and hear his sen-
tence.

He rose obediently, and stood with his head low-
ered and his face beet-red with the last great rage
that burned within him. He was sentenced to serve a
period of ten years, at hard labor, in the State Peni-
tentiary at Nashville. Then he sat down, as if auto-
matically; he sat wooden and motionless, until the
sheriff and his guards came and seized his arms and
led him away. A great crowd, hostile and jeering,
followed him across the Court House Square to the
door of the county jail.

A few days later, he was sent on to Nashville, un-
der heavy guard. There, among others who came to
look at the noted bandit, was the learned Professor
O. S. Fowler, phrenologist of wide repute. By spe-
cial arrangement with the authorities, he was per-
mitted to read the bumps on Murrel's head.

He found, as might have been expected, that "En-
ergy, Acquisitiveness were fully developed; Secre-
tiveness, quite large; Self-Esteem, large and active;

270

Downfall

Adhesiveness, slight . . ." In sum, the Professor
stated : "He has natural Ability, if it had been rightly
called out and directed, for a superior Scholar, sci*
entific man, lawyer or a Statesman."

271

THE FOURTH OF JULY

MURREL was in jail, ruined, betrayed. His wife, with
her household, moved out of the territory; his
strange friends vanished mysteriously, retreating
again to their hiding places in swamp and wilder-
ness. Lawyer Brown, strolling debonairly on the
streets of Nashville, was suddenly confronted by
Stewart, horsewhip in hand and determined to
avenge the other's insults at the trial: only the in-
tervention of bystanders saved Murrel's advocate
from a thorough thrashing. Lawyer Brown left
town next morning.

Stewart, still fearing for his life, set out a few
days later for Lexington, Kentucky. Passing Patton's
Ferry, a few miles out from Nashville, he was way-
laid by three ruffians. He spurred against them, fir-
ing his pistol; his quick action disconcerted their
aim but one of them, making a bludgeon of his rifle,
caught the young man a clip on the shoulders that
"was like to have unjointed his neck."

He got away; he rode, dizzy with pain, clinging
to the saddle-horn, until he had outdistanced their
pursuit. Then he fell over in a field and lay there,
half delirious, until dark; by night, he continued
his journey.

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The Fourth of July

Reaching Lexington, he found the security he
craved. The Clan could not reach him there and
so, in tranquillity, he drew up a digest of his tes-
timony at the trial: he included his description of
the famous trip into Arkansaw, his conversations
with the bandit, his experiences at the Clan's head-
quarters, and the complete list of fellow-conspira-
tors which Murrel had given him. The whole docu-
ment was published in pamphlet form and distrib-
uted through the territory; almost immediately, a
series of self-constituted commentators rewrote the
material in narratives each a little more blood-
curdling than the last, until finally the astute editor
of the Police Gazette capped them all with a penny-
dreadful "pictorial Life" of the "GREAT WEST-
ERN LAND PIRATE."

Stewart had intended his pamphlet as a vindica-
tion and a warning: in both respects, it failed. Mur-
rel was in jail and thus, obviously, harmless. At times
before the trial in the ease with which the bandit
had escaped, the almost magical way in which all
evidence against him vanished out of the path of
the searching posses men had sensed uneasily that
there were dark forces massing behind the bandit
leader, but all that had faded now. And as for all
this talk of conspiracy and rebellion, nobody,
frankly, believed it

273

The Outlaw Years

It was too mad a scheme for a normal mind to
credit and what little disposition there was to be-
lieve in it was doused in the ridicule and baffled by
the vilification to which Stewart himself had been
subjected. Those random tales of counterfeiting,
wife-stealing, embezzling had had their bite and
now Stewart, crying his fantastic warning through
the wilderness, met with nothing but laughter and
disbelief.

It is characteristic of the situation that at the con-
clusion of the pamphlet he felt it necessary to include
a series of sworn statements by his various friends
and business associates, attesting to his honesty and
trustworthiness. And it is characteristic of the essen-
tially sporting attitude generally prevailing toward
the law and toward ethics at the time, that all this
testimony had little weight against the widespread
feeling that it was a pretty rotten trick for one man
to listen to another man's secrets and then betray
them. The hardy westerners had no use for Stew-
art's brand of amateur sleuthing.

The Clan, however, continued. Headless now, it
moved on fumblingly; as some swamp-reptile might
twitch and thresh about, blind but dangerous still,
long after its brain center had been destroyed, so the
Conspiracy survived as if by instinct in the vague
plottings of swamp-refugees, in a formless restless

274

The Fourth of July

resentment among the rowdy denizens of the river
towns.

Here and there on an island in mid-Mississippi,
at a lonely camp in the canebrake in the Choctaw
Purchase little groups of Clansmen met and argued
and strove blunderingly to formulate their plans.
Their one shrewd move was to change the date that
had been set for the uprising: instead of waiting
until Christmas and thus giving the authorities time
to prepare for them, they decided to forestall re-
sistance by signaling the rebellion for the Fourth of

J^y.

And so, through the year that followed MurrePs
trial, the pot that he had set boiling continued to
simmer and stew. It was a time of bitterness and
resentment: the old democracy of the pioneers was
splitting up into castes and classes, each a mark for
the animosity of the others. Riverman hated lands-
man, the flatboatman hated the steamboat crew, the
poor man hated the arrogant rich and the outlaw
hated them all.

Murrel had been shrewd enough to sense this con-
flict of interests in the social order and capitalize it;
lacking his direction, however, the Conspiracy lost
itself in the very criss-cross of passions it sought to
control. When at last the fuse was laid and the
match applied, the whole rebellion spent itself in
a series of scattering and sporadic explosions of

275

The Outlaw Years

petty hatred and localized animosity: it is likely that,
in all the crowds that rioted and blustered through
the river- towns, not one participant in ten had any
idea of what the fighting had been, originally,
about.

All they knew was that, for months, there had been
bitterness and evil feeling; for months, men's pas-
sions had been strung tighter and tighter until at
last they jangled loose in impatient and unconsid-
ered action. Men struck out pointlessly; they made
strange gestures, menacing but ineffectual.

In Vicksburg, a gambler named Cabler suddenly
appeared, drunk and boisterous, at the field outside
town where the Vicksburg Volunteer Rifle Corps
was holding its annual muster and barbecue. He in-
sisted on having a seat at table; he swore he was
as good as any one there. He plunged about, jostling,
jeering, mouthing obscenities: he was obviously
bent on getting into trouble. One of the officers of
the company remonstrated with him. Cabler imme-
diately struck him down.

Others leaped forward. In a twinkling the shady
grove with its long tables set out around the roast-
ing pit, its little groups of preening gentlemen and
ladies decorously smiling, was in disorder. The
ladies screamed and scurried; men milled about,

276

The Fourth of July

overturning tables, driving toward the spot where
the clash had begun.

C abler found himself suddenly hedged about
with flailing arms and furious faces. He drew his
pistol, but now that the trouble had started he seemed
himself a little bewildered. He stood a moment,
vaguely waving the weapon; suddenly he whirled
and ran back through the town again: people saw
him, still with his pistol drawn, go galloping in-
sanely down the quiet streets, to disappear among
the tumbled shanties at the Landing.

But later as with glittering arms and gleaming
uniforms the Vicksburg Volunteers paraded in the
Public Square a frightened negro pot-boy from one
of the river-side taverns came running with a formal
message from the gambler, notifying all and sundry
that he was coming back again, "armed, and resolved
to kill."

He appeared. The impeccable Volunteers charged
bayonets. Cabler never had a chance: he was ar-
rested, disarmed. "A loaded pistol and a large knife
and dagger were found." Indignant citizens trussed
him and then a peculiar problem presented itself:
on what possible charge could he be held? "The Law
could not reach him, since he had not committed the
crime intended; to free him would insure his ven-
geance. . . ." What could be done with the annoying
fellow?

277

The Outlaw Years

"It was determined to Lynch him, which is a
punishment provided for such as become obnoxious
in a way the Law cannot reach." So Cabler faced
his inglorious martyrdom; all his bitter rage had
vanished : he waited numbly while the mob pressed
about him.

"He was carried out under a guard, attended by
a crowd of respectable citizens"; they brought him
to the very grove where the barbecue had been held.
They halted near the roasting pit, still smoking from
the feast, and here another council was held and a
gentler punishment decided on. "He was tied to a
tree, punished with stripes, tarred and feathered, and
ordered to leave the city in 48 hours."

But that night, a sortie was made from the red-
light district by the gambler's friends. It was as in-
effectual as Cabler's crazy gesture had been. They
blustered up and down the streets; like bats, they
went swooping and blundering: at last, having ac-
complished nothing, they went straggling back to
their own dark dens again.

So it was with the other towns. Natchez-under-
the-Hill was the scene of a bloody battle between
the flatboatmen and the roughs of the gambling dens.
Everywhere the blind mob-impulse ruled.

In Memphis, good citizens enjoying the after-
noon promenade under the locust trees on Front

278

3.

<*

11
It

II
11

o

i
S

rt

The Fourth of July

Street were suddenly startled to see "Smoky Row"
and the "Pinch-Gut" swarming with people: it was
as if the whole district had boiled over, and the
ragged straggling uproarious population of brothels
and gambling houses alike came rushing up the Hill
in battle order.

Once they reached the Bluff, however, their ener-
gies seemed to fail: the concentrated fury that had
been born in the he?vy atmosphere of their dens
and alleys was as if dissipated in the rarer air of the
upper level.

The mob swung jerkily through the streets, zig-
zagging, blundering. "Burn the Court House!" some
one shouted. They set out running for the Public
Square; they came to the solid brick structure sit-
ting placidly among its trees and they halted, see-
sawing back and forth, irresolute. The Court House
was unguarded; they might burn it if they chose
but a sudden awe had struck them : the crowd ebbed
away again.

So they went rambling all day through the town.
Here and there bitter skirmishes developed: a mer-
chant barred his doors they were smashed into
kindling and the mob flowed into the shop, looted
it, and flowed out again; ladies surprised on some
by-street screamed and scurried less gentle ladies
ran hooting after them, tearing frocks and pulling
hair; armed citizens appeared in little quiet groups

279

The Outlaw Years

at the doors of the statelier dwellings armed gam-
blers and rowdies paraded in the dusty street outside
the fences, jeering, threatening. . . .

A few shots were fired; a few shanties were
burned; a great many curses were mouthed into
empty air. And at last, toward nightfall, the crowd
swung slowly down toward the River again, drink-
ing, boasting.

Curiously, it was in their own "Gut" that they
succeeded in doing the most damage: at the height
of the orgy that followed the manifestation the Pe-
draza Hotel, the largest structure in the district and a
hotbed of whores and gamblers, caught fire. And the
townsmen, from their vantage-point on the Bluff,
had the signal pleasure of watching the flames rise,
spread roaring through the flimsy structure and
finally destroy it utterly. Needless to say, on that
occasion, the fire-engine company was conspicu-
ously absent.

Meanwhile, in the settlements along the Trace,
the actual purpose of the Clan itself had been re-
vealed.

Toward the end of June, the wife of a wealthy
planter named Latham, living near the town of
Seattle's Bluff on the Big Black River in Madison
County, Mississippi, stepped out on the north gal-

280

The Fourth of July

lery of her home and overheard a curious conversa-
tion between a pair of negro slaves.

One of these was a nurse girl ; the other was a big
black field hand who had no business about the
house, anyway: the girl was holding one of Mrs.
Latham's babies in her arms. "But this here is such
a pretty little baby!" she was saying earnestly. "You-
all ought to know I never could kill that child 1"

The black man shook his head doggedly. "When
that day comes you-all got to, gal," he insisted.
"Won't be no never-could about it. Us got to kill
them all!"

But the girl still protested. "Go on kill all you-all
wants," she retorted. "Won't nobody touch this lamb
here. I won't let them touch him!"

Mrs. Latham, as soon as she had grasped the im-
port of the conversation, had drawn back out of
sight; now she slipped quietly away to tell her hus-
band what she had heard. He ordered the girl to
be brought immediately before him.

She came; her mind was already overweighted
with the dark secret that had been confided to her:
it needed only a stern look and a word from the
master to make her tell all. An hour later, Latham
was riding from one plantation to another among
his neighbors, spreading the direful warning that
plans were under way among the negroes for an
uprising and a general massacre of the whites.

281

The Outlaw Years

A meeting was held. One by one, suspected ne-
groes were dragged in and questioned. Fear and the
whip soon had them babbling, but few could give
more than the vaguest details of the scheme. It was
not until several groping days had passed that the
planters learned anything of the widespreading ram-
ifications of the conspiracy.

It was a young black boy named Joe who first
revealed the fact that white men had engineered the
black uprising. "He said that the negroes were going
to rise and kill all the whites on the Fourth, and that
they had a number of white men at their head : some
of them he knew by name, others he only knew when
he saw them.

"He mentioned the following white men as ac-
tively engaged in the business : Ruel Blake, Doctors
Cotton and Sanders, and many more, but could not
call their names: and that he had seen others. He
also gave the names of several slaves as ring leaders
in the business, who were understood to be captains
under these white men."

And he told how the negroes on each plantation
were to kill their immediate masters with axes, hoes,
clubs: how then they were to seize the arms in the
houses and circle in toward the towns. Meeting
there, they would ransack stores and dwelling ; they
would go on, killing whites and recruiting blacks,
until they were strong enough to attack Natchez in

282

The Fourth of July

force : so they would range up and down the River
until they had the whole territory under their con-
trol.

He told how a site for general headquarters had
been chosen, in the "Devil's Punch Bowl," a sunken
swamp just north of Natchez. He stated that, though
they planned to kill all the whites, they had been
told that each negro might claim one white woman
for himself : he added naively that "he had already
picked out one for himself, and that he and his wife
had quarreled over it, when he told her of his in-

tention."

It was Murrel's plan of campaign all over again.
The little group of planters at Beattie's Bluffs per-
ceived immediately, with consternation, that they
had uncovered something very deep and grave in-
deed.

On June 30, the nine or ten negroes who had been
questioned were led out, roped hand to hand and
leg to leg, to a grove of cottonwoods along the
Big Black River and there hanged.

Next day, the gentlemen rode down to Livingston,
chief town and county-seat of Madison County, to
spread a more general warning.

At Livingston, a mass meeting was immediately
held, and a "Committee of Safety" comprising thir-
teen members elected, with "power to bring before
them any person or persons, either white or black,

283

The Outlaw Years

and try in summary manner any person brought
before them, with the power to hang or whip."
Colonel H. D. Runnels was appointed chairman ; pa-
trols were instituted throughout the county. Sanders,
Blake and Cotton, and other white men implicated
by suspicion, were ordered arrested. The Committee
began its delving into the packed black soil of ig-
norance and mistrust that had stirred so strangely
beneath their feet

Joshua Cotton was brought in: he was a smooth
blank man, a New Englander who had come into
the territory some twelve months before ; he had set-
tled at the Old Agency, down along the Trace ; he
had "hoisted a sign as a Steam Doctor," practicing
that now abandoned form of therapeutics.

Nothing much was known against him. There was
a rumor that he had tried to sell his wife to a man
setting out for the Arkansaw country; the man,
startled, had refused the proposition; soon after,
Cotton's wife had suddenly disappeared. And now
people were wondering if the woman had not been
murdered.

But nothing could be proved. His partner, San-
ders, had been seen at Beattie's Bluffs during the
investigation there; he was supposed to have told
some one there that Cotton was a great nigger-
stealer, and that "he was mixed up in other tradings

284

The Fourth of July

with the niggers, too." But Sanders had suddenly
vanished, and no one else appeared to confirm the
rumor. The Committee stared at this man Cotton,
so suddenly thrust forward to their attention, and
tried to see his true figure against the background
of suspicion and vague report

They seemed to be getting nowhere. Cotton pro-
tested blandly, assuring them of his innocence : they
were about to order his release when the missing
Sanders was dragged in. He had been riding down
to Vicksburg and had fallen in with a traveler: he
had talked.

He had told of the conspiracy, and how his part-
ner, a man named Cotton, was one of the ringlead-
ers: "Cotton had wanted him to join them, but he
would not." Instead, he was making off for Texas,
to get out of harm's way. The traveler listened
quietly; at the first town he had Sanders arrested,
and sent back under guard.

Faced by the Committee, Sanders repeated his as-
sertions: he said that Cotton was a nigger-stealer
and a horse-thief; that he was one of the heads of
an organization of cut-throats called "the Domestic
Lodge," and that the members of this lodge were
the men who had organized the whole negro re-
bellion. Cotton denied everything.

But now a newcomer appeared, a planter of the
neighborhood, whipping in one of his own black

285

The Outlaw Years

boys before him: the slave had a confession to make.
He told how, "one day, while hunting horses in a
prairie, a white man had approached him, and the
man began to ask him about his master: if he was
a bad man? whether the negroes were whipped
much? and how he would like to be free? He said
the man took a drink of brandy with him, and made
him drink first"

They pointed out Cotton to him: "When he saw
Cotton, he boldly exclaimed, 'That is the man who
talked to me in the prairie!'"

Cotton "looked thunderstruck" ; he offered no fur-
ther denials; he seemed sunk in a daze of despon-
dency. When they urged him, he willingly agreed
to write out a full confession of his guilt.

"I was one of the principal men in bringing about
the conspiracy," he wrote. "I am one of the Murrel
clan, a member of what we call the Grand Council.
I counseled with them twice; once near Columbus,
this spring, and another time on an island in the
Mississippi River.

"Our object in undertaking to excite the negroes
to rebellion, was not for the purpose of liberating
them, but for plunder. Blake's boy Peter had his
duty assigned to him, which was, to get such negroes
into the secret as he could trust, generally the most
daring; but from the exposure of our plans in Stew-
art's pamphlet, we expected the citizens would be

286

The Fourth of July

on their guard at the time mentioned, that being the
2$th of December next; and we determined to take
them by surprise and try it on the night of the 4th
of July, and it may yet be tried. . . ."

And he went on, to list the names of his fellow-
conspirators : "All the names I now recollect who are
deeply concerned, are Andrew Boyd, Albe Dean,
William Sanders, two Rawsons of Hinds County
. . . John and Wm. Earle, near Vicksburg in War-
ren county, Ruel Blake of Madison County. I have
heard Blake say he would make his negroes help,
and he was equal in command with me. Lunsford
Barnes of this County; Thorn. Anderson, below
Clinton in Hinds county; John Rogers, near Ben-
ton, Yazoo County; Lee Smith of Hinds County,
and John Ivy in Vernon. There are arms and am-
munition deposited in Hinds County, near Ray-
mond."

And he signed his name: "Joshua Cotton," and
handed the document over to the Committee. And
that afternoon he was led out under strong guard,
and hanged. The judges had hastened his execution,
in the hope that the news of quick and stern justice
might frighten the others of the Clan, and Cotton
himself seemed to concur in the opinion.

As he stood with the rope on his neck, some one
asked him if he expected there would be trouble on
the Fourth. He turned slowly and surveyed the

287

The Outlaw Years

speaker. "Yes," he said. "Unless the others learn
that I have been hanged."

His last words were, "Take care of yourselves to-
night and to-morrow night."

And the grim Committee went on with its work,
digging deeper and deeper in the tangled roots of
the conspiracy. It was sweaty work; they sat from
nine in the morning until four at night and hour
by hour through those sweltering days that preceded
the Fourth men were led in, quaking and babbling
or sullen and silent, were questioned, and were led
out again, to be hanged.

Sanders was hanged. There had been no evidence
against him except that Cotton included his name
in the confession and he stood there hysterically
sobbing, pleading until the rope choked him but
they hanged him, anyway.

Albe Dean was hanged. He had been a lazy, shift-
less roustabout; his trade, ostensibly, had been car-
pentering but he had seldom worked at it: no one
knew much about him who he was, where he came
from, what he did with his time. When the posse
set out for him they found him wandering in a
swamp, vaguely seeking to escape. He died in
dogged silence, neither admitting or denying his
guilt, but he made one last request that his name
be kept secret: he said his father was a prominent

288

The Fourth of July

man, and would be shamed to learn of his son's
ending.

Lee Smith was hanged. They found him sitting in
his own dooryard, cleaning a gun. He saw them com-
ing for him, and made a leap for his pistols, inside
the house. A shot halted him, and he stood there.
"What is it?" he cried wildly. "Has Jo Cotton
named me?" As they led him away, he made his
escape, but that night he was caught again, fur-
tively returning. He was hanged.

John Ivy and Andrew Boyd escaped to the
swamps, with a pack of bloodhounds on their trail.
Boyd was tracked down and captured and hanged;
Ivy went plunging here and there through the cane-
brake they could hear him ahead but they could
never come up with him and toward nightfall he
stole a horse from a clearing beyond the swamp and
got away.

He was one of the few who escaped. A posse came
in with the two Earle brothers. William, the elder,
needed little urging to make a full confession: he
seemed to take a desperate pride in the fact that
he had been an important member in the Clan. He
explained their whole plan of campaign; he ad-
mitted that he was to have been Captain of all the
forces in the Yazoo country. They told him he was
going to be hanged ; he looked thoughtful, and said,
"Well, I would have done the same."

280

The Outlaw Years

It was too late to hang him that day; they put
him in a room, to lie until next morning: when they
came for him again they found him hanging from
the top rung of a ladder propped against the wall,
with a bandanna handkerchief for a rope. He was
dead, and at news of his death his brother rejoiced.
"I would never be in this scrape if it hadn't been
for him," he said. "It was my brother that made a
rascal out of me." He was hanged soon after, still
blaming his brother for his own ending.

So they went, each man meeting death after the
dictates of his own nature. William Earle had men-
tioned a man named Angus Donovan : Donovan was
brought in. He had arrived in the country only a
few weeks earlier but already he had acquired a
reputation as a curious character. He was always
hanging about with the negroes; now one man, an
overseer on a large plantation, came forward to re-
port a strange conversation he had had with the
fellow.

He had been working a gang of niggers in a field,
when Donovan approached him. "By God, sir! I
wouldn't like to have your job," said Donovan.
Asked why, he muttered, "Well, there is too much
whipping needed." The overseer, surprised, replied
that he only whipped a slave when he deserved it;
Donovan had frowned: "Well," he went on. "You
won't be using the whip much longer, at any rate.

290

The Fourth of July

Sirl This whipping and slave-driving will soon be
stopped. Those negroes will be free as you and I,
you'll see it. There are thousands of men, with money
and ammunition all ready, to help them get free
when the time comes."

The overseer, irritated, had sent him packing on
his way ; he had started off down the road and then
returned again: "I am going to have a talk with
those negroes," he shouted, trying to force his way
into the field where they were working. "I am going
to tell them something of their rights!" The other,
brandishing his whip, had driven him away.

The Committee, listening to all this, concluded
that Donovan had been "undoubtedly the emissary
of those deluded fanatics at the North, the Aboli-
tionists." And Donovan was led out like the others.
They gave him time to pray, but he soon became
frenzied and almost blasphemous. The rope cut him
short. He was hanged.

Some weeks later, a letter came to his address.
Donovan was by now rotting in the ditch where they
had buried him. The letter was opened by the Com-
mittee: it was from his wife in Maysville, Ken-
tucky, and he had evidently been arranging for her
to join him it Livingston when he had been ar-
rested. She wrote full of joy at the reunion : "O my
dear Angus, it is a great consolation to me to think
of seeing you again, and once more enjoying your

291

The Outlaw Years

company. ... I hope you have laid up something
to commence housekeeping with. . . . But I defer
for the present . . and I subscribe myself, yours, af-
fectionately, Mary."

Among those suspected, the name of Ruel Blake
had been mentioned several times, and still men
could hardly bring themselves to believe him guilty.
For Blake himself was a land-owner, a slave-holder,
a man of substance in the community : it seemed in-
credible that he should have joined a gang of ruf-
fians in a plot to destroy the very class to which
he belonged. In the end, it was through one of his
own slaves that his guilt was brought out.

A curious detail of punctilio in the conduct of
the investigation had obtained : though the Commit-
tee had the right to call out any man's slaves for
question, the actual handling of the whip in the beat-
ing which was administered to "loosen up" the
negro's mind was always left, courteously, to the
owner himself.

So now, when Blake's black boy, Peter, was hauled
before the Committee, he was seized, stripped, bound
like the others over the heavy table which served
as whipping block; and then the whip was handed
to Blake: "Make him talk," they said.

Blake took the whip, swung it up, brought it down
on the boy's bare back; he was making a great deal

292

The Fourth of July

of play with his elbows ; he seemed to be laying it
on furiously but those men about him were experts
in the art: it was obvious to all of them that there
was no sting in his blows. He was only pretending
to thrash the fellow.

Still no one suspected him, but they did come to
the very definite conclusion that he was far too soft-
hearted for his job. So Blake, somewhat protesting,
was gently thrust aside. Another man, a Mr. John-
son, took the whip.

And now the heavy black-snake sang through the
air, and the lash began its stinging dance on Peter's
black back. At the first strong stroke the boy kept
inum. At the second stroke his eyes began to roll
about the room, staring for his master, and Blake
himself, thrust back into the watching crowd, began
to pace wildly to and fro "He was under great agi-
tation" his eyes rolling as wildly as those of the
tortured negro himself.

At the third stroke, Peter's mouth twitched and
he began a sort of slobbering mumble ; at the fourth
stroke he let out a yell. And then they knew that
his courage had broken. "Go on, Johnson I" some one
cried. "He'll be talking now." Johnson drew back
for the final burst of blows.

But at that instant Blake came shoving back
through the crowd. He seized Johnson's arm, spun
the man around: "You can't whip that boy of mine!"

293

The Outlaw Years

he shouted in a frenzy. "Whoever wants to whip that
boy has got to whip me first!"

For three days now the little committee room had
been a theater of blood and passion. The yells of
one negro had followed those of another, constantly
echoing, until the very air seemed continually trem-
bling with their tortured outcry. Black backs had
crowded there, to be welted and torn by the cutting
lash. White faces had stared ; strange questions had
been asked and stranger answers given, and the end
of all had been the rope. The whole long grim pro-
ceeding had been a kind of masque of pain and bru-
tal suffering and death and now the passions of the
men who watched and worked there had been
strained to the pitch where no human note remains.
So with Johnson. He looked once at the white face
of Blake, staring frenzied; then, with hardly a pause,
he brought the whip down again, full in the other's
face.

Blake staggered back, then came rushing. John-
son met him : there was a flurry of blows, and then
the two went rolling on the floor while the crowd
hung greedily over them. In a moment, however,
some of the saner bystanders interfered. This was a
disgraceful proceeding, they said ; they hauled Blake
to his feet and rushed him outside. "Run for it," some
one cried. "They're holding Johnson inside. If he
gets loose he'll kill you sure."

294

to
Q

II

i!

bO

c

3

a
o

The Fourth of July

Blake ran, his face still streaming with blood. A
crowd of the village youngsters took up the chase,
hooting and pelting him with stones. Some way down
the road a neighbor, Captain Thomas Hudnold, saw
the rout and was moved to pity : he scattered the chil-
dren, gave his own horse to Blake, blindly stagger-
ing: "Get away somewhere and lie low for a time,"
he advised him. "Then you better come back and
apologize."

It was not until later that day, when they resumed
questioning the negro boy Peter, that they learned
that Blake would probably never come back. Blake
was guilty, and the posses set out immediately in
search of him, spurred on by an offer of five hun-
dred dollars reward, dead or alive.

They found him in Natchez, hiding in one of the
boatmen's taverns. They brought him back to his
doom. And by now all the hatred of the town had
centered on him ; he was the last of the conspirators
to be executed, and the whole population turned out
to see him hanged. He died, protesting his innocence
to the last.

So the clumsy mechanism of Murrel's mad plan
was blocked at the very hub of all its movement ; at
its periphery, where it circled through the River
towns, it had spent its force in no less futile fashion.
It had all been like a travesty of Murrel's grandiose
intentions the straggled parading of those evil cru-

295

The Outlaw Years

saders, their threats, their empty curses, their ulti-
mate ineffectual withdrawals and yet it had had its
effect

The underworld had shown its teeth, and though
no bite had been felt the minds of those who had
looked into its ugly jaws were still in consterna-
tion. People went about bewildered for a time, and
then at last their anger rose.

In Vicksburg a great mass meeting was held, and
the situation canvassed. "For years past, the gam-
blers have made our city their place of rendezvous.
They support a large number of tippling-houses
... no citizen is ever secure from their villainy.
Our streets are ever resounding with the echoes of
their drunken mirth. . . ." The time had come to
end it all. A set of resolutions was offered, ban-
ishing them forever, and passed by unanimous ac-
claim.

Resolved: That a notice be given to all profes-
sional gamblers, that the citizens of Vicksburg are
resolved to exclude them from this place and this
vicinity; and that 24 hours notice be given them to
leave the place.

Resolved: That all persons permitting faro-deal-
ing in their houses, be also notified that they will be
prosecuted therefor.

Resolved: That 100 copies of the foregoing reso-

296

The Fourth of July

lutions be printed and stuck up at the corners of
the streets and that this publication be deemed no-
tice.

They waited, grimly, for twenty-four hours, and
then the townsmen descended on the shanties of the
Landing. They found the gamblers barricaded in
the tavern of John North, ready for battle.

In the crisis, a Dr. Hugh S. Bodley went forward
seeking a parley. A shot from an upper window
killed him, and the fight was on.

The townsmen won. In the final rush, five of the
gamblers were captured, among them North him-
self, and the five were strung up instanter : they were
hanged in the doorways along the street, and their
bodies, by order, were left hanging for twenty-four
hours, "as a warning against those that had escaped" ;
they were then cut down and buried in a ditch.

This was the first concerted action against the law-
less, and it had a tremendous effect throughout the
territory. "The news spread like wildfire through the
Mississippi Valley, and was eagerly discussed by
every fireside, at every crossroads store, and on every
stage-coach throughout the South."

Until then it had been the law-abiding who spoke
warily " so strong had the Clan been, that no one
was willing to run the risk of offending them" but

297

The Outlaw Years

now a great flame of righteousness blazed every-
where, "It gave heart to the lovers of law and order.
Committees were formed in every community from
Cincinnati to New Orleans that had suffered from
the thief and the cutthroat, and general notices
issued for them to leave in 24 hours." The clean-up
began.

Laws were strengthened and the police re-
enforced; where these were lacking, the citizenry
itself banded together: "Every town along the River
had its vigilant committee and patrol. . . . Stran-
gers that entered the town were 'spotted,' until their
business had been satisfactorily known to the
guards."

Groups of men bound themselves together, in sum-
mary authority: "Know all men by these presents,"
they would proclaim, "that we have this day, jointly
and severally, bound ourselves together as a Com-
pany of Rangers and Regulators ... to rid the
country of such as are dangerous to the welfare of
this settlement, and generally to vindicate the law.
. . ." They would sign the sheet, and then go forth
to join the posses already harrying the outlaws.

Little quarter was shown : men who had lived by
brutal murder deserved brutally to die, and some-
times the punishment meted out to them achieved an
almost medieval ingenuity of torture. Thus once in
Mississippi, an interesting variant of the usual whip-

The Fourth of July

ping was evolved : instead of the snake-whip, nettles
were used: "The man was taken to a place where
nettles were known to grow in great luxuriance, com-
pletely stripped, and so lashed with them that he
took it as a hint not to be neglected, left the coun-
try and was never heard of again."

Or, later, near the town of Randolph, Tennessee :
it had been learned that Murrel's great headquar-
ters had been in the Arkansaw swamps just across
the way, and now Randolph was especially vigilant.
It even maintained a night patrol, and one night,
creeping through the bottoms, the guardsmen sur-
prised a boatload of suspects "an old gray-haired
lark and two younger, father and sons" rowing si-
lently into the bayou.

They were tied, tried on the spot "under the code
of Judge Lynch" ; the gray hairs of the old man won
them all a lesser verdict than hanging. "They were
sentenced to be denuded of every vestige of clothing,
stretched across a cotton bale and striped with a ^ l />
inch cowhide at intervals, until day began to break,
the old man to receive two licks to the boys one."

So they were beaten, alternately, until the an-
guished dawn: even then, the punishment was not
done. They had been further sentenced : "that when
day began to dawn, they be taken to their boat, stark
naked, tied hand and foot and fast to the bottom of
the boat, face upwards, gagged, with a placard

299

The Outlaw Years

posted upon each of their foreheads the boat to be
carried out in the middle of the current and set adrift
without oars. . . ." The account, with its grim par-
ticularization of the punishment, shows the bitter-
ness at work in men's minds, and every detail of the
sentence was carried out.

"The sentence was fully executed, and their up-
turned faces greeted the first rays of the morning
sun." They were set drifting, already aching after
the whip, to burn with thirst or starve with hunger,
to be snagged, overturned, drowned nobody even
bothered to inquire what had become of them.

These were savage reprisals, but perhaps such
measures were needed, for the savage men they had
to deal with. And the great sweep went on, driving
the outlaws westward across the River, into the unset-
tled regions beyond. The ultimate effect of the move-
ment of course is doubtful : many of the exiled ban-
dits came filtering back again and certainly in the
great days of steamboating soon to follow the gam-
blers found the River as rich a field as ever it had
been before.

But the immediate results were tremendous. Now
definitely law had broken the back of lawlessness:
here and there the highwayman might operate or the
murderer strike his victim down, but such incidents
would be scattered and their importance, henceforth,
local. The day of the great Land Pirates was done.

300

The Fourth of July

Murrel had been the last and the greatest, and the
crowning paradox of his fantastic career lies in the
fact that it had been his own scheming that brought
about the ruin of them all.

He lay in the Penitentiary. He served his term,
working as did the other eighty convicts there, at
the prison occupations of "shoemaking, lathing, tail-
oring, coopering, carding." For a time he studied
law, and then he turned to Scripture: he had the
ambition to be a minister when he got out.

But long before his sentence ended, the man's
mind had cracked. When at last the prison doors
opened and he emerged again, it was as an invalid
and practically an imbecile. His wife had gone, his
lands had been claimed; his brother had vanished.
He, too, in his turn, disappeared : his final outcome
his death, his place of burial unknown.

But perhaps, in the final vanquishing of the robber
gangs, a stronger force than even the fury of the
aroused populace had been at work. The bandits
had been born of the wilderness: its thickets and
swamps had been the background and its lonely
trails the scene of all their operations. And now the
wilderness itself was vanishing; the scene had
shifted, and like actors on a vacant stage they were
left with no background for the consummation of
their plotting.

301

The Outlaw Years

Steam conquered the River. Even before Murrel
had come out of his prison, steam had conquered
the wilderness. Travel straightened its path and in-
creased its speed ; rails linked the cities in a network
no outlaw could hope to break. Times changed, and
with their changing even the old memories were for-
gotten.

The Cave-in-Rock remained to be pointed out a
dark cleft thick-grown with bushes in the yellow
cliff as the steamboat surged along the shore ; Wolf
Island still lay with its heavy hood of willows in
the middle of the stream; the pathway of the Wil-
derness Road and the Natchez Trace might still be
discerned winding here and there through the for-
ests back of the plantations: but the men who
haunted them Hare, and the bloody Harpes, Ma-
son and the proud fantastic Murrel had been for-
gotten, and even the background of wilderness and
lonely striving that had bred them the dark pas-
sions, the bitter abnegations, the solitary lives and
the wild convocations of those early days had been
fading in men's minds.

END

302

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AN EXPLANATION

This seems to be the proper place to explain a practise
followed in this book which may seem open to objection.
Throughout, I have identified neither the sources for
statements of fact nor even the authorship of quotations
from those sources, when incorporated in the text. Still
further, I have sometimes made elisions in the quoted
texts without bothering to indicate the hiatus by the
customary row of dots, and occasionally I have gone so
far as to make slight changes (as the tense of a verb, or
the substitution of a name for a pronoun, etc.) when
such changes seemed to make for clarity or convenience.
When the authorities conflicted, I have chosen the ver-
sion among them which seemed most probable and most
in keeping with the spirit of the time. Thus, there are
at least a dozen versions of Big Harpe's death, and
almost as many varying descriptions of the man himself
(i.e., red hair, black hair, skin dark, sallow, sunburned
and pale) ; I chose that which seemed to me to fit the
man best.

In all this, I was moved by no other purpose than the
one of general convenience. This book was designed for
the general reader, and it seemed to me therefore that
the elaborate accuracy of the student would here be out
of place.

Certainly, I intended no disrespect to the sources

303

The Outlaw Years

themselves. The books of reminiscence and of gossip
written by the early settlers are now almost totally
neglected by the casual reader, yet they form a curious
chapter in the history of American letters. They are
rich in anecdote: even in their faults of stilted phrase-
ology and romantic statement they reveal the temper
of their day; the best of them have a garrulous and pecu-
liarly engrossing quality of their own, fully as quaint
and naively amusing as the European memoirs of the
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries which we are all
so fond of having on our library shelves.

More people ought to read them. In the list below I
have mentioned only those consulted in the preparation
of this book ; although there are dozens of others equally
interesting not referred to by me, or not bearing on the
subject of the Land Pirates, I have taken the liberty
of commenting here and there on some of the titles, to
be of such help as might be to anyone interested in read-
ing further among them.

Albach, James R., The Annals of the West.

W. S. Haven; Pittsburgh. 185?-
Ashe, Thomas, Travels In America.

London. 1808. (Very interesting chronicle of an astonished

Englishman, on a trip down the Mississippi.)
Audubon, John James, Delineation of American Scenery and

Character.

G. A. Bakerer Co.; New York City. i'926. (A series of sharp
sketches of frontier life, from the naturalist's own experi-
ence.)

Baird, Rev. Doctor Robert, A View of the Valley of the Missis-
' sippi.

H. S. Tanner; Philadelphia. 1834. (From a clergyman's point
of view.)

304

Bibliography

Baldwin, Joseph G., The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi.
Sumer Whitney & Co.; San Francisco. 1883. (A lawyer during

the cotton boom.)
Breazeale, H. S., Life As It Is.

James Williams; Knoxville, Tenn. 1842. (Full of random

reminiscences.)
Brooke, Henry K., The Highwaymen and Pirates' Own Book.

J. B. Perry: New York City. 1845. (Like the title.)
Chambers, Henry E., Mississippi Valley Beginnings.

G. P. Putnam's Sons; New York City. 1922.
Coale, Edward J., Trials of the Mail Robbers.

E. J. Coale; Baltimore. 1818.
Cobb, Joseph B., Mississippi Scenes.

A. Hart; Philadelphia. 1851.
Collins, Lewis, History of Kentucky.

Collins & Co.; Covington, Ky. 1874. (Source book of early

chronicles.)
Cramer, Zadock, The Navigator.

Cramer, Spear & Eichbaum; Pittsburgh. 1811. ("Containing
directions for navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio
& Mississippi Rivers, with an ample account of these much
admired waters.")
Davis, James D., History of the City of Memphis.

Hite, Crumpton & Kelly; Memphis, Tenn. 1873. (One of

the best.)
Davis, Reuben, Recollections of Mississippi and the Mississip-

pians.

Houghton Mifflin & Co.; Boston. 1889.
Devol, George H., Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi.

Devol & Haines; Cincinnati, O. 1887.
Dunbar, Seymour, A History of Travel in America.

Bobbs-Merrill Co.; Indianapolis. 1915- (Standard for the

subject and very interesting.)

Duvallon, Berquin, Vue de la Colonie Espagnole du Mississippi.
Duvallon; Paris. 1803. (A Parisian in the provinces. There is
a translation published in New York by L. R. Riley & Co.,
1806, but it takes the heart out of the original.)

305

The Outlaw Years

Fulkerson, H. S., Early Days in Mississippi.

Vicksburg Printing & Publishing Co.; Vicksburg, Miss. 1885.

(Excellent book of gossip.)
Glazier, Capt. Willard, Down The Great River.

Hubbard Bros. ; Philadelphia. i'883.
Gould, E. W., Fifty Years on the Mississippi.

Nixon- Jones; St. Louis. 1889. (Full of anecdote.)
Guild, Josephus Conn, Old Times in Tennessee.

Tavel, Eastman & Howell; Nashville. 1878. (The best of all.)
Hall, James, Sketches of the History, Life and Manners in the
West.

Hubbard & Edmands; Cincinnati. 1834.
Hall, James, The West.

H. W. Derby & Co.; Cincinnati. 1848.
Harper, Lillie DuPuy VanCulin, Colonial Men and Times.

Innes & Sons; Philadelphia. 1916. (Contains the Journal of

Col. Daniel Trabue and a list of his rich relations.)
Howard, H. R., The History of Virgil A. Stewart.

Harper & Bros.; New York City, 1836.
Ingraham, Joseph Holt, The Southwest by a Yankee.

Harper & Bros.; New York City. 1835. (Interesting travels

of a rather biased observer.)
Lloyd, James T., Lloyd's Steamboat Directory.

J. T. Lloyd & Co.; Cincinnati. 1856. (Almanach of early

doings on the River.)
McConnell, J. L., Western Characters.

Redfield; New York City. 1853.
Morris, Eastin, The Tennessee Gazetteer.

W. Hassell Hunt & Co.; Nashville, Tenn. 1834.
Palmer, John, Journal of Travels.

Sherwood, Neely & Sons; London. 1818.
Phelan, James, History of Tennessee.

Houghton Mifflin & Co.; Boston. 1888.

"Police Gazette, Editor of," The Pictorial Life and Adventures
of John A. Murrel.

T. B. Peterson & Bros.; Philadelphia. 1848.
Power, Tyrone, Impressions of America.

Richard Bentley; London. 1836. (An actor's amusing tales.)

306

Bibliography

Ramsey, James G. M., Annals of Tennessee.

Lippincott, Grambo & Co.; Philadelphia. 1853. (Source book.)
Rothert, Otto A., The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock.

Arthur H. Clark Co.; Cleveland, O. 1924. (Very interesting.
Authority for the Harpes and Mason; particularly valuable
for his researches among contemporary newspapers, etc., for
reports of their crimes, and among the court records of the
proceedings at their trials. I have followed his account, and
quoted from him, with respect to these episodes.)
Rowland, Dunbar, History of Mississippi.

S. J. Clarke Co.; Chicago. 1925.
Rowland, Dunbar, Official Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne.

State Dept. of Archives & History; Jackson, Miss. 1917.
Rowland, Eron Opha, History of Hinds County.

For the Mississippi Historical Society; Jackson, .Miss.

1922.
Speed, Thomas, The Wilderness Road.

John P. Morton & Co., for the Filson Club; Louisville, Ken-
tucky. 1886.
Thwaites, Reuben Gold, The Colonies.

Longmans, Green & Co.; London. 1913.
Thwaites, Reuben Gold, The Ohio Valley Press before the War

of 1812-15.

Davis Press; Worcester, Mass. 1909.
Trollope, Mrs. Francis Milton, The Domestic Manners of the

Americans.
Whittaker, Treacher & Co.; London. 1832. (The experiences

of a very refined lady among the barbarians.)
Walton, Augustus Q., A History of the Detection^ Conviction,
Life and Designs of John^A. Murrel, the Great Western
Land Pirate.

George White; Athens, Tenn. 1835-

Watts, William Courtney, The Chronicles of a Kentucky Settle-
ment.

G. P. Putnam's Sons; New York City. 1897.
Williams, J. S., Old Times in West Tennessee.

W. G. Cheeney; Memphis, Tenn. 1873. (Amusing reminis-
cences.)
Also, various publications of the Ohio Archaeological and His-

307

The Outlaw Years

torical Society, the Mississippi Historical Society; various con-
temporary newspapers, as the New Orleans Picayune, the New
York Columbian, the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, etc.; various
maps, pamphlets, stage-route guides, etc., etc.

308