On the Dodge by William MacLeod Raine Read Free Book Online Page B

bridge toward their camp. The old hunter took a long shot at
one of them and dropped him. The cowboys buried the young fellow next
day.
    There was a good deal of excitement in the cow camps. If the boys could
not have a little fun without some old donker, an old vinegaroon who
couldn't take a joke, filling them full of lead it was a pretty
howdy-do. But Dodge stood pat. The coroner's jury voted it justifiable
homicide. In future the young Texans were more discreet. In the early
days whatever law there was did not interfere with casualties due to
personal differences of opinion provided the affair had no unusually
sinister aspect.
    The first wholesale killing was at Tom Sherman's dance hall. The affair
was between soldiers and gamblers. It was started by a trooper named
Hennessey, who had a reputation as a bad man and a bully. He was
killed, as were several others. The officers at the fort glossed over
the matter, perhaps because they felt the soldiers had been to blame.
    One of the lawless characters who drifted into Dodge the first year was
Billy Brooks. He quickly established a reputation as a killer. My old
friend Emanuel Dubbs, a buffalo hunter who "took the hides off'n" many
a bison, is authority for the statement that Brooks killed or wounded
fifteen men in less than a month after his arrival. Now Emanuel is a
preacher ( if he is still in the land of the living; I saw him last at Clarendon, Texas, ten years or so ago ), but I cannot quite swallow that "fifteen." Still, he had a man for breakfast now and then and on one occasion four.
    Brooks, by the way, was assistant marshal. It was the policy of the
officials of these wild frontier towns to elect as marshal some
conspicuous killer, on the theory that desperadoes would respect his
prowess or if they did not would get the worst of the encounter.
    Abilene, for instance, chose "Wild Bill" Hickok. Austin had its Ben
Thompson. According to Bat Masterson, Thompson was the most dangerous
man with a gun among all the bad men he knew--and Bat knew them all.
Ben was an Englishman who struck Texas while still young. He fought as
a Confederate under Kirby Smith during the Civil War and under Shelby
for Maximilian. Later he was city marshal at Austin. Thompson was a man
of the most cool effrontery. On one occasion, during a cattlemen's
convention, a banquet was held at the leading hotel. The local
congressman, a friend of Thompson, was not invited. Ben took exception
to this and attended in person. By way of pleasantry he shot the plates
in front of the diners. Later one of those present made humorous
comment. "I always thought Ben was a game man. But what did he do? Did
he hold up the whole convention of a thousand cattlemen? No, sir. He
waited till he got forty or fifty of us poor fellows alone before he
turned loose his wolf."
    Of all the bad men and desperadoes produced by Texas, not one of them,
not even John Wesley Hardin himself, was more feared than Ben Thompson.
Sheriffs avoided serving warrants of arrest on him. It is recorded that
once, when the county court was in session with a charge against him on
the docket, Thompson rode into the room on a mustang. He bowed
pleasantly to the judge and court officials.
    "Here I am, gents, and I'll lay all I'm worth that there's no charge
against me. Am I right? Speak up, gents. I'm a little deaf."
    There was a dead silence until at last the clerk of the court murmured, "No charge."
    A story is told that on one occasion Ben Thompson met his match in the
person of a young English remittance man playing cards with him. The
remittance man thought he caught Thompson cheating and indiscreetly
said so. Instantly Thompson's .44 covered him. For some unknown reason
the gambler gave the lad a chance to retract.
    "Take it back--and quick," he said grimly.
    Every game in the house was suspended while all eyes turned on the
dare-devil boy and the hard-faced desperado. The remittance man went
white, half rose from his seat, and shoved his head