Famous gunfighters of th.., p.1
Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier, page 1
Bibliographical Note
This Dover edition, first published in 2009, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by Human Life Magazine, in 1907, and republished in book form by The Frontier Press of Texas, Houston, in 1957.
The photographs in this edition are reprinted courtesy of the Noah H. Rose Photograph Collection, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Masterson, Bat, 1853—1921.
Famous gunfighters of the Western frontier : Wyatt Earp, “Doc” Holliday, Luke Short, and others / W.B. (Bat Masterson). p. cm.
Originally published: Houston : Frontier Press of Texas, 1957.
9780486131313
1. Outlaws—West (U.S.)—Biography 2. Peace officers—West (U.S.)—Biography. 3. Outlaws—West (U.S.)—Biography—Pictorial works. 4. Peace officers—West (U.S.)—Biography—Pictorial works. 5. Frontier and pioneer life—West (U.S.) 6. West (U.S.)—Biography. 7. West (U.S.) —Biography—Pictorial works.
F590.5 .M37 2009
978/.020922—B22
2008055832
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
WILLIAM BARCLAY (BAT) MASTERSON
CHAPTER I - LUKE SHORT
CHAPTER II - BEN THOMPSON
CHAPTER III - DOC HOLLIDAY
CHAPTER IV - BILL TILGHMAN
CHAPTER V - WY ATT EARP
WILLIAM BARCLAY (BAT) MASTERSON
William Barclay (Bat) Masterson has been engaged by Human Life to write a series of articles on the great old time gun-players of the West. The sketch in this issue considers Ben Thompson, whose name is as well known in Texas, and almost as well regarded in Austin at least, as that of General Sam Houston or Deaf Smith. Mr. Masterson himself is singularly well equipped for the task at hand. He will, from month to month, give us biographical and personal articles on Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, Charlie Ford, who killed Jesse James, Frank James, Clay Allison, Luke Short, and others once foremost among this hard-riding, quick-shooting chivalry of the plains. These men were the personal friends of Mr. Masterson. They have slept in his blankets, cooked by his campfire. Mr. Masterson has himself witnessed stirring times, and stood for years a central and commanding figure in a dangerous day that has gone. His life on the plains began when he was seventeen years old. He has been a buffalo hunter, Indian trader, Indian fighter. He was scout for Miles under the great Ben Clarke—now interpreter at the Cheyenne Agency—in the Indian war of 1874. He was in the weeks’ war at the ‘Dobe Walls on the Canadian, when he and thirteen other buffalo hunters fought five hundred of the picked bucks of the Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa and Arrapaho tribes, beat them and killed over eighty of them. Later, at the age of twenty-two, Mr. Masterson was elected sheriff of Ford county, Kansas, with headquarters at Dodge City, making a territory three hundred miles east and west by almost as many north and south. Dodge in that day was reckoned the roughest camp on the border. It was the northern terminus of the Jones and Plummer Trail, over which the beef herds came up from Texas. With them the cowboys—full of life, vivacity, and fight. It took a sure, cool hand to keep the peace in Dodge. That Mr. Masterson did not succeed in doing so without a struggle is evidenced by the fact that in the desperate combats of the pistol which ensued, he was driven to kill variously Walker, Wagner, Kennedy, Updegraffe and King, every one of whom was a “bad man,” and had a gun in hand when he fell. But that day is past and Mr. Masterson is no longer a queller of “bad men,” but a resident of New York and a contributor of the press. Also he is a warm personal friend of President Theodore Roosevelt, who caused him to be named Deputy United States Marshal for the Southern District of New York. President Roosevelt, following his election, was for naming Mr. Masterson Marshal in the Indian Territory. The place has twice the salary of the one he holds and carries with it the name of twenty-two deputies, and yet Mr. Masterson declined it. “It wouldn’t do,” he said. “The man of my peculiar reputation couldn’t hold such a place without trouble. If I were to go out to the Indian Territory as Marshal, I can see what would happen. I’d have some drunken boy to kill once a year. Some kid who was born after I took my guns off would get drunk and look me over, and the longer he looked the less he’d be able to see where my reputation came from. In the end he’d crawl around to a gun play and I’d have to send him over the jump. Almost any other man could hold office and never see a moment’s trouble. But I couldn’t. My record would prove a never-failing bait to the dime novel reading youngsters, locoed to distinguish themselves and make a fire-eating reputation, and I’d have to bump ’em off. So, Mr. President, with all thanks to you, I believe I won’t take the place. I’ve got finally out of that zone of fire and I hope never to go back to it.” It was then that President Roosevelt did the next best thing, and caused Mr. Masterson’s appointment as Deputy United States Marshal in New York.—Editor.
CHAPTER I
LUKE SHORT
The subject of this narrative might have “died with his boots on,” for he had many chances—but he didn’t. The fact that he lived to die in bed, with his boots removed, as all good folks like to do when the end has come, may have been due to good luck, but I hardly think so. That he was the quickest at the critical moment is, perhaps, the best answer.
When the time came for Luke Short to pass out of this life—to render up the ghost as it were—he was able to lie down in bed in a home that was his own, surrounded by wife and friends, and peacefully await the coming of the end.
There was nothing in his wan drawn features, as he lay on the last bed of sickness at Fort Worth, Texas, to indicate that luck had ever been his friend. He was aware that his time had come, and was reconciled to his fate. Every lineament in the cold, stern face, upon which death had already left its impress, showed defiance. He could almost be heard to say: “Death ! You skulking coward! I know you are near; I also realize I cannot defeat you; but, if you will only make yourself visible for one brief moment, I will try!”
Was Known as a “White Indian”
Luke was a little fellow, so to speak, about five feet, six inches in height, and weighing in the neighborhood of one hundred and forty pounds. It was a small package, but one of great dynamic force. In this connection it will not be out of order for me to state that, though of small build, it required a 7⅛ hat to fit his well-shaped, round head. At the time he left his father’s ranch in Western Texas, where he had been occupied as a cowboy in the middle seventies, for the Red Cloud Agency in North Dakota, he was nothing more than a white Indian. That is, he was an Indian in every respect except color. And as nearly all of our American Indians living west of the Missouri River in those days were both wild and hostile and on the war path most of the time, a fair idea of Luke Short may be gleaned from this statement. Luke had received none of the advantages of a school in his younger days; he could hardly write his name legibly. It was, indeed, doubtful if he had ever seen a school house until he reached man’s estate. But he could ride a bronc and throw a lariat; he could shoot both fast and straight, and was not afraid.
He had no sooner reached the northern boundary line of Nebraska, hard by the Sioux Indian Reservation, than he established what he was pleased to call a “trading ranch.”
His purpose was to trade with the Sioux Indians, whose reservation was just across the line in North Dakota. Instinctively he knew that the Indians loved whiskey, and as even in those days he carried on his shoulder something of a commercial head, he conceived the idea that a gallon of whiskey worth ninety cents was not a bad thing to trade an Indian for a buffalo robe worth ten dollars. Accordingly Luke proceeded to lay in a goodly supply of “Pine Top,” the name by which the whiskey traded to the Indians in exchange for their robes was known.
Uncle Sam Objects to His Business
He was not long in building up a lucrative business; nor was it long before the Indian chiefs of the Sioux tribe got on to him. Drunken bands of young bucks were regularly returning to their villages from the direction of the Short rendezvous loaded to the muzzle with “Pine Top,” and, as every drink contained at least two fights and as it usually took about ten drinks to cause an Indian to forget that the Great White Father abode in Washington, the condition of those who had found entertainment at the Short ranch, when they reached their camp, can better be imagined than told.
The Indian agent in charge of this particular branch of the Sioux tribe with whom Short had been dealing soon got busy with Washington. He represented to the Department of the Interior that a band of cutthroat white men, under the leadership of Luke Short, were trading whiskey to his Indians, and that he was powerless to stop it, as the camp of the white men was located just across the reservation line, in the State of Nebraska, which was outside of his jurisdiction. He requested the government to instantly remove the whiskey traders and drive them from the country. Otherwise, said he, an Indian uprising will surely follow. The government, as was to be expected, forthwith instructed the post commander at Omaha to get after the purveyors of the poisonous “Pine Top,” who were charged with causing such havoc among the noble red men of the Sioux reservation.
The military commander at Omaha soon had a company of United States cavalry afte
“Is that all, gentlemen?” said Luke, as he invited the officer in command of the soldiers to sit down and have a bite to eat with him.
“There will be no time for eating,” said the officer, “as we must reach Sidney by tomorrow morning, in time to catch the Overland train for Omaha. So get together what things you care to take along, as we will be on our way.”
“I have nothing that I care to take along,” Luke replied, “Except what I have on ;” and as that mostly consisted of a pair of Colt’s pistols and a belt of cartridges, the officer soon had them in his custody.
“Where are your partners?” queried the Captain.
“I have no partners,” replied Short. “I’ve been running this ranch by myself.”
But Luke did have a partner, who was at that very time in Sidney procuring provisions and more “Pine Top.”
After everything around the ranch resembling whiskey had been destroyed by order of the officer in command, the trip to Sidney, about seventy-five miles away, was taken up. Luke was put astride a government horse, his feet fastened with a rope underneath the animal’s girth and told to ride in the center of the company of cavalrymen. Sidney was reached in time to catch the Overland train, and Luke was hustled aboard with as little ceremony as possible.
Luke had, by his quiet and diffident manner during the short time he had been prisoner, succeeded in having the officer regard him in the light of a harmless little adventurer, and for this reason did not have him either handcuffed or shackled, after placing him aboard the train for Omaha.
Sidney, Nebraska, was a very small place in those days. The permanent population in all probability did not exceed the one thousand mark. Sidney, following the custom of all small hamlets, however, would turn out when there was anything unusual going on. And the sight of a company of United States soldiers lined up at the railroad station was enough to arouse her curiosity and cause her townfolk to turn out in a body and investigate the cause. Luke Short’s partner was among those who came to see the big show at the depot, and his surprise can well be imagined when he discovered that no less a person than his partner wes responsible for the big event. It did not take Luke and his partner long to fix up a code of signals by which they could communicate with each other. Luke could say a few things in Indian language that his partner could understand, and to which he could make comprehensible reply.
Short Escaped From the Soldiers
“Skidoo’ and “Twenty-three” were terms familiar to Short, even in those days. But they were conveyed by the sign language instead of being spoken as now.
Luke made his partner understand that he would soon be back in Sidney, and to have everything in readiness, so that they could skip the country with as little delay as possible, as soon as he showed up. The charge of having unlawfully traded whiskey to the Indians did not seem to concern him in the least. “I can beat that for sure,” he said to himself; “But supposing that agent should take a notion to call a count of heads. What then? I know that there are several young bucks, whom I caught trying to steal my ‘Pine Top,’ who will not be there to answer roll-call, in case one is ordered. I planted those bucks myself, and, outside of my partner, no one knows the location of the cache. While I have no notion of putting in a claim against the government for the work, I must be careful and avoid having it endeavor to show that I really did perform such service.”
These were perhaps the thoughts he was conveying by signals to his partner when he boarded the train at Sidney that was to take him to Omaha.
To state the story briefly, Luke did not tarry long with the soldiers after the train left Sidney. That night found Luke back in town and before the following morning both he and his partner were well on their way to Colorado, driving a big span of mules hitched to a canvas-covered wagon.
This happened in the fall of 1878 and, as Leadville was just then having a big mining boom, Luke headed for Denver.
It must be remembered that in that country in those days there were no settlements of any kind, and by keeping from the line of the railroad, a white person was seldom seen.
A Little Affair In Leadville
Luke and his partner arrived in Denver in due course of time, and drove to one of the city horse corrals, where next day they disposed of their outfit at a good price. Luke’s partner returned to his home in Austin, Texas, where his family connections were both wealthy and prominent. Luke went to Leadville, where everything was then on the boom. Here he began to associate with a class of people far different in manner, taste and dress from those he had been accustomed to. He was thrown in the society of rich mine buyers, as well as mining promoters. He got acquainted with gamblers and the keepers of the mining camp “honkatonks.”
The whole thing was a new life to him, and he took to it like a duck to water. It was the first place where he saw the game of faro dealt, and he was fascinated. He was not long in camp before he was talked about. He ran foul of a bad man with a gun one day in one of the camp’s prominent gambling houses, and the bad man, who had a record of having killed someone somewhere, attempted to take some sort of liberty with one of Luke’s bets and, when the later politely requested the bad man to keep his hands off, the bad man became very angry and made some rude remarks. The dealer was frightened half out of his wits. He looked to see Short shot full of holes before anyone could raise a hand to prevent it. The dealer, of course didn’t have Luke’s number. He knew the other fellow, but had yet to become acquainted with the late vendor of “Pine Top” up Nebraska way.
“Gentlemen,” said the dealer, in his most suave manner, “I will make the amount of the bet good, rather than have a quarrel.”
“You will not make anything good to me,” said Short. “That is my bet, and I will not permit anyone to take it.”
“You insignificant little shrimp,” growled the bad man, at the same time reaching for his cannister. “I will shoot your hand off, if you dare to put it on that bet.”
But he didn’t. Nor did he get his pistol out of his hip pocket. For, quicker than a flash, Luke had jammed his own pistol into the bad man’s face and pulled the trigger, and the bad man rolled over on the floor. The bullet passed through his cheek but, luckily, did not kill him.
There was no arrest or trial. Such things happening all the time in those days in Leadville. This, however, gave Luke quite a standing. He was soon in big demand. Gambling-house proprietors wanted him to stay around their places of business during the busy hours, so as to keep the bad men in camp from carrying off their bank rolls. He had a faculty of making friends, and was soon popular with the quieter and better class of the sporting fraternity. He learned to play cards, and was soon dealing faro. No one who saw him then, togged out in tailor-made clothes and a derby hat, would have recognized in him the man who took the header from the Overland train ten miles east of Sidney, when he made the get-away from the soldiers.
Snuffing Out a Gambler
The spring of 1881 found Luke Short in Tombstone, Arizona, dealing faro in a house managed by Wyatt Earp.
One morning I went into the Oriental gambling house, where Luke was working, just in time to keep him from killing a gambler named Charlie Storms. There was scarcely any difference between this case and the one with the bad man in Leadville a couple of years previous. Charlie Storms was one of the best-known gamblers in the entire West and had, on several occasions, successfully defended himself in pistol fights with Western “gun-fighters.”
Charlie Storms and I were very close friends—as much as Short and I were—and for that reason I did not care to see him get into what I knew would be a very serious difficulty. Storms did not know Short, and, like the bad man in Leadville, had sized him up as an insignificant-looking fellow, whom he could slap in the face without expecting a return. Both men were about to pull their pistols when I jumped between them and grabbed Storms at the same time requesting Luke not to shoot, a request I knew he would respect if it was possible without endangering his own life too much. I had no trouble in getting Storms out of the house, as he knew me to be his friend. When Storms and I reached the street I advised him to go to his room and take a sleep, for I then learned for the first time that he had been up all night, and had been quarreling with other persons.
