Allan Pinkerton - Mississippi Outlaws and the Detectives

From the description of the men, William began to suspect that they formed a portion of the party of robbers, and he determined to push on at once. He induced a young man named Gordon to go with him as guide and to assist in making the arrest of these men, if he should deem it advisable. By hard riding they succeeded in reaching Lester's Landing before nightfall, but the twilight was fast fading as they came out of the dense underbrush and cane-brake into the clearing around Lester's log-cabin.

The spot was dreary and forlorn in the extreme. The river was then nearly at low water, and its muddy current skirted one side of the clearing at a distance of about thirty yards from the house. The wood-yard and landing at the water's level were some ten or fifteen feet below the rising ground upon which the house stood. The store was a shanty of rough pine boards with one door and one window, and it stood at the head of the diagonal path leading from the landing to the high ground. A short distance back was a rail fence surrounding Lester's house and cornfield, and back of this clearing, about one hundred yards from the house, was a dense cane-brake. The corn-stalks had never been cut, and, as they grew very high and thick within twenty feet of the house, they offered a good cover to any one approaching or retreating through them. A rough log barn stood a short distance inside the rail fence, and, like the house, it was raised several feet above the ground, on account of the annual overflow of the whole tract. The house was a rather large building built of logs, the chinks being partly filled with mud, but it was in a dilapidated condition, the roof being leaky and the sides partly open, where the mud had fallen out from between the timbers.

On entering the clearing, William's party rode up to the store and tried to enter, but, finding the door locked, they approached the house. At the rail fence, William and Connell dismounted, leaving Gordon and Bledsoe to hold their horses. Up to this time, they had seen no signs of life about the place, and they began to think that the birds had flown. The quiet and the absence of men about the clearing did not prevent William from exercising his usual caution in approaching the house; but he did consider it unnecessary to take any stronger force into an apparently unoccupied log-cabin, where at most he had only vague suspicions of finding the objects of his search; hence, he left Gordon and Bledsoe behind. Knowing the general construction of this class of houses to be the same, he sent Connell to the rear, while he entered the front door. A wide hall divided the house through the center, and the occupants of the house were in the room on the right. William's door leading into the room opened from this hall, while Connell's was a direct entrance from the back porch, and there were no other doors to the room.

As the two strangers entered simultaneously, five men, a woman, and a girl started to their feet and demanded what they wanted. The situation was evidently one of great danger to the detectives; one glance at the men, coupled with the fierce tones of their inquiries, showed William that he had entered a den of snakes without adequate force; but it was too late to retreat, and he replied that they were strangers who, having lost their way, desired information.

The scene was a striking one, and it remains as vividly in William's mind to-day, as if it had occurred but yesterday. In the center of the room, opposite him, was a broad fireplace, in which the smouldering logs feebly burned and gave forth the only light in the room. In one corner stood several shot-guns, and in another, four or five heavy axes. Grouped about near the fire, in different attitudes of surprise, defiance, and alarm, were the occupants of the cabin, while to the left, in the half-open door stood Connell. The flickering flame of the rotten wood gave a most unsatisfactory light, in which they all seemed nearly as dark as negroes, so that William asked the woman to light a candle. She replied that they had none, and at the same moment a young fellow tried to slip by Connell, but he was promptly stopped. Another large, powerful man, whose name afterward proved to be Burtine, again demanded, with several oaths, what their business was.

"I've told you once that I want some information," replied William, "and now I intend to have you stop here until I can take a look at your faces."

While William was making them stand up in line against the wall, one of the largest drew a navy revolver quickly and fired straight at William's stomach, the ball just cutting the flesh on his left side. At the same instant, the young fellow previously mentioned, darted out the door, Connell having sprang to William's side, thinking him seriously wounded. Connell's approach prevented William from returning the fire of the tall man, who had jumped for the door also the moment he had fired. William fired two shots at him through the doorway, and Connell followed him instantly, on seeing that William was unhurt. Once outside, the tall fellow sprang behind a large cottonwood tree and fired back at Connell and William, who were in full view on the porch. The second shot struck Connell in the pit of the stomach, and he fell backward. At this moment, the powerful ruffian, Burtine, seized William from behind and tried to drag him down, at the same time calling for a shot-gun "to finish the Yankee – ." Turning suddenly upon his assailant, William raised his revolver, a heavy Tranter, and brought it down twice, with all his force, upon Burtine's head. The man staggered at the first blow and fell at the second, so that, by leveling his revolver at the other two, William was able to cow them into submission. The affray had passed so quickly that it was wholly over before Gordon and Bledsoe could reach the house, though they had sprung from their horses on hearing the first shot.

The two men had escaped by this time into the dense cane-brake back of the house, and it was necessary to attend to those who had been secured, and to examine the injuries of Connell and Burtine. The latter's head was in a pretty bad condition, though no serious results were likely to follow, while Connell had escaped a mortal wound by the merest hair's breadth. He was dressed in a heavy suit of Kentucky jeans, with large iron buttons down the front of the coat. The ball had struck one of these buttons, and, instead of passing straight through his vitals, it had glanced around his side, cutting a deep flesh furrow nearly to the small of his back, where it had gone out. The shock of the blow had stunned him somewhat, the button having been forced edgewise some distance into the flesh, but his wound was very trifling, and he was able to go on with the search with very little inconvenience. Having captured three out of the five inmates of the cabin, William felt as though he had done as much as could have been expected of two men under such circumstances, and he then began a search of the premises to see whether any evidence of their connection with the robbery could be found. Absolutely no clue whatever was obtained in the cabin and barn, nor did the store afford any better results so far as the robbery was concerned, but on this point William was already satisfied, and he was anxious to get all information possible about these so-called storekeepers. In the store, he found bills and invoices showing that the stock of goods had been purchased in Evansville, but there was no other writing of any character except some scribbling, apparently done in an idle moment, upon some fragments of paper in a drawer. On one was written: "Mrs. Kate Graham, Farmington, Ill."; and on another, amid many repetitions of the name, "Kate Graham," were the words, "My dear cousin."

Having found very little of value, the party returned to the three prisoners and closely examined them. To William's intense chagrin, he found that these men were, undoubtedly, mere wood-choppers living with Lester and having no connection with the proprietors of the store. Although desperate, brutal, and reckless, ready for a fight at all times, as shown in this affray, they were clearly not the train robbers, while it was equally evident that the two who had escaped were the guilty parties.