"Old Hicks," a drunken Planter, is entertained by a Hunting-party.—Lester's Landing.—Its Grocery-store and Mysterious Merchants.—A dangerous Situation and a desperate Encounter.—The unfortunate Escape of Two of the Robbers. One of the most direct sources of information relative to the party was found in the person of an old planter, named Hicks, who lived some distance down the track of the railroad. He was in the habit of visiting Union City very frequently, and he usually rounded off his day's pleasure by becoming jovially drunk, in which condition he would start for his home, walking down the railroad track. He had been in Union City all of Friday before the robbery, and about ten o'clock in the evening he was in a state of happy inebriety, ready to "hail fellow, well met," with any person he might encounter. On his way home, about three-quarters of a mile west of Union City, he saw a camp-fire burning a "Yes," continued another one, "I am out hunting for somebody's girl, and when I find her we are going to run away together." At this, they all laughed, as if there was some hidden meaning in his words. Hicks described all of the men, three of them quite minutely; but the fourth was evidently the same as the second, and the fifth was lying down asleep all the time, so that Hicks could not tell much about him. They were armed with large navy revolvers, which they wore in belts, and their clothing was quite good. The tall man, who seemed to be the leader, related an account of a deer-hunt in which he had participated, in Fayette county, Illinois, on the Kaskaskia river, and when he mentioned the place, the others scowled and winked at him, as if to stop him. Hicks said that they seemed to be familiar with Cincinnati, Other persons reported having seen the same party in the same vicinity several times before the night of the robbery, though some had seen only two, others three and four; but no one, except Hicks, had seen five. The accounts given by the persons near the train when the robbery occurred did not show the presence of more than three persons, though possibly there might have been a fourth. The descriptions of the suspected parties were quite varied in some respects; yet the general tenor of them was to the same effect, and, as no one knew who these persons were, it was quite certain that this quartette of strangers had committed the robbery. In the case of the Moscow robbery, we had strongly suspected two notorious thieves, named Jack Nelson and Miles Ogle, so that my first action, on learning of this second affair in the same vicinity, was to telegraph to my correspondents and agents throughout the country, to learn whether either of these men had been seen lately. I could gain no news whatever, except from St. Louis, whence an answer was returned to the effect that Nelson was said to be stopping somewhere in the country back of Hickman, Kentucky. Ogle's wife was in St. Louis, and she had His first inquiries were directed toward discovering where Nelson was staying near Hickman, and he learned in a very short time that this rumor had no truth in it. While making search for Nelson, however, he heard of a low grocery-store at Lester's Landing, about twelve miles below Hickman on the Mississippi River. The store was situated four miles from any other house in a sparsely settled country, where the amount of legitimate trade would hardly amount to twelve hundred dollars per year. It was said to be the resort of a very low class of men, and the proprietors passed for river gamblers. On William's return to Union City from Hickman, he decided to make a visit to this grocery-store to learn something about the men who frequented it. Having none of his own men with Mr. Merrick said that a man named John Wesley Lester kept a wood-yard on the Mississippi, and the spot was called Lester's Landing. About three or four months before, three men arrived there and obtained leave from Lester to put up a store, which they stocked with groceries and whisky. The men gave their names as J. H. Clark, Ed. J. Russell, and William Barton, and they seemed to have some means, as the store did only a limited business, except in whisky. They were all men of ability and determination, and, as they were always well armed, the people of the cane-brake country were rather afraid of them. Nothing positive was known against them, but it was suspected from their looks and actions that they were Northern desperadoes lying quiet for a time. They seemed to be well acquainted in Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans, but they were careful never to give any hint of their previous place of residence in the hearing of strangers. Mr. Merrick had, however, heard Russell say that he had once run a stationary engine in Missouri, and from occasional expressions by 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 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 sus 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 "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 fight at Lester's Landing.—Page— The fight at Lester's Landing.—Page— 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 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. William learned that the young man who had first slipped out was Barton, and the man who had done the shooting was Russell. Clark, they said, had taken the steamer for Cape Girardeau, Missouri, two days before, accompanied by a married woman, named Slaughter. The description of the train robbers tallied so well with the appearance of Barton and Russell, that, taking their actions into consideration, there could no longer be any doubt of their complicity in the affair, and it was highly provoking that these two should have escaped. Still, it was an accident which could hardly have been avoided. The fact that the express company would not consent to the employment of a larger force of detectives was the principal cause of this misfortune, for it could have been prevented easily, had William been accompanied by two more good men of my force. As it was, two detectives, dropping unexpectedly upon a nest of five villainous-looking men in the dark, could have hardly hoped to do better than to secure three of them. It could not have been supposed that they would know which were the important ones to capture, especially as they could not distinguish one from another in the uncertain light. Indeed, as afterward appeared, they were fortunate in having escaped alive, for the close approach to fatal wounds, which they both received, showed how deadly had been the intentions of the man Russell, while Burtine had evidently intended that they should never leave the house alive. It may be supposed that the shooting on both sides was none of the best, but it must be remembered that it began without warning, and was over in two minutes. It cannot be expected that snap-shooting, even at close quarters, should be very accurate; yet it was afterward learned that Russell's escape had been about as narrow as William's, two balls having passed through his clothes and grazed his flesh. |