Please wait. Contacting image service... loading

Article text

COWBOY AND BVSHRANGER.
-*-
TOM HUGHES' LUCK IN AMERICA
AND AUSTRALIA.
Tom Hughes, the man who has been
making himself so notorious as a bushranger
and escapee in Western Australia lately has,
according to Colonel Tom Ochiltree, in the
'New York Sun,' also had an extraordinary
American career. We are not in a position
to vouch for Colonel Ochiltree's facts,
but give them from the 'Sun,' as some-
thing which will, no doubt, be read with
considerable interest all over the colony :—
Colonel Tom Ochiltree sat in the barroom
of the Hoffman yesterday drinking cham-
pagne with a friend, when a reporter came
in.
"Say, Tom Hughes has been bagged," he
remarked to the reporter. He was much
surprised to learn that the reporter was not
acquainted with Mr. Hughes.
"Why, he was at one time one of the first
citizens of Denison and at another time of
Lareda. Why, everybody in Texas and
every other State must have known Tom
Hughes. But let me tell you, his capture
was accomplished only because of his hard
luck, and hard luck was an infrequent
incident in the picturesque life of one of the
old-time-spirits that fifteen or twenty years
ago gave a zest to life in this country.'
HIS EARLY CAREER.
' Tom was a native of England, but he
came over the Western Ocean at the age of
sixteen, just after the close of the war
between the States, He floated along out
to the Western States gradually, working at
whatever came to hand uutil he had a few
dollars in pocket, when he would move on.
He is said to have blacked boots in New
York city, worked in a grain elevator in
Buffalo, shoved lumber into a planing mill in
Saginaw, roughed it with the lumbermen
in northern Michigan, served as porter in
Palmer's hotel, Chicago, waited on a table
in a river-side restaurant in St. Louis, and
kept an eating booth under a tent on the
bank of the Missouri in Kansas City. From
Kansas City he went to Fort Scott. It was
here that he first got his name in the papers,
and also, so far as known, began to assooiate
with criminals.'
SMART WORK,
"The only timber around Fort Scott is
to be found along the creek bottom. Here
there is a prodigious growth of young oaks,
It was one of Tom's fancies to go walking
on a Sunday morning among the oaks.
About the third Sunday trip he made of
this kind he found himself in a little open-
ing at about 10 o'clock in the forenoon,
with three men in front of him, one of
whom was pointing a revolver fair at his
head and telling him in blood curdling
tones to bold up his hands and 'keep 'em
well up too,' au order whioh Hughes made
haste to obey. It was related afterwards by
the survivor of the party that Hughes
seemed to be the 'wust scart tenderfoot ye
ever see, but he was staokin' the kyards for
us shameful.'
"Hughes, with his knees knocking
together and lower jaw drooping, kept his
hands up, but they wore flopping about in
a way that made the man with the pistol
laugh. He couldn't help turning his head a
minute to remark to one of the men with
him that he 'never see sich a idjit,'
but he never said anything else after that.
The moment his eye got around to his com-
panion, Hughes' shaking right hand
dropped down on the butt of a revolver
somewhere about his clothing, and even
before the robber saw the motion, Hughes
sent a bullet through his heart. He shot
one of the others with the next pull of the
trigger, and then told the third to hold up
his hands and make tracks toward Fort
Scott, which was done instanter.'
THE IDOL OF THE TOWN,
'Hughes, boy that he was, became the
idol of the town. The citizens made up a
purse, bought him a beautiful revolver and
a Winchester, and a gold watoh, and no end
of stuff, whioh were presented to him with
great speech-making, Three months later
Home one sawed the iron bars out of the
county gaol so that Greg Kimmel, the
robber Hughes had captured, could escape,
and Hughes and Johnnie Reid, a flash
gambler of the, place disappeared. It was
pretty plain that Reid had determined to
turn Hughes's nerve to account, and had
taken Kimmel along, No one was surprised,
therefore, when the news came a month
later that a party of three was having great
luck holding up stages in southern Arkan-
sas.
"But the road was not at that time a
a favorite with either Roid or Hughes.
Reid was a natural-born gambler and
Hughes was an apt pupil. They only took
the road when down on their luck. Hughes's
appearance and nerve made him the best
faro dealer in the west at that time. He
had an honest look and a careless bearing,
but no man ever got a drop on him over
the card table,
"He was prodigal of his gains, too, and
thus got a wide reputation for generosity,
It is said that one night while he was deal-
ing down in Denison a young man from New
York, who had blown in all his wealth, be-
came desperate, and drawing a revolver,
aimed it at his own head, intending to kill
himself, Hughes, who never failed so see
a motion with or for a pistol, saw this.
Without a moment's hesitation he picked
his revolver from the table and sent a bul-
let through the would-be suicide's hand
just in time to turn the pistol aside, That
ended the thoughts of suicide. Then Hughes
had tho young man cared for, and when ho
had recovered from the wound gave him
1,000 dols. and some good advice and sent
him home.
BAGGED BY A SAWED OFF SHOT GUN.
'But there came a time, as it always
does, when luck deserted young Hughes,
He and two others started in to hold up a
stage not far from Texarcana. Hughes
had the drop on the driver as straight as a
string with one pistol, while he covered a
quiet gentleman on the same seat with
another. But the moment Hughes stepped
out of the cover the quiet gentleman got
one of those internal sawed-off shot guns
out from under the duster or some un-
likely place and let drive two big loads of
buckshot at the covey, bagging the whole
three. He never would have done it only
the cartridge in Hughes' pistol failed to go
off. Hard luck, was'nt it!
'Well Hughes wasn't dead, but the
other two were. Hughes had two or three
buckshot in him, one of them right through
the right lung, but he pulled through, and
then got ten years for the job at Little
Rock, I think he served about six months
and then he skipped, and that's the last we
ever saw of Mr. Hughes in the West.
AS AN AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGER.
"The next we learned of him was in a
letter one of the boys got from Australia.
There was nothing in it but a newspaper
clipping, and that, related to the most recent
achievement of a daring bushranger by the
name of Hughes. The bushranger is
simply tho Australian idea of the cowboy
aud gentleman of the road on the American
frontier. From time to time in the last
five years or more we have heard from him
in the same way.
' To-day I received a letter from an old
friend of mine who owns a sheep ranch with
a million or so of sheep on it in Australia,
detailing the second capture of Hughes.
The police had determined to run him down
and had detailed a posse to follow him until
they got him, if it took a year. Ever since
the middle of April that gang of policemen.
has been on his trail, and Hughes must
have had a tough time of it. No doubt he
would have left the country and returned
to his friends in America had he had an
opportunity, but he was pressed too closely.
Several times he exchanged shots with the
police, but they were running shot, and
nohody but the police got hurt, and they
not seriously wounded.
"On the morning of 7th August police
men O'Leary and Gee, so the letter runs,
got word that Hughes was near Fremantle
and riding to the spot they found his trail. He
was on foot. He was a neat hand at cover-
ing his traoks, but in this case had overdone
the matter. Of courso, the police never
would have found it if a shepherd had not
given him away, but once they were on to
him the hours which he had spent conceal-
ing the track were wasted. He had not
covered more ground in five hours than he
could have run over in one. The trail led
through a couple of paddocks on the old
Canning road, and just before the second
one the policemen found a camp where
Hughes had been cooking dinner, He had
evidentlyy got wind of the policemen and
had run for it, leaving behind a Martini-
Henri rifle, a bulldog revolver, fourteen
cartridges, besides tea, sugar, meat, split
peas, tobacco, matches, and rugs, Still ho
didn't leave all his guns behind.
' Finding the tr-iil hot, Gee ran his horao
to the top of the nearest sand hill, wlu.noi-
he could see Hughos running at full speed
acros3 tho open ground, Gee fired twice at
the unfortunate fellow, compelling him to
take slieltor behind a treo. Thon Gee gal
loped straight down at the treo but Hughes
opened fire with his rifle and then with a
revolver. Three bullets grazed Gee's head,
and that sont him to cover nlso, It was nil
up with Hughes, though. The firing
brought the other policemen. These took
shelter off at oue side, and Hughes was un
able to keep out of Gee's sight and theirs
at the same time. But he was game to tho
last, and kept firing his revolver until a hall
from Gee's rifle struok him in tho left hip,
and he fell. He will doubtless bo sentenced
to a long term in prison, but no ono who
knows him will say that his carcor Ins been
more than temporarily chocked.
' Tho caii3u of his capture, af tor all, wns
simply hard luck, When the polico came
to examine his weapons they found that tho
Martini rifle had jammed, and would not
throw in a cartridge, while tho revolver, a
British bull-dog, had broken, so that, while
it could be fired, it took both hands to hold
it together, and thus the aim was spoiled. I
can't help feeling sorry that his early pro
judicusand patriotism should havo proven
ted his carrying trustworthy American
woaponB with him when ho emigrated to
Australia, instead of buying weapons in
England that wore bound sooner or Inter to
fuil him in timo of need.'1 — Melbourne
Daily Telegraph.
$