The Postal Department To Pay The Raidler Reward
After a Long Wait the Marshal Will Receive the Second $1,000 Offered for the Train Robber--
How the Outlaw Was Captured.
Guthrie, Ok., 1897 -- Deputy United States Marshal William Tilghman will get another $1,000 for his capture of "Bill" Raidler, the outlaw who led the bandits in the hold-up of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific passenger train at Dover, April 3, 1895. The United States Postoffice department offered $1,000 for Raidler's arrest, but when Tilghman applied for the reward he was told that the government did not pay rewards to deputy marshals. Recently the case was reviewed and the department rules that such rewards could be paid to deputy marshals. Tilghman will get his money. He has already received $1,000 from the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific.
Tilghman captured Raidler on Mission creek, north of Pawhuska, in the Osage nation, in September following the train robbery. Friends of Raidler had betrayed his whereabouts for $250. Tilghman, armed with a shotgun loaded with buckshot, hid in a log cabin near where Raidler had to pass. Just about sundown, the outlaw, not suspecting ambush, passed the cabin on foot. Tilghman ran out of a side door and by turning the corner of the cabin was able to cover Raidler with his shotgun. Raidler was not over thirty feet away. He reached for his revolver and began jumping and dodging and falling like a wounded partridge, to escape being hit. He fired instantly, but his pistol is supposed to have exploded over his head, as Tilghman never heard the bullet. Tilghman twice commanded Raidler to throw down his pistol, but fired when Raidler tried to shoot. One bullet struck the outlaw in the right arm near the elbow, plowed down the arm, came out near the wrist and knocked his pistol out of his hand.
Every one of the five men who took part in the train robbery were killed or arrested with a year.
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