When the notorious Dalton gang was wiped out in the disastrous raid on the banks of Coffeyville, Kansas, Bill Doolin and two other members were not present. These three Doolin, Charley Pierce and "Bitter Creek" Newcomb, had begun to show signs of a lack of discipline after several successful train and bank robberies and Bob Dalton, the leader of the outlaws, had decided to leave them behind, else their careers might have been summarily cut short.

With the news that a terrific battle in Coffeyville had resulted in deaths of four of the five men in the raiding party and the serious wounding of the fifth, Doolin and his two companions were forced to flee for their lives. This narration henceforth will continue with the adventures of the bloodthirsty Doolin and his cut-throat companions.

Only twenty miles wet of the present city of Tulsa the outlaws had long maintained a stronghold. Here they lay hidden, knowing they were safe in the country, which had so long harbored them. Doolin immediately set about organizing a band that was to continue the horrible activities of the Daltons for over five years. One of the new members was Bill Dalton, who had seldom ridden with his brothers in the old days. Another was George Weightman, later to become notorious as the bloody "Red Buck." Two others were Charley Pierce, Tulsa Jack Blake, an Clifton, Alias "Dynamite Dick," "Little Dick" West and a man known only as Little Bill. Later "Arkansas Tom: Jones joined the gang.

Doolin quickly set about making history in Indian Territory. What he and his men wanted they took, whether it be fast, thoroughbred horses or money and jewels. Many were the train and bank robberies in the Southwest during their reign. It got so that people would not travel through the country if it were possible to go around. At Cimarron, Kansas they held up a train on May 28, 1893 and were hotly pursued across the Cherokee Nation by United States Marshal Christopher Madsen, an officer who was to play a prominent part in ridding the Territory of one of the worst bandit gangs it has ever known.

The daring robbery at Cimarron led to the memorable battle at the small town of Ingalls in September of the same year. Several old timers around this hamlet remember the battle vividly. A posse under Marshals James Masterson, Hixon and Speed entered the town concealed in farm wagons, for it was well know that the country was friendly to the outlaws.

A message demanding surrender was sent out to Doolin, only to be returned with defiance. The officer opened fire immediately upon the buildings in which the bandits were preparing to defend themselves and after an hour's fighting succeeded in driving them into the open. The outlaws retreated rapidly, but so accurate was their shooting that Marshals Speed, Houston and Shadley were killed. Doolin lost only one man, Tom Jones, who was captured when he ran out of ammunition.

Unable to follow the outlaws because of the deadly fire of bullets, the posse gathered their dead and wounded and the one prisoner and went home. The outlaws had decidedly the best of the battle and as a sign of their success the robberies and hold-ups with frequent killings, became more often.

Something had to be done, that was certain. Finally, in desperation the Three Guardsmen-Bill Tilghman, Chris Madsen, Heck Thomas-were sent on the trail by Marshal E. D. Nix. These officers were noted man hunters. To them is due the credit for ending the careers of the famous Doolin gang and making Oklahoma safe for homesteaders.

Marshal Tilghman, following the trail of the bandits tenaciously, came unwittingly upon their hiding place in January 1895. He stopped at the old Rock Fort Ranch on Deer Creek for information of the bandits, though at the time he was concerned with the arrest of a cattleman in the vicinity who had appropriated several of his neighbor's cattle for his personal use. He walked into the dugout, which served the rancher as a home, noticing as he entered that the single room was fitted with a tier of bunks on each side. These, however, were heavily curtained, and he could not see if they were occupied or not. The only one to be seen was the rancher himself, a sullen individual who sat before the fireplace with a Winchester over his knees. To the marshal's query as to where another rancher lived and if he thought a fight could be arranged between his dog and the rancher's the fellow replied uncivilly, entire ignoring the first question:

"Not much dog-fighting going on around these parts, stranger."

He made no objection to Tilghman's request to be allowed to warm himself at the fire, for the day was cold and Western hospitality forbade the turning away of even an enemy. As the officer turned his back to the heat his eyes glanced along the bunks. A chill ran down his spine, for from each bunk the muzzle of a revolver or rifle was pointing straight at him. He knew then that he had walked un suspectedly into the very midst of the outlaws he had hunted so long, but neither by movement nor change of expression did he betray that he was aware of their presence.

Instead, he talked on calmly to the rancher, expecting each moment to be shot down. Finally he remarked casually:

"Well, I guess I'd better be going. Which way does a many get out of here?

"The same damned way he got in," came the surly answer from the rancher."

The marshal walked with steady steps to the door, apparently unaware of the gun muzzles that followed his movements. Once outside he wiped the cold sweat from his brow and heaved a great sigh of relief. Later he learned just how great his danger had been. Red Buck, the killer, always true to his nature, had wanted to kill him down. It was all Doolin and the rancher could do to restrain him as the officer walked from the dugout.

"If you kill him there'll be a hundred deputies here before morning," argued the rancher. "They'll throw dynamite down here and blow us all to hell!"

"You're a lot of white livered cowards!" the outlaw shouted angrily. "He'll be back where within four hours with a posse. We'll be caught like rats. One bullet would end his trailing us."

The method of routing outlaws from their strongholds with dynamite was not a new one. Other gangs had learned the lesson before. After a consultation Doolin decided that to remain in the vicinity longer would be suicide. So they saddled up and rode away in a blinding snowstorm, the killer still raging at his companions for what he termed their foolhardiness in allowing Tilghman to go free.

The net of the law was fastening around the bandits and for grater safety they scattered into the hills to wait for the storm to blow over. Bill Dalton, last of the bandits by that name, found a hiding place in a deserted ranch house thirty-five miles west of Ardmore, Oklahoma. So confident was he that he would not be discovered that he brought his family there. Then one day, his wife and another woman went to town to get supplies and a consignment of whiskey.

Federal officers, however, were watching the liquor, with suspicion. The woman who called for it at the express office was promptly arrested, although her identity was not ascertained until the next day. The officers then managed to find out where Dalton was hiding and before long had surrounded the supposedly deserted ranch house. As the trapped outlaw leaped from a window in an attempt to escape, Marshal Loss Hart shot and killed him.

"Tulsa Jack" Blake died following the hold-up of a Rick Island train at Dover, Oklahoma, on May 5, 1895, which is another interesting episode. Marshal Chris Madsen, notified by telegraph of the robbery, set out in pursuit of the bandits from El Reno. The posse came upon the robbers resting at a ford on the Cimarron River. In the running fight that ensued Blake was tumbled from his hose by a lucky shot. The remainder of the band easily outdistanced the officer, again scattering into the hills.

Bitter Creek Newcomb and Charley Pierce met death at the hands of their one-time friends of Rock Fort Ranch. Riding in one evening, expecting to find food and shelter as usual, their former comrades filed them with buckshot.

Little Bill, after whom Tilghman now went on a long manhunt, was hiding in the hills of the Osage Nation north of Pawhuska. The outlaw came in a mealtime to the Sam Moore ranch and one night Tilghman stepped out of the darkness before him.

"Throw up your hands, Bill!"

But Little Bill had no intention of surrendering to face a long term in prison or possible the noose. He drew his gun and fired. In the darkness his bullet missed its mark but Tilghman's load of buckshot did not. Wounded and bleeding, the outlaw fought on until his gun was empty and until he had been shot once more. Then he fell, to die in time from the effects of the wounds.

Soon after the capture of Little Bill, the notorious killed Red Buck was trapped in a dugout at Arapaho. Alone, surrounded by officers, he fought like the wolf he was. For hours the posse kept up an incessant fire and finally, a blazing gun in each hand, Red Buck walked forth. He fell with a bullet in his heart.

There remained but two other members of the gang. Marshal Tilghman captured Doolin in December 1895. The outlaw had gone to Eureka Springs, troubled with rheumatism, to take the mineral baths. Finding a letter from the bandit's wife to a friend, which gave the cue to his whereabouts, the officer hurried to the Springs. He found Doolin in a bathhouse and rushed in with a gun in his hand, calling for his surrender.

Doolin resisted, crying that Tilghman would have to shoot him before he would give himself up. The Marshal could have shot him several times, but he remembered that Doolin had prevented Red Buck from killing him at Rock Fort Ranch. The two engaged in a rough and tumble fight, the outlaw trying to reach his gun and the other trying hard to prevent him.

quot;Don't make me kill you, Bill," he pleaded at last. "It's you or me; I've got to take you in!"

And Doolin seeing determination in his eye, surrendered.

But it was not long before he was again free. He had been lodged in jail at Guthrie before an immense crowd that had fathered to see the outlaw and his famous captor. On the night of July 5, 1896, he made an escape, with a Negro accomplice, of the kind that is seen in the most thrilling fiction. With weapons taken from the guards the jailbirds forced them to pen every cell. Every prisoner who would take the opportunity to escape was liberated.

Doolin fled to Arkansas after a running battle with an aroused posse of citizens and officers. There he found friends who hid him, but soon he returned to Oklahoma with the intention of taking his wife and baby out of the territory. The movements of Doolin and his wife had been watched by Marshal Heck Thomas meanwhile. Packing a wagon with furniture and provisions, the outlaw had instructed his wife to drive to a nearby spring where he would meet her.

A few hundred yards from the house Marshal Thomas suddenly stepped out into the road before him.

"Throw down you guns, Bill," he ordered. "I've got men all around you."

Doolin said not a word. Both men fired at the same moment. Doolin missed, but Thomas, using a shotgun at close range, planted twenty-one buckshot in his opponent's body. He held his gun ready for another shot, but the last of the original Dalton gang and one of the Southwest's most notorious outlaws was dead.

Little Dick West, the remaining member of Doolin's gang, became one of the band in which Al Jennings operated. Marshal Tilghman, who had done so much to rid the territory of its bad men, remained an officer of the law until he was killed recently while in the discharge of his duty.

| Kingfisher Times Page |  | Mollie's Corner Page |  | Home |