Jim Cummings; Or, The Great Adams Express Robbery Part 26

The detective work in connection with this case was as skillful, daring and successful as any that have made the detectives of Paris world famous.

Starting with the bit of torn express tag and following, thread by thread, the broken bits of clews which were discovered by the hawk eyes of the operatives until the arrest of Cook, it was as pretty a piece of business as ever brought criminals to their just punishment.

A most remarkable fact connected with the robbery and the subsequent detection of its partic.i.p.ators, is that from first to last not a single human life was taken.

Unlike Jesse or Frank James, Redney Burns, Frank Rande or other noted outlaws, who always shot before a move was made, Jim c.u.mmings pitted brute strength and brain power against brute strength and brain power.

He doubtless would not have hesitated to take life if pushed to the last extremity, but he placed more reliance on his cunning, shrewdness and ready brain than on the deadly bullet.

Jesse James on a fleet horse, a revolver in each hand, and surrounded by his band of horse thieves and cutthroats, was audacious and bold, and would not hesitate to take desperate chances, but it is doubtful if he would have quietly and with business-like foresight, prepared for every emergency, forged a letter on a forged letter-head of an express company, gained access to the car, and, single-handed, attack and bind a man nearly as strong as himself, and then leisurely helped himself to his booty.

The writer is not holding Jim c.u.mmings up in a laudatory spirit, or as an object to be envied and imitated, but as everything else has its degrees of comparison, so has the methods employed in committing robbery, and the address, audacity, skill, success and intelligence displayed by Jim c.u.mmings in robbing the Adams Express Company of a cool $53,000, cannot help but excite a feeling akin to admiration. As this was his first attempt, it would take subsequent years to measure the height which he might attain as a highwayman. It may be that the modern Jack Sheppard had his career nipped in the bud by the Pinkerton Detective Agency. That "eye that never sleeps" must have winked pretty often, when it learned of the various and narrow escapes Jim c.u.mmings had from its agents, and Mr. Pinkerton confessed afterward, that he pa.s.sed many anxious nights and days on account of Jim c.u.mmings. The money was gathered together from the various sources designated by the robbers, and when counted was found to be almost the whole sum originally put in the safe, The robbery was committed in the latter part of October, and the early part of the following January found the princ.i.p.als wearing the convicts' stripes.

The foregoing narrative would be incomplete did it not relate the incidents which brought Swanson's ranche to a pile of ashes, and Swanson himself to an untimely end.

When c.u.mmings and Moriarity, with Sam and Chip, the detectives, disguised as the Doctor and Scip, his negro servant, dashed away from the ranche, carrying the greater part of his wealth, Swanson was lying, an unconscious man, on the floor of the large room. The blow which felled him to the ground had been given with the full force of c.u.mmings' right arm, and partly overcome by the copious libations of which he had partaken previous to his short but decisive fight with the train robber, it was several hours before he regained his senses. His men had rushed to the pony herd at the first alarm, only to find a stampede had loosened all the horses, and they were helpless to pursue the robbers.

Swanson's rage, when he fully realized that he had been robbed, was something terrible. He roamed the vicinity of the ranche armed to the heel, cursing and foaming at the mouth, pouring maledictions of the most blasphemous character upon the men who had repaid his hospitality with such a scurvy trick.

When finally the ponies had been corralled, he vaulted on one, and galloping with the speed of the wind, set out in pursuit of the robbers who had mulcted him of his wealth. All the day he ranged the country, until his horse, completely exhausted, refused to move another step.

His own excited pa.s.sion had calmed down somewhat, so hobbling his horse, he threw himself on the open prairie and sank into a deep slumber.

During his absence a strange procession rode up to the ranche.

A large band of Cherokee Indians and half-breeds, headed by a chief of the tribe, loped up the trail, and dismounting, asked for Swanson.

The angry tones and flashing eyes of the red men portended a storm, and suspicious of coming danger to the master of the ranche, a cowboy mounted his pony and galloped off to warn Swanson.

For several months previous the Indians had been missing stock from their herds of cattle. Steers and yearlings had mysteriously disappeared, even under the keen eyes and sharp ears of the Cherokees themselves. All efforts to discover the thieves had proved fruitless, until chagrined and mortified by their ill success, the Indians resolved to let nothing escape nor a stone unturned which would lead to the detection of the parties making away with their cattle.

Relays of scouts were detailed, and a few days previous to their appearance at Swanson's ranche the first trail had been found, which they followed with all the skill and cunning that have made the red men of America peculiarly famous. Day and night the pursuit had been followed, and it led them direct to Swanson's.

He had long been suspected of such methods of procuring his stock, but so cunningly had he managed to cover his tracks that he had escaped being caught lip to this time.

His day of punishment had arrived, and his executioners were gathered around the ranche awaiting his return.

The cowboy had failed to find him, and the early morning found Swanson returning home. The Indians had posted scouts in all directions, and when one of them galloped in, conveying the intelligence that Swanson was coming, the temporary camp was awakened, and with their blankets over their heads, the Indians patiently waited for their victim.

All unsuspicious of danger, he came at a hard gallop over the range, nor did he discover his visitors until he wheeled around the corner of the house and found himself in their midst.

A dozen hands immediately grappled him, dragging him from the saddle and pinioned his arms behind him. Not a word had been spoken, their silence and his own guilty conscience told him that he had no mercy to hope for. As husband of a Cherokee squaw, he was looked on as a member of their tribe, and as such would be tried by their methods, found guilty or not guilty; and if guilty, he knew he would be shot at once.

His reckless, bold spirit a.s.serted itself at this critical period, and holding his head erect, he asked, speaking the Cherokee tongue:

"Am I a coyote, that my brother traps me in this way?"

The dignified chief, folding his arms across his breast, his face stern and forbidding, replied:

"Coyote! No, dog of a pale-face. The coyote would yelp in mockery to hear you call yourself one."

"That isn't answering my question, Eagle Claw, What I want to know is, why am I jumped on in this way?" asked Swanson, his tone pacific and calm, and his manner free from anger, for he saw that it would require a deal of diplomacy to get him out of the sc.r.a.pe.

"You shall be answered, but not here," and the chief, Eagle Claw, placing his curved hand to his mouth, emitted a shrill, piercing yell which was repeated by the line of scouts until the most remote vidette heard, and headed his horse to the ranche. The Indians in some parts of the Territory are partly civilized and live in organized towns and villages, electing their head men from time to time. Others are wild and uncivilized, wandering from place to place, pitching their tepees of buffalo hide on the bank of some rippling stream, or, sequestered in some lovely valley, engage in the pursuit of game and in the care of their herds of ponies and cattle.

It was to the latter cla.s.s that Eagle Claw and his band belonged. Gaudy paint, vemillion and yellow, smeared their faces in all the fantastic designs which their grotesque imaginations could invent. The tanned buckskin leggins, fringed and beaded, were supported at the waist by a belt of leather embroidered and figured. A blanket thrown carelessly over the shoulder completed the costume, with the addition of moca.s.sins made of rawhide. Their ponies were selected from the cream of their stock, and the gorgeous trappings of the saddles and harness made a most picturesque scene as the cavalcade filed over the plains.

Riding between two stalwart specimens of the Cherokee tribe, Swanson was closely guarded. All the answer he could get for his indignant questionings was a surly "Humph," or a sullen admonition to keep quiet.

The chief led the party due southwest from Swanson's ranche, and all day long the st.u.r.dy ponies were kept at the long, swinging lope which enables them to cover miles during a day.

Late in the afternoon the chief, raising in his stirrups, gave a peculiar, vibrating yell, which was immediately taken up by his followers until the welkin rang with the penetrating sounds.

Like a faint echo an answering yell came back, and soon the forms of hors.e.m.e.n, dashing over the range, could be discerned.

Familiar with all the Indian customs Swanson recognized the yell. It told the camp that the scouting party had returned successful.

A short canter and the entire band wheeled around the edge of a tract of timber and came out upon the village, pitched on the banks of a stream of water, the tepees grouped in a circle around the chief's wigwam, the blue smoke curling lazily through the aperture at the top, and the welcome smell of cooking meats permeating the place. Swanson was given in charge of a guard and escorted to a vacant tepee, where he was firmly bound, hand and foot, and thrown upon a pile of fur robes.

A large fire had been built near Eagle Claw's wigwam, and one by one the sub-chiefs, head-men and old Indians of the tribe gravely stalked toward it and seated themselves in the circle.

Rising from his place Eagle Claw ordered the prisoner to be brought forward.

As Swanson caught sight of the council-fire, the stern faces surrounding it, and the grave air of his captors, his guilty heart sank within him, and, trembling in every joint, he was hardly able to totter to the place a.s.signed him. The Indians noted his condition with scornful eyes, and Eagle Claw, advancing from the rest, said:

"How now, does the coyote tremble because he is asked to join the council with his brethren?"

The mocking words brought Swanson's pluck back again, and drawing himself to his full height he answered:

"You red devil! Don't brother me. Drop that beating around the bush and out with the truth."

"'Tis well. A liar is a curse to his people. The Cherokees are men of truth and have but a single tongue."

"The Cherokees are the biggest rascals in the Territory, the meanest horse-thieves, and couldn't tell the truth to save their rascally necks from the halter," said Swanson.

The Indian's eyes flashed ominously at these words, and rising his voice, he said:

"My brother has a long tongue. It might be well if it were cut out; but we know he is joking, for is he not a Cherokee himself?"

"Not I. You can't make a mustang out of a broken-down broncho and you can't make a white man out of an Indian."

"But you took one of the fairest of our young maidens to your tepee, and--"

"Fairest young maiden? I took the skinniest rack-a-bones in the tribe.

The old hag! She was too lazy to earn her salt, and was the biggest fool that ever wore calico."

A terrible look of rage came into Eagle Claw's face, for Swanson had married his own sister, and such an insult was not to be brooked. But with all the powers of dissimulation which the Indian possesses, he forced a smile to his lips, and, blandly speaking, pointed to the thongs around Swanson's arms.

"It is not well that our brother should be tied that way," and drawing his keen knife, he cut the thongs, and Swanson freed his arms.