Pinkertons detectives vo.., p.180
Pinkerton's Detectives Volume 1, page 180
No damage was done, however, as the spot where everything and everybody alighted was too soft to cause anything to be broken; and after righting the car, and repairing the disaster as much as possible,[Pg 659] William and Keating safely arrived in Lavaca early in the afternoon, were at once driven to Indianola, where they cleaned up, including a most welcome bathing and shaving, at the Magnolia House; embarked on a little schooner carrying the government mail down the coast; were becalmed in Aranzas Bay, and late during the night of the twenty-seventh of January the light from a quaint seaport city danced along the waves of its beautiful harbor, and welcomed the worn-out but indefatigable detectives to Corpus Christi.
VII.
Going ashore, the two proceeded to a sort of hotel or boarding-house on the beach, where they found Judge Carpenter, formerly of Chicago, who had become district judge there, and who, on learning my son's name, inquired if he were not a relative of Allan Pinkerton the detective.
He replied that he was very distantly related, which was a literal truth at that time, when the Judge, claiming an acquaintance, proffered any assistance which might be desired, whatever his business. The courtesy was courteously accepted, but no questions were asked concerning Taylor.
After breakfast the next morning, they strolled[Pg 660] up-town with Judge Carpenter, when passing a Mr. Buckley's store, Keating, while catching step, took occasion to nudge my son, who carelessly looked into the place, as any stranger might, and there saw the object of his long search pleasantly chatting with one of the clerks; but they walked on quietly with the Judge as far as the post-office, when he kindly introduced them to another Mr. Taylor, the postmaster.
After a few moments' pleasant conversation, William asked the postmaster if he could direct him to ex-Sheriff John McLane's residence. It proved to be but a block distant, but on inquiring there, it was ascertained that he was absent at his store, farther down-town. He was the only person in that city, besides Keating, whom my son felt that he could trust, as I had not only previously rendered him service, but also held him in the light of a friend; and he had already been requested by me to render him any service in his power, should William pass that way, so that he knew the first thing he should do was to go to him, explain his business fully and secure his immediate advice and assistance.
Finding him, he told him that he did not feel justified in arresting Taylor unless the mail-boat in which he had arrived was, in some way, detained for an hour. McLane said he would attend to that, and brought Captain Reinhart to the store, but not telling him why the delay was desired, arranged for the same, and at once hunted up Sheriff Benson, to whom my[Pg 661] son delivered the warrant and demanded the prisoner.
Benson at first hesitated, expressing the utmost surprise, as Taylor was a fellow-boarder, and he could not realize, so he said, that he was other than a brave and chivalrous gentleman, and began to question the validity of the requisition, but William told him that there was the order of Governor Pease approved by General Canby, and that he did not propose to be dallied with or imposed upon in any manner.
Seeing that my son had come too far and undergone too many hardships to be trifled with, he went with him to Buckley's store, where they found Taylor, who was given into the detectives' hands, though utterly astounded and completely unnerved at the idea that the strong hand of the law was upon him.
In this condition, and before he could collect his scattered senses and decide to make a legal resistance, which would have caused my son a vast amount of trouble, if indeed it had not resulted in the liberation of the elegant swindler, he was placed on board the schooner.
After they had left Corpus Christi behind, William began a system of soothing argument, with the end in view of convincing Taylor, who was now becoming nervous and restless, and evidently ashamed of being carried away so ingloriously, that it would be the best thing for himself, his brother, and even his people in Philadelphia, to go along quietly, without[Pg 662] creating any disturbance, as, should he do so, he would treat him like a gentleman in every instance; but should he give him any trouble whatever he would be obliged to put him in irons, and not only treat him like a criminal, but would serve him roughly in every particular.
Taylor saw that he was in my power, and that I had put two men after him who would have gone to Cape Horn for him, and that his only chance of escape lay in strategy.
He had the perfect freedom of the boat, and, when he desired, chatted with the captain and the crew, who were not apprised by my son of the character of his new companion, and everything was done to make him comfortable.
At first he kept entirely to himself, but of a sudden his manner changed entirely, and he became particularly pleasant, especially to the captain of the boat; and as they were nearing the little barren Saluria Island, at the entrance to Matagorda Bay, William accidentally overheard the captain say to Taylor, "The tide is high enough, and I will be able to run close to the island." This caused him to have no particular suspicion of Taylor, as the remark might equally apply to a hundred other subjects besides the one to which it did; but in a few moments after, he noticed the schooner, which had hugged the island pretty closely, now suddenly take a still closer tack, and rapidly neared the barren coast. Feeling alarmed[Pg 663] lest the helmsman was not attending to his duty, my son yelled:
"Captain, what under heaven do you mean? Don't you see that in another moment you'll have us beached?"
He had scarcely uttered the words when Taylor was seen to spring into the waves, and then disappear, and the boat at the same moment stood off from the island, as if in obedience to the warning my son had given.
The truth flashed into his mind in an instant: Here, after this hard, unremitting toil, the discomforts, the annoyances, the dangers, everything through which they had been obliged to pass, after their hopes for success, and after they had earned itif two men ever had earned successjust when they were beginning to feel the pleasure of work well done, and be able to experience the genuine satisfaction it is to any man who is honest enough to acknowledge it, in securing the regard of the public for assisting in its protection, the commendation of one's employer for good sturdy care for his interests, and the self-respect one gains in doing one's duty, even if it has led him a hard life of it,they were to be cheated and outwitted. Half crazed, my son, with anger and indignation, and a perfect flood of humiliating thoughts filled his brain in the first great question, "What was to be done?"
His first impulse was to plunge in after him, and[Pg 664] in pursuance of that impulse he had freed himself of his boots and coat, when, seeing Taylor rise to the surface and make but little headway against the tide, which was ebbing strongly, he call to the captain to round to, and began firing with considerable rapidity, so as to strike the water within a few feet of the man who was so unsuccessfully struggling against the tide, but whom he could not blame for making so brave and desperate an effort to free himself.
He was provided with two magnificent English Trenter revolvers, which will carry a half-ounce ball a fourth of a mile with absolute accuracy; and as he could use it with great precision he could easily have killed the man in the water. Both the captain and Taylor were terribly scared, and as Taylor held up his hand, and yelled"I surrender!" the balls were cutting into the water all about him savagely, and the captain shouted, "For God's sake, don't kill the man! Don't you see I'm rounding to?"
Keating, who had been almost worn out from the Texas trip, had been sleeping in a bunk below, and who had been roused by William's firing and the strange motion of the schooner, now came on deck rather thinly clad, and the two detectives covered Taylor with their revolvers; while the captain, himself at the wheel, handled the schooner so that it was only necessary for him to keep himself above water in order to float with the tide against the side of the boat, when my son, rather too indignant to be particularly[Pg 665] tender, grabbed him by the hair and his luxuriant whiskers, drew him aboard, and soundly kicked him into the cabin, where he began crying from excitement and fright, even going to such depths of discouragement that he begged for a revolver with which to kill himself, which being handed him by my son for that purpose, he very properly refused, and was put to bed for the purpose of drying his clothes like a truant school-boy.
It was my son's intention to take the steamer at Indianola for Galveston immediately upon arriving at the former place; but on account of a heavy "Norther," which had blown all day Friday, the steamer had been obliged to put out to sea, and the party were consequently compelled to put up at the Magnolia House, and wait there until the following Monday; and it required all the detective's shrewdness to keep Taylor quiet, as he had learned from some source that the creation of Wyoming Territory, which occurred a short time before his capture, had caused Cheyenne to be a city of quite a different Territory than when the requisition was issued, which would have amounted to so grave a technical flaw that the requisition would not have held against a habeas corpus.
Court had just set at the place, and Indianola was full of lawyers, hungry as vultures for just such a rich case; but by constant persuasions, partial promises, leading to a hope, at least, that a compromise[Pg 666] might be effected at New Orleans, and dark hints of irons, and that, should his brother come on there and create any disturbance he would be immediately arrested as accessory both before and after the crime; with constant drives out into the country, rambles down the sea-shore, and every pretext known to the mind of the ingenious detective, everything was managed successfully; a receipt for nearly two thousand dollars in specie secured; the turning over of the money to Taylor's brother stopped; and Taylor himself taken to New Orleans without an attempt at rescue; and receiving a dispatch there from me to the effect that a compromise could not be for a moment considered, the party left that city Thursday, February 4th, arriving in Cheyenne six days later, my son accounting for his prisoner to the authorities into whose hands the case then passed; the last being seen of "Harry G. Taylor, the Man from Somewhere," being behind the bars of the guard-house at Fort Russell, where he had been placed for safe-keeping previous to his trial;and I have related these facts, not so much to show any startling phase of crime, as to give the public a single illustration, out of thousands upon my records, of how men must overcome every known obstacle while leading the hard life of the detective.
THE END.
Allan Pinkerton, Pinkerton's Detectives Volume 1
