CAPTURED AND CONDEMNED TO DEATH.
Directly after performing this remarkable dare-devil deed “Wild Bill” again concluded to re-enter Price’s lines, although to return into the camp where he must now be familiarly known, was like inviting death. Some men are never so happy as when daring fate, and to approach near the dreadful summoner often becomes a fascinating adventure. It was so with Bill, for the greater the risks to be encountered, the greater his enjoyment. He loved danger, not as the soldier who would gather fame from the mouths of roaring cannons, but as one who extracts some pleasant intoxicant from the result. For the fourth time Bill disguised himself and again made a detour so as to re-enter General Price’s lines from the South. He met the fleeing army not many miles from Little Rock, and, riding a mule, with the make-up of an Arkansas farmer, he offered himself as a recruit. It was but a short time before he was discovered, and upon being reported he was arrested, and on the following day tried by court-martial. The trial lasted less than an hour, as he was so well known in connection with the escapades already narrated, and upon conviction he was sentenced to be shot on the succeeding day.
Fortune always favors the desperately brave, and we now have to record another extraordinary visitation of good luck to Bill. Price’s army had been fleeing more than a week before the victorious Curtis, whose troops outnumbered those of Price two to one. The pursuit had been continued until both armies were very much fatigued, and Price’s was so nearly exhausted that he was compelled to go into camp on a small creek twenty-five miles south of Little Rock. Wild Bill’s arms and legs were pinioned with thongs and he was confined in a one-room log-house with a single guard to prevent his escape. The house had but one door and one window, the latter being nearly two feet square and closed by a door made of clap-boards. Being bound hand and foot there was no avenue of escape, apparently, and Bill was forced to take a melancholy view of his situation. Night coming on, and the guard being nearly worn out, dozed off from time to time, feeling that his prisoner was perfectly secure. While meditating upon the execution announced to take place on the morrow, in which he was to be the chief character his eyes caught sight of the handle of an old case-knife which was sticking in an auger hole in one of the house logs. Changing his seat without arousing any suspicion from the guard, Bill managed to secure the rusty knife, and after long effort succeeded in cutting the cords which bound his wrists together. The dozing guard permitted him also to cut the cords on his feet, and the moment he was free Bill rushed on the guard like a tiger springing upon its prey and seizing him by the throat ripped open his abdomen in an instant. The guard fell dead from the knife thrusts without being able to give any alarm, and, seizing the musket and taking the guard’s coat, which he hastily put on, Bill fled out into the darkness and made good his escape.
Bill traveled nearly two days before reaching the Union lines, and upon his return he appeared before General Curtis, to whom he related his wonderful escape from death, and declined to act any longer as a spy in Price’s army, as his return again would, undoubtedly, have resulted in his death.