HOW I SAVED TOM'S LIFE
I climbed up on the box beside Tom; I threw my arms around his neck, although the feel of that ugly noose against my flesh made me shudder.
"This man is innocent—he is my sweetheart," I kept shouting. "You must let him go."
I hugged Tom Bigelow, I kissed him, I wept over him—I did everything I could imagine a woman doing when the man she loves is about to be hung before her eyes.
"If you hang him you'll have to hang me, too," I screamed between my heart-rending sobs.
The crowd was amazed. Lynchings were no uncommon occurrence in that region, but nothing like this had ever happened before.
The cooler heads in the crowd began to have their say. "Take that noose off his neck and lock them both up," some one shouted.
The Sheriff put handcuffs on us and led us away. My ruse had succeeded. Tom Bigelow's life was saved!
Tom and I were lodged in jail, indicted by the Grand Jury and held without bail for trial. Of course, I was innocent of any share in the robbery, but, as the authorities believed my story that I was Tom's sweetheart, they thought I must know more about it than I admitted.
It was while we were confined in the jail at Mount Sterling that I had an opportunity to see for myself how it feels to face a desperate lynching mob. That was one of the most horrid nightmares I ever experienced.
One of our fellow inmates in the jail was a man named Murphy Logan, who was awaiting trial for the murder of his father. He was a sullen, weak-minded fellow, who had several killings to his discredit. The general opinion was that he belonged in an insane asylum.
In another neighboring cell was a young man named Charlie Steele. He was exceedingly popular in the community. His worst fault was love of liquor and he was in jail for some minor offense which he had committed on one of his sprees. The other prisoners shunned Logan on account of his disagreeable ways, but Steele good naturedly made quite a friend of him and they often played cards together.
In this jail the prisoners were allowed the freedom of the long corridor on which the cells opened. One afternoon Tom Bigelow and I sat just outside my cell trying to devise some way to regain our liberty. Down at the other end of the corridor, Charlie Steele and Murphy Logan were enjoying their usual game of cards.
Suddenly we were startled by a piercing scream. I jumped to my feet, and looked around to see poor Steele lying on the floor with the blood streaming from a long wound in his throat. Over him, glaring like the madman he was, stood Murphy Logan, brandishing in one hand a heavy piece of tin which he had fashioned into a crude sort of dagger.
Forgetful of my own danger, I rushed up and seized Logan's arm, just as he was about to plunge the weapon into Steele's body again. He turned on me, but I managed to keep him from wounding me until Tom and some of the other prisoners came to my assistance.
Steele lived only a few hours. The Sheriff placed the murderer in solitary confinement, and chained him to the floor of his cell. His ravings were something terrible to hear. He continually threatened vengeance on any of his fellow prisoners who would tell how he had slain his friend.
After listening to these threats all night long we were in terror of our lives, and when the inquest was held next day not a single prisoner would admit that he had seen the killing.
"Didn't you see this happen?" the Sheriff asked me.
"No," I lied, "I was in my cell at the time, and don't know anything about how Steele came to his end."
"You lie!" shouted Logan, when he heard this. "If you hadn't interfered I would have cut him up worse than I did. I will make you suffer for sticking your nose into my affairs."
The town was in a fever of excitement, and from the windows of our cells we could see excited groups discussing the murder on every corner. Feeling ran particularly high, because the dead man had been so popular in the community while nobody liked Murphy Logan.
Late that night Logan became so exhausted with his ravings that he fell asleep. I was just preparing to try to get some rest myself when I heard the tramp of heavy feet coming up the jail stairs.
By the dim light of the one smoky kerosene lamp I saw a crowd of masked men trooping into the corridor. The leaders carried heavy sledge hammers, and with these, having been unable to make the Sheriff give up his keys, they attacked the iron door of Logan's cell.
It quickly fell to pieces before their sturdy blows. Then they broke the murderer's shackles and dragged him, shrieking curses with every breath, down the stairs and out into the street.
They strung him up to a tree, riddled him with bullets, and left his body hanging there in the moonlight in full view of my cell window. This was too much for my overwrought nerves. I threw myself on my couch and wept. Tom Bigelow did his best to console me, but I could not sleep—my head ached and I trembled in every limb.
About an hour later I heard that ominous tramp of feet again! This time the masked men came straight to the door of my cell.
"Is this where that woman is?" a rough voice called.
I cowered in a corner, too frightened to reply. They pounded the door down just as they had Murphy Logan's. A man seized me by the arm and pulled me out, none too gently.
They were going to lynch me—I was convinced of that. With tears streaming down my cheeks I pleaded, as I never had before, that I was innocent of any crime, and begged to be allowed to go back home to my children.
They took me downstairs into the Sheriff's office, where sat a man who seemed to be the leader of the mob.
"So you tried to save Charlie Steele's life, did you?" he said to me.
Then for the first time it dawned on me that perhaps I was not going to be hanged after all. I told the whole truth about what I had done when I saw Logan waving his dagger over his victim. When I had finished the leader said:
"That's all we want to know, young woman. We liked Charlie Steele, and we like you for what you tried to do for him. Now you're free to get out of town—that's your reward for trying to save poor Charlie. We'll see you safely to the depot."
I was overjoyed. The leader handed me enough money for my traveling expenses and permitted me to go up to Tom's cell and tell him of my good fortune. Before day broke I was on a train for Detroit.
These are only a few of the desperate risks which my husband, my friends, and I were constantly facing during the years when I was active in crime.
If every business man and merchant faced prison, bullets, or a lynching as a necessary risk of trade, would anybody regard business life as attractive?
The incidents from my own experiences give one more illuminative reason why I maintain that CRIME DOES NOT PAY!