"Aren't you going to take your men with you?" asked the men who had brought the word.
"No," said Captain Bill. "I want them to stay here."
"But Loftus is a bad man, and will have the advantage of you, being in the dug-out."
"That's all right—I can take care of him; but I do want somebody to come and show me the place."
A man volunteered to do this, and rode with Captain Bill to a dug-out some distance away, in the edge of the town. The place was empty, but another man appeared just then who claimed to have seen Loftus leave, a little while before, taking a northerly direction.
Still unsuspecting, Captain Bill set out at full speed, but after riding three miles and seeing no sign of Loftus, or his trail, he rode back to Wichita Falls. At the edge of the town he was met by his nephew, Henry McCauley, with the news that everybody who could get a gun had marched on the jail, and that no doubt Lewis and Crawford were already hung.
Captain Bill did not wait for another word. A mob of several hundred men had gathered about the jail, wild with excitement, determined to have Lewis and Crawford and to lynch them, forthwith. Suddenly this multitude saw Captain Bill bearing down on them—his Winchester in position for business and fury in his eye.
QUELLING A LYNCHING MOB AT WICHITA FALLS.
"Boys, have you still got the prisoners?"
"Boys," he called to his Rangers, as he dashed up, "have you still got the prisoners?"