With a laugh the “Kid” put up his pistol, saying, “Why, Jimmie, I wouldn’t kill you. Let’s all take another friendly drink.”
Now the time was spent singing and dancing. Every time the gang took a drink, Carlyle had to join them in a social glass.
The “Kid” afterwards told friends that he had no intention of killing Carlyle, that he just wanted to detain him till after dark, so they could make a dash for liberty.
The time had just expired when the posse were to kill Jim Greathouse, if Carlyle was not back. At that moment a man behind the breastworks fired a shot at the house. Carlyle supposed this shot had killed Greathouse, which would result in his own death. He leaped for the glass window, taking sash and all with him. The “Kid” fired a bullet into him. When he struck the ground he began crawling away on his hands and knees, as he was badly wounded. Now the “Kid” finished him with a well aimed shot from his pistol.
The men behind the logs were witnesses to this murder,—as they could see Carlyle crawling away from the window. Now they opened fire with a vengeance on the building. The gang had previously piled sacks of grain and flour against the doors, to keep out the bullets.
In the excitement, Jim Greathouse slipped away from the posse and ran through the woods. Finding one of his own hobbled ponies, he mounted him and rode away. He was later shot by desperado Joe Fowler, with a double-barrel shot gun, as he lay in bed asleep. This murder took place on Joe Fowler’s cattle ranch west of Socorro, New Mexico.
After dark the posse concluded to return to White Oaks, as they were cold and hungry. They had brought no grub with them, and they dared not build a fire to keep warm, for fear of being shot by the gang.
A few hours later the “Kid” and gang made a break for liberty, intending to fight the posse to a finish, they not knowing that the officers had departed.
All night the gang waded through the deep snow, afoot. They arrived at Mr. Spence’s ranch at daylight, and ate a hearty breakfast. Then continued their journey towards Anton Chico on the Pecos river.
About daylight that morning, Will Hudgens, Johnny Hurley, and Jim Brent made up a large posse and started to the Greathouse road-ranch. Arriving there, they found the place vacated. The buildings were set afire, then the journey continued on the gang’s trail, in the deep snow.