“I won’t,” was the reply. “I will fight to the last.”
“Throw that pistol down, I tell you,” again Carr commanded, as he drew a bead on the fellow’s forehead. “Will you put it down now?”
The thief relinquished the weapon reluctantly.
While Carr was examining the wounds, Devoe came up, and not noticing the pistol as it lay on the ground, stepped upon it and caused it to explode, creating a report which startled both prisoner and detectives but did no other damage.
Doen was taken to the jail and his wounds examined. They were at first pronounced not necessarily mortal, but a closer examination revealed the fact that the bullet had entered the small of the back and passed into the abdomen, causing internal hemorrhage, which resulted in death about ten hours after the shooting.
Before he died, Doen stated that he was a native of Pennsylvania, and that his real name was Edward W. Myers. He made no confession, however, and continued to the last to tell conflicting stories about the affair. He was a desperate man, and would undoubtedly have killed the officers if he could have done so. The Cheyenne Sun the next morning said:
“The unanimous sentiment of the community, so far as we are able to learn, is that Officer Devoe was perfectly justifiable, under the circumstances, and that he didn’t shoot the fellow a minute too soon. Nine out of ten men would not have exhibited half the leniency that these officers did on that occasion. This arrest is one more of the many evidences of the efficiency of the Rocky Mountain Detective Association. Within ninety minutes after receiving Sheriff Cook’s letter the criminal was in the county jail. Doen is said to be a deserter from the regular army, and he has visited Cheyenne several times before, and always as a dealer in horse flesh. That he belongs to a regularly organized band of horse thieves there is little doubt.”
PUEBLO VENGEANCE.