Arrest of Ed. McGrand, near Cheyenne.
Thus McGrand was taken completely by surprise by means of the strategy used, and no one hurt. Otherwise, he would undoubtedly have given the officers a warm reception. After he was taken he gritted his teeth and cursed himself for being such a fool as never to suspect they were officers, and told them if he had suspected they were after him, they could not have taken him, as he could have and would have killed all of them and got away on his horse. “He was the maddest and worst fooled man you ever saw,” says Carr. He said he killed the boy, “but whisky done it,” and “he knew he would be hung,” etc.
McGrand was then taken by Sheriff Carr and placed in the county jail at Cheyenne, until the next day, July 1, when he was taken to Sidney, and on December 16, 1878, he was indicted by the grand jury for murder in the first degree, and on the 17th he was arraigned and placed on trial at Sidney for his life, and through some technicality of law, he saved his neck and was allowed to plead guilty of murder in the second degree, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life in the state penitentiary at Lincoln, Neb., and is now serving out his time.
McGrand’s history is not known any more than that general report says he had to skip from Texas for murder committed there, and that he was a murderous and desperate man, and thought nothing of killing. He was then about forty or forty-five years of age; six feet tall; slender build; blind in the left eye; spare, thin, long face, high cheek bones, and a very muscular man; a typical Texas cowboy, with white slouch hat, etc.
A RACE FOR LIFE.
CHAPTER LX.
THE STORY OF CLODFELTER AND JOHNSON, WHO SHOT OFFICER WILCOX IN 1875—JOHNSON CAUGHT MISUSING THE MAILS FOR FRAUD—HE TRIES TO ESCAPE FROM THE OFFICER, AND IN DOING SO, SHOOTS WILCOX, WHO GRAPPLES WITH JOHNSON AND IS SHOT IN THE BACK BY CLODFELTER, AND IS SUPPOSED TO BE FATALLY WOUNDED—ESCAPE OF THE WOULD-BE MURDERERS.