CHAPTER XIII.
FEELING AROUSED BY THE ROBBERY OF JUDGE BROOKS—PURSUIT OF THE HIGHWAYMEN, DUGGAN AND FRANKLIN—THE DETECTIVES OBTAIN A CLUE—THE OUTLAWS OVERTAKEN IN GOLDEN—DUGGAN SHOWS FIGHT AND GETS HIS FRIEND, MILES HILL, KILLED—TERRIBLE ENCOUNTER WITH, AND TRAGIC DEATH OF, ED. FRANKLIN.
The robbery of Judge Brooks was the event which sealed the fate of both these desperate characters, and probably indirectly also that of Musgrove. The event occurred on the night of Friday, November 20, 1868. Judge Brooks was a prominent and much-esteemed citizen. The whole town was indignant. There were demands on every hand to have the highwaymen hunted down. Denver had aroused from stupor to an active appreciation of the state of affairs. An outrage had been committed, and justice must be done. The guilty parties must be found and punished. To whom should this work be entrusted? The public of Denver had already learned to appreciate “Dave” Cook. He was now town marshal, and had already organized his detective association. The case was put in his hands. He had one clue. Judge Brooks remembered that he had on his person before he was robbed a $20 bill, which had been torn and which he had mended with a piece of official paper about his office. Mr. Cook naturally concluded that there were not apt to be two bills so torn and so mended. Hence he went to work to find the man who should offer to spend this piece of money. He notified not only the officers of Denver, but those of surrounding towns as well.
The robberies had been committed on Friday. On Sunday a messenger arrived from Sheriff John Keith, of Jefferson county, saying that the men that were wanted in Denver were to be found in Golden. It was stated that they had gone to that place on Saturday; that they had been drinking and swaggering about the streets, loaded down with revolvers and defying all the officers of Christendom. It was supposed that they were desperadoes, but they were not identified until Sunday morning, when the $20 bill was tendered to some one by Duggan. This fact had no sooner become known to Sheriff Keith than he dispatched a notification to Marshal Cook. The messenger arrived late in the afternoon, so that it was dusk before the marshal and his posse were off for Golden, eighteen miles distant. There was no Colorado Central railroad between Denver and Golden in those days to pick people up in one place and set them down in another within half an hour, as there now is. But there was a splendid dirt road, and over this the horses flew, their hoofs beating melodiously on the frozen soil, as Cook and his men marched off towards the foot-hill metropolis in the pursuit of their business. The pursuing party was composed of the following named persons: D. J. Cook, W. Frank Smith, D. W. Mays, Eugene Goff, H. B. Haskell and Andy Allen. They were all mounted well and were armed very thoroughly.
Golden was reached about 9 o’clock in the evening of Sunday, November 23. The party stopped in the outskirts of the city for a few minutes, until Keith could be communicated with. Being found, he informed the Denver officers where their men were located. Franklin, he said, had been drinking heavily during the day and had retired to bed early at the Overland house. Duggan was at that moment at a saloon kept by Dan Hill. It was resolved to take Duggan first, and the officers, reinforced by Keith, started in the direction of the saloon indicated. While on their way to this point they met two men, one of whom said to the other as they passed: “What do these s—s of b—s of officers want? That’s Dave Cook, from Denver. I left one of my pistols at your saloon.” This remark was overheard by Cook and Keith, and the latter whispered to the Denver marshal the fact that the speaker, of whom Cook had not had a fair view, was Duggan. The other man, he also told Cook, was Miles Hill, brother of the proprietor of the saloon. Immediately the two men were seen to turn and cross a vacant lot of ground to the rear of Hill’s saloon. The officers stopped for a minute to arrange plans; Cook directing Smith, with Keith and others of the squad, to proceed to the front of the saloon, while he, with Goff, would go to the rear. “In case there should be shooting, boys, do not hit Miles Hill,” said Sheriff Keith, and taking up the sentence, Cook gave an order to his men to be very careful not to hurt any citizen of Golden.
The officers closed in upon the place with the greatest celerity. Smith and his force found all dark in front, but Cook and Goff discovered a small and glaring light near the door of the saloon as they came around the corner. It was evidently from the burning end of a cigar in a man’s mouth. Soon the door of the saloon opened, shedding a light upon the man with the cigar in his mouth and revealing in him the fugitive Duggan. A man came out at the door and proved to be Hill. The friends of Hill assert that he only brought Duggan’s pistol to him, but the officers say, be that as it may, he seemed to present the pistol at them, intentionally or accidentally, at which time Duggan fired on Cook and Goff, the ball flying by them and nipping a bit out of the blue soldier overcoat which Cook wore. Notwithstand the officers carried cocked revolvers in their hands and were fearful that they would have trouble, they were considerably surprised. It was a moment before they collected themselves, and before they were entirely at themselves another ball came whizzing by them in dangerous proximity to their vitals. They were not more than ten feet from the men who held pistols in their hands. There was no time to hesitate or parley. A moment’s delay might mean death to both of them. With that calm and commanding way, that cool and deliberate manner which has ever characterized Dave Cook in time of danger and placed him above other men, he raised his pistol with his left hand—he always holds his pistol in his left hand when he shoots—and taking aim, fired, telling Goff also to fire. One man fell to the ground, and the other started away on a full run, firing a parting salute as he left. The flash of the pistol revealed the fact that Duggan was the man who was making an effort to escape, and he was pursued by some of the members of the party. However, the man jumped a fence, and by so doing found a hiding place in a dense undergrowth, so that extensive pursuit of him that evening could not be otherwise than unavailing.
When the officers returned they found that the man who had been shot was Miles Hill. The ball had entered his left side and ranged downward through the abdomen and lodged in the opposite side of the man’s body. It was evident that he could not live. He was found lying in the street with a cocked revolver near him. He demanded plaintively to know why he had been shot, and when told the circumstances of the case, apparently recognized the justice of his fate.
