While the people were reading the story of Johnson’s capture, the next morning after his arrival from Niobrara, believing that the murderer had really been overtaken, Hawley was preparing to start upon a second excursion in search of that individual. He again started out to find his man. This time he did find him, “and no foolin’,” either.
There was one important point to be gained in making the search. No one knew definitely where Woodruff’s relatives lived, though they were known to be residents of the vicinity of Council Bluffs or Omaha.
Going first to Omaha, and then crossing the Missouri to Council Bluffs, the detective took a train on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad and went down the road about fifty miles, keeping his eyes and ears widely open in the hope of getting the slightest trace of the party he was after; and then, disgusted, returned to Council Bluffs and went to his hotel. From a man whom he met there he learned that James W. Woodruff, known to a brother of Sam, lived at Big Grove, thirty miles distant.
Disguising himself as a granger, he got a pony and a letter from Mr. Phelps, of the Ogden hotel, to his foreman, Walter Farwell, on his stock ranch, near the house of the Woodruffs, and started off. The stock ranch was about twenty-eight and a half miles from Council Bluffs, and here Hawley hired out as a corn-husker, and went to work. James Woodruff’s place was about a mile and a half further on.
Hawley passed under the name of Charles Albert, and after working one day at corn-husking, prevailed upon the foreman to send him out, the following morning, looking for lost stock. It must be mentioned that while husking corn, the detective was incidentally told by Mr. Farwell of the late arrival of a brother of James Woodruff, said to be direct from the Black Hills, and with a $9,000 bank account in Deadwood. He had been home but ten days, and Hawley shrewdly suspected that this brother was the Samuel he was after. So in the course of his rambles about after lost stock, he stopped at the Woodruff farm, and learned that they had moved into the town of Big Grove. The officer thereupon circled and rode into the little village from the east, and spotted the Woodruff house, returning immediately thereafter to Phelps’ stock place.
After unsaddling his pony and getting something to eat, he started for Council Bluffs, leaving at about 11 in the morning and arriving at about 4 in the afternoon. Here, on the 25th of November, he swore out a warrant for the arrest of Samuel Woodruff, before Justice Baird, and securing the services of Constable Theodore Guittar, they took a two-seated buggy, and at 10 that night started for the stock farm again, getting there about 3 o’clock in the morning, and seeking the barn for rest. But two hours later they were rudely awakened by an attendant, who didn’t “sabe” the presence of two rough-looking tramps.
After feeding their horses and obtaining breakfast, they drove down to Big Grove, and leaving their team concealed in the bushes on the outskirts, walked into the town. They noticed their man at work near the Woodruff house, but as soon as he saw the two strangers he stopped his labors and went within. The officers then walked on down to the store of a Mr. Freeman, and while Hawley talked about the chances of getting work on the railroad, his companion went out and borrowed a double-barreled shot gun.
The detective discharged both barrels out of the back door, and then carefully loaded the weapon with a handful of buckshot in each barrel, stating to Guittar that it meant “death to either himself or Woodruff,” in case of an escape or failure to capture. A little later James Woodruff, the brother, came driving down the street, and hitched his team a short distance from Freeman’s store; and, coming up to the latter place, began a series of questioning and re-questioning, evidently endeavoring to pump the disguised detective; however, with little success.
Perhaps an hour was consumed in this manner, and then he left, and a few minutes later Hawley saw the two Woodruffs coming down the street together. James carried an axe and Sam a revolver.
The detective pulled back the hammers of his shot gun, and watched the men through the window.