Having procured their warrant, the two men drove out to O’Neal’s ranch, where they arrived late in the afternoon of the same day. They introduced themselves to the unsuspecting man as officers and told him their mission, but were, withal, so pleasant as not to create any suspicion that his arrest was merely a trap to secure the poor fellow for execution. He never dreamed what character of man he had to deal with in Griswold, and that hell-hound had coolly made up his mind to take his life, although he believed him not guilty, for a pitiful sum of money.
“All right, gentlemen,” O’Neal replied. “I will go with you. I am willing to stand my trial, especially as I feel confident of my own innocence, and know that I can prove it. I have nothing to fear. But it is late; come in and take supper with me before starting.”
This invitation, extended in all courtesy and hospitality, was accepted by the two men, who, although they may have been hungry, were more anxious to gain time than to appease their appetites.
Supper being over, dark was coming on, and the three men prepared for their ride, the terminus of which it was supposed would be for all in Denver. Griswold and Patrick had ridden out in a two-seated buggy, but they requested O’Neal to take a seat between them, and all three started off in quite a jovial mood. This joviality was soon increased, for the vehicle was well loaded down with whiskey and cigars, and the three men were soon laughing and joking and drinking with each other like old-time friends.
Thus they journeyed on to the crossing of the Platte. The chances are that by this time poor O’Neal was well filled with whiskey and capable of making but little resistance against any attack upon him. Be that as it may, he was taken from the buggy at Brown’s bridge, and when he was next seen his soul had deserted its flesh tenement and taken up its abode in another realm.
When found the next day the body was dangling from a girder of the bridge, with a card pinned on the back stating that the man had been lynched because he had burned Fisher’s and Patrick’s ranches and stolen cattle, and that he had made full confession of the fact. In conclusion, cattle thieves and evil-doers generally were warned to beware of their ways, and notified that the vigilantes were ever on their track.
Gen. Cook was among the first to view the body. Griswold and Patrick were the murderers. So much may be stated here. They early sought to cover up their crime and, like many more enlightened criminals, made the newspapers useful in their work. Coming into Denver that night, they went to the offices of the public journals and told how they had been sent out as special officers to arrest O’Neal on the charges above related, giving the same false names which they had given Justice Taylor, and stating that they had proceeded as far as Brown’s bridge with their prisoner when they were set upon by a band of disguised men, who compelled them to deliver over the prisoner at the muzzles of a hundred revolvers. They told how they had pleaded in vain for the life of the prisoner, and how that individual, after quivering and quaking and making a faint denial, had at last confessed the crime. Their prisoner being taken, they had, they said, been compelled to drive on, and were then ignorant of his fate, though they supposed he had been lynched.
The newspapers which told this story the next morning bore a revelation to Gen. Cook. He had kept no track of Griswold and the O’Neal case, supposing that when the supposed detective should find that the charges were unfounded he would drop it and cease his efforts. Furthermore, he was sheriff of the county, and thought he would have known, or at least thought he ought to have known, if any arrest of as much importance as that of O’Neal had been made. But he was totally in the dark. The names of the officers given in the papers were not even recognized, Griswold and Patrick having used their false names in the story.
Mr. Cook began to investigate. His work was soon well under way. He obtained his first clue from Justice Taylor, who related the circumstances of the two men swearing out warrants for O’Neal’s arrest and stating that Cook had refused to go and make the arrests. From the justice’s description of the two “special deputies,” Cook inferred that the two men were Griswold and Patrick.
“A clue and a big one,” he soon afterwards told one of his men. “Griswold is the murderer of O’Neal. He gave his wrong name to the justice, and he lied about me. Here is where he began to cover up his tracks. Griswold is the man we want. This newspaper story is all bosh.”