Captain Martin at once called to Officer McGee, who was on duty at the depot, and, like himself, attired in rain coat and slouch hat, and imparted to him the information received. The officers then walked toward the men, who were some distance away, and hailed them, saying: “You can not go through that railroad cut at night.”
Rube replied: “We are going to the country to get timber, but would like to get a boarding-house for the night.”
Captain Martin said, “We are going up town and will show you one.”
Rube, thinking the officers were railroad men, replied, “All right,” and, joining them, the four men walked a distance of about a half a mile, when, on reaching the police station, Captain Martin inserted the key in the door, and while in the act of unlocking it Rube asked, “What place is this?”
Captain Martin, shoving the door, which was adjusted with a heavy spring, half open, with one hand, laid the other on Rube’s shoulder and said: “This is the office of the Chief of Police, and you boys may consider yourselves under arrest.”
“I reckon not,” replied Rube, and straightway made a break for liberty.
Captain Martin grappled with him, and the heavy door of the station-house closing, caught his rubber coat in a vise-like grip, and held him fast. Soon freeing himself, however, by pulling out of his coat, he dashed after Rube, who had broken away, and after running some thirty paces, turned and saw his brother Jim down, with a police officer on top of him. Jim, in attempting to break away, had fallen, in the scuffle with Officer McGee, over a street hydrant.
At this moment Rube, seeing the officer had started in pursuit, turned and fled like a deer up the street. Neil Bray, a printer, being on the opposite side of the street, joined the officer in the pursuit and was shot by Rube, who twice fired upon him, one of the shots taking effect in the left lung and nearly causing his death.
Out into the darkness Rube fled, leaving Jim in the hands of the officers, and scaling a fence some hundred yards ahead he was soon lost to his pursuers.
Jim was taken to police headquarters and gave his name as Jim Hankins, and said the other man’s name was Williams, and he had only known him three weeks. However, while en route to Texarkana, he confessed his identity, and said to Capt. Martin: