He was then turned over to the sheriff, who placed him in an unoccupied log building, and appointed a guard to watch him.
During the night, however, following in the footsteps of the illustrious Wal., he eluded the vigilance of the guard, made good his escape and ran to the mountains, where he was received by friends, who were determined to protect him from rearrest.
The following day word was sent the doctor to come out and dress his wounds. Obeying the summons, the doctor found him within a hundred yards of his cabin, at the side of a mining-ditch, surrounded by an array of pistols, carbines, and knives, determined to resist any attempt to rearrest him, the point selected commanding every avenue of approach up the mountain-slope.
Here he remained several days. He sent word to the alcalde, through some of his friends, that he would die before giving himself up to the "stranglers," but would submit if soldiers were to come for him.
Upon this message of defiance no further effort was made to capture him, and the town lapsed once more into its wonted quietude. Even Henderson became remarkably docile, no further disturbances occurring between him and the miners—the trouble ending, apparently, by mutual consent.
Some months subsequent to the incidents related in the foregoing, the little camp was again thrown into a state of excitement, in consequence of a report of the robbery of the mail in the cañon between Elizabethtown and Ute creek.
It was bruited about, and proved true, that when the coach (which made tri-weekly trips between the camp and the Cimarron, to connect with the great Southern Overland Line) reached a lonely point in the cañon where the road was narrow and wound around a side-hill covered with a dense growth of scrubby pines, three disguised men would slip out and order the driver to halt; then, without moving from their place on either side of the confined pass, with their rifles pointed toward him, demand that the express box be thrown from the boot.
This modest request was always complied with, after which they ordered the driver to move on, much to the relief of the thoroughly frightened conductor, and the two or three passengers inside.