Friday evening at supper time, when the dining hall of the hotel was crowded, at one of the table, there were dark whispers and ominous
THREATS OF LYNCHING,
and some talk, of several hundred people coming up from St. Paul and Northfield to carry out the disgraceful threat. This was sufficient to rouse the precautionary energy of Sheriff Glispin, who at once appointed an armed guard, which filled the entire hotel. The guard and the populace generally were determined to protect their prisoners to the bitter end, if the worst came to the worst, and at half past eight o'clock the hotel was cleared, but on the arrival of the 9 p. m. train, it was found that the rowdies had either missed the train, or had abandoned the scheme, or the whole thing, (which was most probable) was a hoax.
The talk at the supper table arose from a man recently from Mankato, asserting that the scoundrels should be lynched, offering to bet $500 that they would be strung up before morning. It was said that the man was intoxicated, but that was no palliation of his brutish threat.
DISPOSITION OF THE CAPTIVES.
As soon as the news of the capture was received at St. Paul, Captain Macy, secretary to the Governor, telegraphed the executive, then at the Centennial, the fact. The Governor promptly responded, directing Capt. Macy to order the Madelia authorities to bring their prisoners, with the body of the dead bandit to this city. Capt. Macy spent about two hours in telegraphing with the sheriff of the county, who at first strongly opposed the removal, partly on the ground the wounded men were not in a condition to be moved, but principally from a fear that had somehow taken possession of the minds of those taking part in the capture, that their removal to St. Paul would invalidate their claim for the reward offered for their arrest. To this latter objection Capt. Macy answered that the Governor would be responsible for the preservation of all their rights, upon which the Sheriff telegraphed they would be sent down by the morning train, on a sleeper tendered for that purpose, by Supt. Lincoln. Later, however, the sheriff, in consultation with citizens, changed his mind, and determined to send his prisoners on to Faribault, the county seat of Rice county. Accordingly they were placed in the cars at Madelia on Saturday morning, and at every station en route a curious and eager mob awaited the [pg 63] arrival of the train, anxious to get a glimpse of the notorious freebooters. At Mankato, half the city turned out, and arrangements were made at the depot for the crowd to pass through and feast their eyes upon the big show.
At Faribault the crowd was comparatively small, owing, perhaps, to the fact that they were unexpectedly brought on by a freight train, but when it got generally noised about that the infamous desperadoes were lodged in the jail, people of all classes and both sexes thronged the building anxious to gain admittance.
AT ST. PAUL,
Capt. Macy received a telegram from Sheriff Barton, of Rice county, as follows: “I start for Madelia in half an hour. Will bring them by St. Paul.”
Saturday morning thereafter, about eleven o'clock crowds began to gather along the bluffs and on the bridge and in any position in which a view of the Sioux City train (on which it was supposed the robbers were being brought to the city) could be obtained. The train was seen crossing the river and immediately the crowd commenced swarming like a hive of bees. As the train approached, and when it came in front of the open space above the upper elevator, the rear platform of the cars appeared to be crowded with people, one man waving a roll of white paper. Then the excitement seemed to culminate. Crowds rushed down the streets in danger of being crushed under the wheels of buggies, wagons and vehicles of all descriptions, which dashed down the streets at a rate which set all ordinances at defiance, and scattered the mud around in a promiscuous manner. At reaching the levee a crowd of fully three thousand people in a terrible state of excitement, were assembled, some climbing up on the still moving train in spite of all efforts of the officers to prevent them, while others ran ahead of the engine and alongside. It soon became evident, however, that the prisoners were not aboard, and a rumor got afloat that they had been taken off the train at Chestnut street and brought to the county jail from thence.