Fifty Years a Detective: 35 Real Detective Stories

by Thomas Furlong

We separated, Sweeney going to the hotel and I, apparently, going to the telegraph office, which was in the opposite direction to that taken by Sweeney. I did not stop at the telegraph office, but went around back of it, placing some buildings between Sweeney and myself. I crossed the street at a point west of the depot and went around to the rear of the hotel, where there was a flight of stairs leading from the back yard to the second floor of the hotel from the outside. I ascended these stairs and went to my room, where I found the door standing about half way open and could see, through a crack between the door and the jamb Sweeney lying down on my bed with his hat, boots and spurs on. He was taking things easy. I entered noiselessly, holding a small, double-barrel, Remington derringer that I had taken from my pocket as I entered the room. I was whistling, and suddenly thrust the derringer into Mr. Sweeney's mouth, breaking two of his upper teeth loose. I told him to throw up his hands, and he was not long in obeying. With my left hand I unbuckled his belt and removed it from him. It contained the holster in which he had placed the nine-inch Colts.

Bonnell had noticed us when we arrived, and when we separated and as I crossed the street going to the hotel I gave him a signal to follow me. He entered the room just as I had disarmed Sweeney. I told him to put handcuffs on the prisoner and to take him to the calaboose and lock him up. I had Sweeney's meals sent to the lock-up.

When the next train arrived there, who should be on it but Capt. Sam Sixkiller, who had left his sick bed and come up to Vinita to assist me in making the arrest. He told me, on his arrival, that it would not do to take Sweeney through Muskogee, as the railroad men there were aroused and would undoubtedly attempt violence, for they had all come to the conclusion that Sweeney was a fraud and was the man who shot Conductor Warner. Warner was very popular among the employes of the road. So we boarded the north-bound train and brought Sweeney to St. Louis, transferring there to the Iron Mountain for Little Rock, Arkansas. Here we changed cars for the Fort Smith and Little Rock Road, and thus reached Fort Smith, Arkansas, in safety with our prisoner and without any interference from the railroad men.

Sweeney never uttered a word from the time I disarmed him until we had boarded the train for St. Louis and were probably twenty miles north of Vinita. We were in the smoking car, Capt. Sixkiller and the prisoner ahead and I in a seat just behind them, when finally Sweeney turned his head around towards me and said, "Mr. Foster, I wish you would please show me that gun you stuck into my mouth."

I took the cartridges out of the gun and handed it to him. It was not more than five inches in length and of .41 calibre. He examined it critically, and without turning his head handed it back to me over his shoulder, saying in a disgusted manner, "H—l, I thought that gun was a foot long."

We lodged him in jail at Fort Smith in due time. He was indicted and finally tried, but, because I was never able to find out who the unknown farmhand was that he had killed and the motive for the crime, he was acquitted. However, he had lain in jail for nearly a year, and on his release he returned at once to Clay County, Missouri, and wrote a letter to A. A. Talmage, then General Manager of the Missouri Pacific, demanding that Mr. Talmage send him ten thousand dollars immediately, and threatening that if he did not that he would blow up the bridge on the Wabash Railroad and destroy property in general, and in any event he would kill Furlong on sight. He sent this letter through the United States mail. Mr. Talmage gave the letter to me, and I at once made a complaint to the United States commissioner, got a warrant for Sweeney's arrest and went to his father's farm near Missouri City, Clay County, accompanied by a deputy sheriff, whose name I don't remember, but who was a brave and splendid officer. Sweeney was at home. It was after night and he had gone to bed. We rapped for admission and the door was opened by his father, to whom we stated that we were officers and had a warrant for the arrest of his son, "Barney." The latter was in bed upstairs, but heard us when we rapped for admission and had come to the head of the stairs with a shot-gun in his hand. He said, "I am here and I will kill any man who attempts to come up those stairs."

In an instant, and before I had time to think, the deputy sheriff, who had been standing beside me, sprang up the stairs. I followed him as quickly as possible, but before I had reached the top the officer had clinched with "Barney" and had thrown him to the floor. I picked up the gun that Sweeney had let fall, and in less time than it takes to tell it we had captured Mr. Sweeney without a shot being fired, so I feel safe in saying that he was an arrant coward as well as an inexcusable liar.

I took him to St. Louis, where he was tried and convicted for having sent the threatening letter through the mail. He was sentenced to either three or four years in the penitentiary. He served his time and again returned to his father's home at Missouri City. A short time later he held up and tried to rob a Wabash passenger train at Missouri City. In this attempt he was shot through the ankle by a telegraph operator. He tried to escape by running, but was captured by the train crew and the company's telegraph operator at that city. He was tried for this offense and sent to the penitentiary for fourteen years, and I had lost track of him until he recently turned up in St. Louis as a witness against the New York Life Insurance Company, in the famous Kimmel case. He claimed to have visited the wilds of Oregon with Kimmel, a man named Johnson and another party to search for some hidden treasure. A portion of the treasure was found. A row over its division resulted and Johnson shot and killed Kimmel. Sweeney avenged Kimmel's death by killing Johnson on the spot. Both of the dead men were buried near where they fell. On reading Sweeney's story in the papers, which was almost a repetition of the story of the fake hold-up down in the territory, as related to the express officials and myself, I will admit I really sympathized with the attorney who had gone to the trouble and expense of getting Sweeney here, knowing, as I did, that he was absolutely untruthful and unreliable.

I do not believe that I ever ran into as fun-loving a bunch of railroaders as the one which attended Sweeney's trial. Ft. Smith was crowded, as was usually the case when court was in session. At that time there was only one "leading" hotel in town. It was a three-story, old-fashioned structure, the top story of which was one large room, or hall. Social functions, such as balls and other gatherings, were usually held in this hall. When the railroad men arrived—there were about fifteen of them, including "Chick" Warner, Ed Smith, W. B. Maxwell, "Lute" Welch and Tom Hall, all passenger conductors on the Katy—all of the regular rooms had been taken. The proprietor, in order to take care of the boys as best he could, turned this large room, or hall, into a dormitory, placing therein several different kinds of beds and cots for them to sleep on. A large round table and a few rickety old chairs constituted the balance of the furnishings of the room. There was not much doing in the amusement line after dark in Ft. Smith in those days, so the railroaders retired to their rooms early—but not to sleep. The first seven or eight up the stairs, and there was always a race to see who would get upstairs first, would assemble themselves around the table and soon be busy playing a game of—well, there is no need of me naming it, as everybody knows the name of the game that usually interests the average railroad man most. I will add, however, that there was no "limit." By and by, those who were lucky enough to have to "sit out" would get sleepy and roll into their bed or cot, but they did not have a chance to get to sleep, the "I'll pass" or "I'll raise you" of the players keeping them awake until the game would break up, which was usually about the time the sun commenced to shine in at the windows in the early morning. The players would then retire and soon be snoring to beat the band. "Chick" Warner being a big, deep-chested man, had all his competitors skinned a mile at this snoring game. As soon as he hit the bed his snoring machinery would get in motion. Then the real fun would begin. The balance of the gang would throw pillows, or shoes, or any old thing they could find at his head to wake him up. These efforts would not always be successful, however, and the snore would either increase in tone or volume.

At the breakfast table one morning, after there had been an unusually long "sitting" the gang decided to get even with "Chick" Warner, who was still in bed, by holding an old-fashioned Irish wake at his bedside. Charlie Walters, an express company route agent, who was an artist of no mean ability, procured a piece of chalk and in less time than it takes to tell it, had transformed the head of the bed into a monument with very appropriate inscriptions thereon. Some lumber was secured and a fence arranged around the bed, on which were placed a lot of empty beer bottles. A candle was placed in the neck of each bottle, and after these were lighted and the windows darkened, the bunch arranged themselves around the "bier" and commenced a weird chant. The noise made by the bunch attracted the attention of most of the people in the town, and the big room was soon filled. News of what was going on soon reached the court room and Judge Parker adjourned court and he and his officers and the lawyers and jurors rushed to the hotel to witness the fun-making. After an exceedingly loud and boisterous outburst of "grief" on the part of the "mourners" Warner awoke. It did not take him long to break up that "wake," as he at once began raising a rough house by throwing everything he could get hold of at his tormentors. The affair was the talk of the town for some time to come, and is to this day referred to when two or three of the gang happen to get together.