“HE ADMINISTERED A THRASHING SUCH AS MIGHT BE GIVEN TO A RECALCITRANT SCHOOLBOY.”
Some ten days passed, when, one moonlight evening, Cutler came driving down the road leading into Three Corners, behind a fast-trotting horse. Just as he reached the end of a long field of corn a report rang out and his horse dropped, riddled with shot. Cutler jumped from his buggy, whipped out his revolver, and made for the corn-field, from which the shot had evidently come. He made a thorough search, but the tall corn-stalks afforded a secure hiding-place to the would-be assassin—for Cutler had no doubt whatever that the shot had been meant for him. Reluctantly giving up his quest, he walked back to his saloon and sent several men to remove the dead horse and bring in his buggy. The next morning he again made his way to the corn-field, and there, just by the fence, he found five discarded cigarette ends of a very expensive Egyptian brand which he knew to be smoked by only one man in Three Corners—Goldman, the draper. Evidently the man had lain in wait for a long time. Cutler next climbed over the fence, and was about to return when he saw lying in the path a piece of cloth torn from a jacket, and on it a button. It looked as though the would-be murderer, in jumping the fence, had caught his coat on the barbed wire; at any rate, he had left a damning piece of evidence behind him. With the cigarette ends and the fragment of cloth in his pocket, Cutler walked leisurely up the road into the town and made direct for the shop of Moses Goldman.
The draper was standing on a step-ladder arranging some goods on the shelves. When the door opened, ringing a small bell, he turned, and seeing Cutler jumped down from the ladder. The gambler looked the man straight in the eye. “You miserable cur!” he cried, angrily. “You’d shoot a man in the dark, would you?”
Goldman, realizing that Cutler had satisfied himself as to the identity of his assailant, made as if to draw a revolver. That was the last movement he ever made, for the next instant he dropped dead, shot clean through the heart.
The gambler waited for a moment to see if the report of the pistol had attracted any attention; then, as no one appeared, he quietly left the shop, went over to his saloon, placed two revolvers in his belt, and filled his pockets with ammunition. Then, taking up a Winchester repeating-rifle, he went to the stable, saddled his horse, and after a few words with his bartender rode out of Three Corners in a westerly direction.
It was not long after his departure before the entire town was in an uproar. Moses Goldman, the energetic draper, had been found shot—killed in his own shop by Jim Cutler. The latter had been seen entering Goldman’s establishment by several persons, and the shot had been heard by people living above the store, who afterwards saw Cutler leaving. Sheriff Benson, accompanied by two deputies, promptly called at the Gem Saloon, but the officer was a trifle late, for Cutler was by that time some miles distant. Lest it should be thought that Cutler had made his escape through cowardice it may be best to explain at once, perhaps, that this was not the case. The man realized that should he be apprehended the name of Miss Thurloe must necessarily figure prominently in the matter. Strange as it may seem, this six-foot gambler, knowing no better, believed that by “making himself scarce” he was protecting that lady’s good name. This was a mistake, undoubtedly, but the fact remains that he made it.
It happened that Rufe Benson, Sheriff of Beulah County, was a sworn enemy of Cutler’s, for the latter some years before had taken the law into his own hands and at the point of his gun liberated a prisoner whom he believed to be innocent, and who was eventually proved to be so. Benson now formed a posse of some twenty armed men, and there began a man-hunt which lasted, so far as this particular posse was concerned, for a fortnight. They were then reinforced by a body of “Rangers,” some fifty strong, who in turn found it necessary to call to their assistance a body of militia. All these officers were ably assisted by the citizens and residents of Beulah County, altogether some thousand strong, and yet Jim Cutler proved more than their match. Benson’s men trailed the fugitive to Kerry’s ranch, some six miles out; from here he had gone north-west toward the Rio Grande. He was mounted on a thoroughbred—as were all the men, for that matter—but six miles was a long start in a case like this, and should the hunted man once reach the mountains—well, there might be some trouble in getting at him. The telegraph was put into operation, and a circle some ten miles in circumference drawn around Cutler. When this cordon closed in, however, they failed to find the gambler amongst them, but they did find two self-appointed “man-hunters” lying where they had fallen to the deadly aim of Jim Cutler’s repeating-rifle.
From every town for miles around amateur detectives joined the hunt, but no trace could be found of Cutler beyond the Moulin River, a tiny stream only some twenty feet wide, so the rivulet was dammed and the water drained off for miles, so as to discover, if possible, whether Cutler had ridden up or down stream. While one party of men were doing this, others rode in all directions, searched the ranches, and notified every town by telegraph to keep a look-out for the slayer of Moses Goldman. More and more people joined in the hunt, but for some days, in the slang of the West, “there was nothing doing.” Then, early one morning, two horsemen came galloping towards Benson’s camp, and one of the men, dismounting, delivered a message to the effect that Cutler had been seen at McPherson’s ranch, some eleven miles north-west, where he had informed Mr. McPherson that he had not the slightest intention of taking further life unless driven to it, and that, if Benson would call in all his men, he (Cutler) would promise to give himself up in a fortnight’s time. (It was afterwards learned that he intended in the interval to communicate with Miss Thurloe and arrange a story, leaving her name entirely out of the matter.) Benson, however, was on his mettle, and so refused to parley with his quarry.
“If Jim Cutler thinks he can defy the law and officers of this county, he is mightily mistaken,” he said, “and we’re going to take him, dead or alive.” This ultimatum duly reached Cutler through “non-combatant” friends, whereupon he smiled grimly. Being now outlawed, it was impossible for Cutler’s friends to assist him without making themselves amenable to the law, so the hunted man demanded and secured everything he required at the point of the pistol.
Within fourteen days thereafter nine men who had attempted to interfere with the escaping gambler paid for their foolhardiness with their lives, and all the time, little by little, Cutler was getting closer to the mountains, whose shelter meant so much to him. Sometimes hidden for hours in a haystack, or lying flat under the rafters of a barn loft, the fugitive moved on his way. The main body of pursuers often got within gun-shot of him, but luck favoured the man, and he always managed to find cover just in time. Finally, completely worn out—he had ridden two horses to death and abandoned others commandeered for the time being—Cutler reached the foot of the scrub hills or little range which lay between him and his goal. Here, for the first time, he came in contact with a number of the “man-hunters.” “Lon” Masters—a noted character in Montana, and himself a dead shot—accompanied by eight cowboys, suddenly appeared over a rise in the ground. Cutler, on foot, saw them coming. He dropped on one knee and his rifle flew to his shoulder. The horsemen drew rein, and Masters, making a trumpet of his hands, shouted, “Don’t be a fool, Jim; you’re sure to be caught sooner or later. Let me take you, and I’ll promise no harm shall come to you. You know my word.”