Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/677

Rh charges. I handcuffed both prisoners and had them shackled together, put them in the stage and started to Jacksonville with them. I wired the sheriff that I had both of the guilty parties and would be at Jacksonville on the stage, which was due about six o'clock the next morning.

The sheriff and his deputies met us that morning at the edge of town. It had been noised around that I would be in and they were somewhat afraid of a mob, but we succeeded in getting to the jail all safe, and not until then had I the faintest idea that I had stepped beyond my official duty in arresting those men without a warrant and bringing them into another county.

These were the first white prisoners that I had ever had any experience with. I had taken so many Indian prisoners that never required any red tape, I naturally supposed that the same rule would be applicable in this case, but I got away with it just the same. That afternoon we took the young man off to himself, and when he was questioned by the district attorney and a certain doctor, whose name has slipped my memory, he admitted the whole affair, and told us just where to go to find McMahon's body. When he told us this the doctor drew a diagram of the ground. Buckley said we would find a tree a certain distance from the cabin that had been blown out by the roots, and in that hole we would find the body covered up with brush and chips thrown on top of the brush. After giving this valuable information we at once started out to hunt for the body.

It was now late in August and a little snow had fallen on the mountains in the fore part of the night.