THE KILLING OF BILLY THE KID.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 318, 3 June 1911, Page 9

THE KILLING OF BILLY THE KID.

ONE OF THE PLUCKIEST POLICE ACTIONS EVER RECORDED. A little while ago a paragraph, cabled from America, appeared in most of the English papers, telling how "Pat Garrett had been shot dead whiU attempting to arrest a desperate armed murderer in Texas"; and the item ended with the information that "Garrett was the officer who killed Billy the Kid." Now this piece of news probably meant little or nothing to most people on this side of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, a story is inshrined therein, and a story, too, which is well worth the telling. Billy the Kid, then, was the nickname of the most notorious of the many bloodthirsty desperadoes who terrorised the peaceable inhabitants of New Mexico and Arizona in the days—not so very long since—when those two territories were the happy hunting grounds of all manner of "bad men." Originally a "Bowery Boy" from the New York slums, he "beat his way west" on a freight car at the age of sixteen, and reached New Mexico just when the great "range war" was at its height. The men who owned cattle and the men who owned sheep were at deadly feud with one another, because when one kind of stock had fed the other kind could find no sustenance. It was, in short, a case of whether sheep or cattle should occupy the ranges; there was not room for both.

ARMED GUARD AND MURDERER. Billy the Kid cared little for cattle and less for sheep, but he was quite willing to take sides—for a consideration. So he engaged himself to one of the cattle kings, ostensibly as a cowboy, but in reality as an armed guard and paid murderer. Billy the Kid's aim was deadly. His cunning was almost superhuman. Ho stalked shepherds as men stalk game. To him, indeed, they were game. In live years, by which time he was "of age," he iiad killed twenty-one of them, a life for each year of his life. But by then the United States government had seen lit to take a hand in the "game." The range war was ended by military intervention. And Billy the Kid found his occupation gone. He turned bandit, and soon gathered round him a gang of desperadoes as dangerous and as blood-thirsty as himself. He stole cattle and ran them across the border into Old Mexico. He "held up" the stage coaches. He robbed lonely ranches, murdering the inmates if they dared to offer the least sliow of resistance. His name became a terror and a byword. One of his most famous exploits was the robbery of the Lincoln County Bank. This was done in broad daylight, fie and his band rode up to the doors on horseback, shot the cashier dead, and got awav with forty thousand dollars (£8,000)". GARRETT COULDN'T INSURE HIMSELF. It was felt that "something lind sot to be done." Even the wild and woolly west got its "dander" up. The citizens of Lincoln County assembled in solemn conclave, ami elected Pat Garrett their sheriff, or, as we would say, chief constable. He was to hold office for one year certain, and his salary for that period was to be five thousand dollars. But there was one condition attached to the drawing of it. He was to capture Billy the Kid, or kill him, the citizens did not greatly care which. Now Pat Garrett had been a "bad man" himself, and he wasted no time in preliminaries. On the very day of his election he armed himself with two of the biggest and best revolvers he could buy for money, said farewell to his wife anil children, and sallied forth in search of the Kid. He also, it may be mentioned incidentally, tried to insure his life in favor of his wife, but could not find an office anywhere willing to accept the risk. People, in fact, looked upon Pat Garrett as good as dead, for Billy the Kid had boasted that the man did not live who could take a "gun" from him, much less capture him alive. Nevertheless, Garrett accomplished both feats. Disguised as a pedlar, he drove up to the Kid's lair, and when the outlaw, assisted by his lieutenant "big Dave" Rmlal agh, proceeded to plunder his waggon .villi shrieks of amused delight at his simplicity, he held them both up at the muzzles of his two revolvers, and forced Rudabagh .to bind his chief hand and foot Then he lassooed the big man and choked him into insensibility.

People could hardly believe their cars when they heard what had happened, and when Garrett drove into Las Vegas with his bound and handcuffed prisoners, they distrusted oven tlieir own eyesight. But Garrett forced his captives to jret up from the bottom of the waggon, and show themselves to the crowd, and the Kid reviled them all for poltroons and white-livered cowards, while Rudal>a.'.rh. a huge black-bearded ruffian, shook his manacled fists in tlieir faces and spat derision. Then, for sure, they know that the right men had really been taken. -And now a new danger faced the plucky officer. A crv was raised to lynch the prisoners, and armed men gathered from all quarters, bent on vengeance. Garrett kept them at bay with his revolvers, declnrin<» thai, they would only get at the Kid over his dead body. A train was in waiting at the station, and eventually Garrett got his prisoners on it bv a ruse, and conveyed them to Santa lu\ where they were lodged in Biol. BEAT OUT llfS GAOLER'S BRAINS. A week later the Kid made a sham attempt, to hang himself in his cell at dead of night, and when the solitary warder on duty rushed in to cut him down, the desperado fell upon him and beat out his brains with the iron leg of hw bed-cot. Xe.vt. using the same weapon, he killed in similar fashion the guard on duty at the pri-on door, took the keys from the dead man's belt, unlocked the wicket gate, and got clear away. As soon as Pat Garrett heard the news he realised at once that he had to do the job all over again. But the danger was now increased tenfold. The kid knew the officer, and his sharp eyes would pierce through any disguise. It would be a fight to a finish this time between the two men and only one could come out alive. Garrett took leave of his wife and children for a second time, and once more he set out on horseback in search of the outlaw. Three weeks later he received information that the Kid, with four of his old associates, all armed, had taken refuge in a deserted cabin on the borders of the Mohave Desert.

BILLY'S LAST STAND. lie waited until nightfall, then he stole up cautiously to the outside of the ramshackle old building, and listened. The outlaws were there right enough. Very cautiously the officer tiptoed round to where there was a small glazed window, and peeped in. There were five men there, and they were seated round a table playing cards by the light of a tallow candle. Lying on the table, close by each man's right hand, was a revolveif. Billy the Kid was sitting right opposite

the window as it happened, aid Garrett could easily have shot him dead without further parley. But to do this would hardly have fitted in with western notions of fair play. So Garrett walked round again to the front, and then, holding a revolver in each hand, he kicked open the door. "Hands up, all of you!" he shouted. Four of the men instinctively obeyed. Billy the Kid made a grab for his revolver. Both weapons spoke together. But tne officer's aim was the truer, and the outlaw fell dead across the table, shot through the heart.