8. WHISKY AND WOMEN.
Doc. Crunk.—One of the many desperadoes now behind the prison walls
of the Kansas penitentiary is this noted Texas outlaw. He is a native
Texan, now nearly fifty years of age. After years of crime he was
finally caught in the Indian Territory while introducing whisky among
the Indians. He had his trial in the U. S. District Court, was convicted
and sent to the penitentiary for three years. For a time during the war
he was a confederate soldier. Becoming dissatisfied with the profession
of arms, he deserted
and entered upon the life of an outlaw. He gathered about him a few
kindred spirits with which Southern Texas was infested, and organized a
band of cattle and horse thieves,{.} This band of banditti became so
numerous that after a time it extended along the lower line of Texas
into the Indian Territory and up into Kansas. Their ravages were also
felt in Arkansas. They had a regular organized band, and stations where
they could dispose of their stolen property. The cattle that were
stolen were run to the frontiers and sold to cattlemen who were in
collusion with them, and which latter were getting immensely rich out of
the operations of these thieves. They would steal horses, run them off
and sell them to buyers who knew they were purchasing stolen property.
For years this gang flourished. Another mode of securing stock was the
following: A great many estrays would be taken up and advertised. In
every instance some member of the Crunk gang would claim the property
under oath and take it away. The leader of these outlaws stood trial for
nineteen different murders, and was acquitted each time. He could always
prove an alibi. His assistants would come in and swear
him clear every time. He was an intimate acquaintance and on friendly
terms with the James boys, and related many trips that he had made with
these noted and desperate men in their work of "seeking revenge," as he
styled it. He has no love for a colored man, and as he works now in the
prison with a number, pointing to them one day he said to me, "I wish I
had a five-dollar note for each one of them black skunks I have killed
since the wa'." He said he considered "a `niggah' that wouldn't vote the
way decent people wanted him to should not vote at all." Said he: "I
know of a number that will not vote any mo'. I saw them pass in their
last ballot." "The most money, made the easiest and quickest, was made
by our men," said he, "as moonshiners in Montague County. We carried on
this business successfully for a long time, but finally the U. S.
marshals became too much for us, and we had to close up shop. We had
several engagements with them; men were dropped on both sides, until
finally we concluded to quit the business and return to our old trade of
stealing cattle and horses. The way our moonshiner's nest was found out
was very romantic. A young woman came into the district, and tried to
get
up a school, seemingly, but failed. I guess she did not try very hard to
get scholars. At any rate she remained with a family in the neighborhood
for some time, whom she claimed were her relatives. One of my men fell
desperately in love with this young woman. He would be out riding with
her, and, as none of us suspected anything, he would at times bring her
over to our camp, and we taught her how to make whisky. She seemed
deeply interested in the business. I told the boys several times that I
was a little afraid of that `gal,' but they laughed at me, and so I
said, `I can stand it if the rest of you can.' She even went so far as
to become familiarly acquainted with all of us. We all got to thinking
that she was a nice young woman, and her lover simply thought he had
secured the finest prize in the world. But alas! At the proper time she
fixed our camp. She proved to be a female detective from New York city.
She gave away our fellows, and soon we were surrounded by a posse of U.
S. marshals and their deputies. Her lover was captured and is now in the
Texas penitentiary. Several of our boys were killed or wounded, and
those of us who escaped made up our minds to go back to the old cattle
trade." "What are you going to do, Doc.," said I, "when you get out of
this place?" "Going back to Texas; hunt up the boys, and see if we
can't find some more horses and cattle. One thing is certain I will
never go to another penitentiary. I will swallow a dose of cold lead
first."
And, with this, the famous outlaw went off to his room in the
mine to get out his task of coal to keep from being punished. Of the
nine hundred criminals in the prison, probably there is not one of them
who has seen so much of a life of crime as the famous Doc. Crunk.
