Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1875 — An Exciting Episode of Rough Life in Colorado. [ARTICLE]

An Exciting Episode of Rough Life in Colorado.

Not more than a short two hours ago yOur correspondent was listening to a tale of dare-doing that, however unworthy the hero may be, was calculated to arouse all the interest of sympathy. He was a square-built r man, with an honest, open face, and pleasant though "deter-mined-looking blue eyes, that told the tale, and in not a tittle did his appearance indicate that he had once shot a neighbor with whom he had had a dispute by the light of his burning barn, which fin accessory had set fire to. For this crime he wte tried last fall here in Denver andacquitted, but when he went down to bis ranches on a creek emptying into the Arkansas he found the verdict of a Denvet jury was® not regarded as a passport to the safety of murderers by the friends of the murdered man. At any rate, although he affects to have had not an

inkling of tbeir intention, he knew the time had come when he must fight for bis life when he was aroused at the midnight that separated last Friday from Saturday by the hoarse demand, Was Gibbs at home? Gibbs answered that he wae, on whic|i he was told to get up and come ont, as somebody wanted to see him. Gibbs asked if morning would not do as well, and was told no; he was wanted then and there. He was next informed that his interlocutor Would give him ten minutes to get out of the house pnd fifteen to get out with his family, if he did not take advantage of which he and his family would be burned on one funeral pile. He made no answer to all this, and the next move of his enemies was to the other side of the ranche—a simpWlo'g cabin, lacking in the modern conveniences of windows, except on the side on which the parley took place, on which also was the door. Taking advantage of the fact that the dead wall presented no aperture through which Gibbs might get at them, they leisurely proceeded to do their best to fire the building, but fared ill in their attempt owing to the logs being old and full of water. Tired with their fruitless efforts Gibbs’ visitors came around to the side they first approached and began to pile hay and wood against the door for the purpose of igniting it. One es the would-be lynchers named Sam Boone was in the act of stooping with a lighted match in- his hand, revealing clearly his entire form, to set fire to the pile thus raised, when Gibbs fired with a revolver through a chink in the boards which served in place of sash and glass for the window, killing him instantly. His comrades retreated some distance at this, but soon returned, proposing to burst open the door by main force. While they were bunched together preparatory to making the charge that was to do this Gibbs fired again, hitting two men this time. He builded wiser than he knew, indeed, for the gun of one of them as he was falling exploded, killing a brother to the man first killed. So/woe qui peut occurred at one and the same time to the surviving assailants at seeing the untimely fate of their comrades, and they scattered and made off. Gibbs Ired at them, retreating, with a rifle, the bullet of which he heard h spat” on a revolver one carried, so that it did no harm. After seeing the backs of his enemies disappear in the darkness Gibbs on his part turned tail and fled, with his wife and three children and a neighbor and her child, over to his father’s ranch, situated some half a mile distant in a direction opposite to that taken by his foiled assailants. His friends gathered around him the next day, and when he was examined Monday the event resulted in his triumphal acquittal, ten of those who had tried to lynch him testifying to his having acted in self-de-fense. But thra spirit of fair play was not rife in the community, and not only Gibbs, but the Justice who presided at his trial and his friends an< relatives found their lives were in danger. Accordingly, the Justice, Gibbs, his brother and a friend named Gillard were obliged to hurry off immediately after the trial and make tracks for this place, which they seem to have considered their only city of safety. They had not gone a score of miles before the Philistines were upon them; and now came a race for life. Their pursuers numbered some two score, and their multiplicity enabled them to cover a tract of country which left little loophole for their escape. Gibbs first evaded them by calling on his party to separate and hide in a gulch till they had passed by, but this ruse did not avail for long. They were soon obliged to break cover, and then the pursuing party gained on them fast. At last by a desperate spurt they managed to get a start which gave them time to throw off all their surplus load and enable their horses to increase their speed materially. Their object was to reach a mountain near by, where they had determined to make a stand and sell their lives as dearly as possible, but their horses were so freshened up by their lightened loads that they were enabled to give the party in the rear the go-by completely. All this chase, I forgot to say, was done at night, the pursuers first appearing in sight a-little after midnight. The moon, however, was very nearly at the full, and, as the country was well covered with snow, the motions of the pursuers and pursued were equally visible to each other. It was daylight, nevertheless. when the chase ended, and the pursued quartet rode into a ranche at the head of Curran Creek and demanded food for themselves and horses at the muzzles of their revolvers. They rode all that day, and by sun-down were at the foot of Pike’s Peak on the west side, passing the night at a ranche. Although no signs all this time had been seen of their pursuers, the next day (yesterday) they were still so fearful of being again overhauled that they did not dare take the regular roadway through the mount-' ains, but preferred to go over the hills cross-lots. There was no trail, and their wits and the aun were their only guides. The mountain,'which, having no name, is best located by saying it is at the head of Dead Mali’s Gulch, rose some miles over the level of the plain, and over this tremendous elevation they scampered, till at nightfall they got down on to the plain again, and stopped to rest fifteen miles from Colorado City. From here to Monument, where they spent the night, taking the train for Denver this morning, was an easy journey. The distance traversed by the entire journey was over 100 miles.— Denver, Col., (Jan. 29) Cor. Chicago Inter-Ocean.