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Valentine's Day is observed today, Dr. Pogue is observing his seventy-fifth birthday, at his home, 107 North Seventh street.
Peace Officer In West
Dr. Pogue's vision is as clear as in the days of his youth. His health is marred only by a cold that troubles him tormentingly but not seriously. His adventures and experiences are a fortune that money cannot buy, nor time and passing years wither in his memory.
Few men have leaped the five
years above the alloted three score years and 10 to know such a life as has been Garrett Pogue's. Born of good Quaker folk he lived by the gun for years, was a peace officer in the Wild West, when it was both wild and woolly. Famed marshals were his buddies, noted outlaws his prey.
Perhaps the most thrilling and dramatic of all his tales of the days that saw him cavalryman, cow-puncher and co-partner of the men who helped to win the West from outlawry and banditry is the tale he tells of "Billy, the Kid."
To the men of seasoned years "Billy, the Kid" needs no introduction. To the youngsters it might be stated that "Billy, the Kid," and
the men of his ilk, made the tinhorn bandits of today seem the punks that they are.
"I was riding alone through the desert," said Dr. Pogue, yesterday, 'and I saw the speck of a camp fire down in an arroyo, or valley. I was riding with my rifle over the saddle, my guns in my belt, when I caught the glint of steel in the firelight. "Hands Up!"'
"A man stood down in the arroyo and he said: 'Come down off that hoss with your hands up.' He had a rifle to enforce the command. Now t's no easy matter to slide down
'rom a horse, with your hands in :he air. I did.
" 'Where you going and who are you?' asked this rifleman. Just then I noticed a second man sitting by the fire, and the light glinted on another rifle. 'Pogue's the name,' I told him, 'and I'm riding from Texas to Arizona.' 'My name's
Bonney,' the first man said, 'and folks call me "Billy, the Kid."
" 'Billy, the Kid,' an outlaw for whom marshals all over the West were hunting, with 20 rewards on his head. He didn't know that I was a deputy sheriff, I had my badge tucked down.in my shoe.
"I slept that night by the camp-fire, not six feet from Billy, the most feared killer in the whole West. I had breakfast with them in the morning and rode away.
Meets Billy Again
"It was months later, I had turned up in New Mexico. I was a deputy to Marshal Pat Garrett, about whom there are 1000 stories
and'legends, all of them true. 'Garrett,' Pat said to me one night, 'I'm told Billy, the Kid is going to visit that Mexican girl he is sweet on over at the ranch.
" 'Get your guns and we'll get Billy.' I took my Winchester and a couple of other guns for my belt. Pat and I rode for the ranch,
I was behind a tree with the rifle sticking out, Pat was around behind the corral. Sometime afterward Billy rode up, whistled a couple of times, then rose in his saddle and started to dismount.
"I had a dead bead on his back. I didn't fire a shot. Why? Because I got to thinking about that night by the campfire when we broke bread together and he could have killed me as easy as wink. Something just naturally paralyzed my arm. I waited there, with the hammer of the rifle down, watching Billy to go into the house.
Outlaw Dies On Floor
"In about two minutes it sounded as if all hell broke loose. Guns were popping, but pretty soon there wasn't a sound. I went into the house. There was Billy on the floor, gasping out his last breath. Pat Garrett was on the floor, a couple of wounds in his shoulder, cussing me a blue streak for not throwing a gun on Billy and giving it to him.
"I explained the whole thing to Garrett, and while he cussed a lot he didn't say anything more."
Dr. Pogue's birthright is one strange story also. Born in 1863, his mother was 48 when he was born, his parent dying in childbirth. His father was 54 at the time, two brothers had given up their lives for the Union cause, one at Shiloh, the other at Antietam.
"Science has discovered," said the veteran peace officer to me, "that when a child is born to parents who have passed the meridian of life that the child inherits all the great qualities of his parents.
Of Quaker Origin
"Now I was born in Delaware City, of Quaker parents. Yet I was always a wanderer, always a nomad. My old mammy, who had been born into my family as a slave, told my fortune once. She said that I would visit strange places, see strange sights, but come back to my own native soil to settle down finally.
"I don't know whether that old mammy had second sight, but that is the entire volume of my life history.
"No stranger fate ever accompanied a youngster than myself on my first trip into the wild, unsettled West. I had gone to Denver, didn't like the place, so pushed on to Colorado Springs. I stood leaning against a tree outside the post-office when three men came riding down the street. They were the biggest men I ever saw in the saddle.
Heard Own Name Spoken
"As they came to where I stood one of them said: 'Have you got those checks, Garrett?' I looked at him and said: 'No, I don't know anything about cheeks.' 'I wasn't talking to you' he growled, in the talk westerners use to strangers who butt into business which your westerner doesn't believe concerns anybody but himself.
" 'By the way, youngster, what is your name?' said the biggest of the riders. 'My name is Garrett Pogue,' I told him. 'Want to go to work?' he asked me. I told him I did. Mind you
I'm wearing a gray suit, a stiff hat, tenderfoot written all over me.
" 'All right,' he said, 'walk along with us and we'll get you into the buckboard.' They drove me to the ranch. On the way out one of them said that I would help them capture wild horses, in which the region abounded. When we
got to the ranch I saw a young fellow not more than 19, black as an Indian, standing several inches over six feet.
Meets His "Partner"
" 'Sam,' said the fellow called Garrett—Garrett Cadle was his name —'I've brought
you a partner.' That night Sam and myself went into town and to a dance hall. While we were there a big bully came through the door and said: 'Every so-and-so is going to drink with me.'
"Few of them paid any attention to him. Then he walked right up to me and said: 'Every so-and-so in the place is going to drink with me and you're going to drink with me first.'
"Sam came up to us, quiet like, pushed me away. 'My friend doesn't drink,' Sam said. The big bruiser, had a naked gun—a gun that wasn't bolstered—stuck in his pants. Sam had one down in his boot. The bully made a move toward his gun, Sam almost shot his arm off.
"Pretty soon the door opened and Sheriff Lem Jackson came into the dance hall. He was told that the big bully tried to draw on a man who didn't have a gun and that satisfied the sheriff.
Sheriff Sends Him Away
"It was the sheriff that finally sent me away from the
Cadles. I was in town when Garrett Cadle came riding into the place, sitting on his horse, with a bad wound in his shoulder. Behind him were two men, both armed, riding 50 feet apart.
"I had my rifle trained on them. When they got 50 feet away from me I heard Garrett shout: 'rustlers'. I fired a shot and that second man tumbled from the saddle. "Then the third man came into sight: 'Rustler', shouted Garrett. I let that fellow have it.
"When the fourth man hove in sight, and I was ready to draw a bead on him, Garrett yelled: 'Bill'. Sure enough it was his brother. Bill came up, looked at the two men on as ground, fired bang! bang! Just like that. "Mercy shots", Bill said as he bolstered his gun.
" 'Let Garrett go see the Doctor,' Bill said, 'and you and I will go and see Sam'. We found him dead, with one bullet in the top of his head, another in his back. The Cadles had been attacked by the rustlers. I got Bill's idea of 'mercy shots' when I saw that bullet wound in the top of Sam's head—Sam had been killed while he was lying on the ground.
Gets Horses and Money
"We got to the ranch. Pretty soon Sheriff Lem Jackson came riding. He told me that he knew all about it. It seemed that these rustlers had held up the Union Pacific train, killed the engineer, conductor and train crew and got away with loot that was valued in the hundreds of thousands.
"They then killed a couple of deputy sheriffs and were trying to escape to New Mexico and Texas when they ran across the Cadles who were out after wild horses. The train robbers shot Sam dead, then wounded Garrett.
" 'Better git now, son,' the sheriff told me, "because the gang that was
with these fellows will sure get you if they can."
I told the sheriff I didn't have horses or money.
Took Rustlers' Horses
"Take them two rustlers' horses,' he said. 'I know the ranch where they were stolen. I'll give you this receipt, just as good as a bill of sale. You can show it to anybody asks about the animals. Here's
$500 which you would have got as a share of the reward offered for them. Git going' into Texas as fast as your pinto will hoof it.' "
"It was good advice, I took it," smiled Pogue, "and when I got there I joined the Texas Rangers and remained with them for years. Then I was a deputy for the Denver and Rio Grande and helped Captain McNulty of the Texas Rangers, Bat Masterson, the grizzled old marshal and the others.
"I was in Canon City, Colo., 50 years ago when they hanged George
Withererell to a telegraph pole and brought back a picture of him hanging to the pole, which I still keep."
After this wild and adventurous life, Pogue returned to Philadelphia where he was employed by Samuel T. Bodine of the U. G. I.
Blindness Strikes Him
"It was while I was with that company," continued the chiropractor," that I was stricken blind. For five years—60 months—I got my pay from U. G. I. twice a month. I visited Dr. de
Schweinitz. I visited Dr. Webster Fox. I visited every great physician and specialist in Philadelphia—got the same answer— I was hopelessly blind and would die in six months.
"So I decided to try something else as a desperate resort. I went to a man named A. W.
Marchand, a chiropractor. Now mark this as a coincidence—he came from Delaware City where I was born myself. I recalled his father as a man in the town we knew as
'Frenchy'.
"Marchand gave me treatments. I regained my sight and my health. I was so impressed that I joined his class in
chiropractice, a class of 36, 18 doctors, 18 laymen. I became so interested in the practice that I was graduated from the school. I've been in practice ever since."
And to show that 75 years rested as lightly on his shoulders as a breeze, Dr. Pogue skipped blithely across the room like a two-year-old. |
