Somebody knocked out the lights and I emptied my gun over the heads of the other people and then came away."

Patsy was badly wounded, and was a long time in recovering. His wound was at the very place that Smith said the hole would be found. Smith was arrested but was discharged the next morning on the ground of self-defense. A few minutes later as he was approaching the Lockwood house, barber Flanagan said: "That murderous whelp shot Patsy; this is a hell of a country for law and order."

Smith replied with a vile epithet, and asked the barber what he had to do with the matter. The barber pulled a revolver and fired at Smith but missed him. The next instant the barber was a dead man, a shot from Smith's gun having hit him in a vital spot. Smith was again arrested and again released on the ground of self-defense.

Excitement now ran high in Sidney. A vigilance committee arrested McCarthy and lodged him in jail. That night the prisoner was informed that he was to be hanged in the morning and a friendly informant told him that the best thing he could do was to mount a saddled horse standing outside the jail and leave the country. He took the hint, the jail door being opened for his exit. He was probably allowed to escape by the sheriff with the consent of the vigilantes.

McCarthy never returned to Sidney, and it

HISTORY ( )I; WESTERN NEBRASKA