CALVIN JAMES, a Negro was leader of a gang of whisky runners.
On August 1,
1885, he, Tony Love, Henry Robey, and Albert Kemp went to Texas
and each
purchased four gallons of whisky. On their return trip,
while riding through
a secluded section of the Chickasaw Nation, James shot
Love in the head to
get the whisky he carried. Robey and Kemp were riding some distance
ahead.
James carried Love's body two hundred yards off the road and
concealed it in
the brush, then unsaddled his victim's horse and turned it loose.
He then
told Kemp and Robey he would kill them if they ever mentioned
the incident.
However, when Love turned up missing, it was ascertained he was
last seen with
these men, and all three were arrested. Kemp and
Robey confessed the whole
affair and appeared against James as government witnesses.
LINCOLN SPROLE, a young white man, murdered elderly Ben Clark
and his
eighteen-year-old son Alex, May 30, 1885, in Paul's Valley,
Chickasaw Nation.
Sprole and his victims were renters on the Sam Paul farm, and
prior to the
double slaying, he and Clark had fallen out over the watering
of stock at a
well on the premises. On the date of the killing, Clark
and his son went to
White Bead Hill to do some trading, and on their return
trip Sprole,
concealing himself in a thicket at the side of the road, fired
upon them.
Clark fell from the wagon seat, shot in the chest. The
horses began to run
and the boy leaped from the wagon. Another shot from Sprole's
Winchester
broke his leg at the knee, and as he lay at the roadside, begging
for his
life, Sprole advanced, raised his weapon again to his face, and
shot the
helpless, unarmed youth through the right breast and collar bone.
Clark died
within six hours; his son lived only seventeen days.
Sprole left the
country, but Deputy Marshal John Williams tracked him down and
hauled him to
Fort Smith. The Elevator of August 9, 1886, speaking of
the evidence produced
at the trial, commented: " It is only to be regretted that he
has not two
necks to break instead of one."