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fellow stood staring at them for quite a while before he could bring himself to believe that he was being robbed. "'Py golly,' he cried out, 'you iss robbers, ain'd it? Yah. Raus mit you.'

"Hill and Evans went on quietly looking for the money box. The old man spied Hill's rifle leaning against one of the wagon wheels. He had a sudden idea that the rifle spoke a language that maybe the robbers could understand better than his broken English. Just as the old German grabbed the rifle, Hill rose up from beneath the wagon seat with the money box in his hands. There was a look of pained surprise on Hill's face as a bullet caught him just over the left eye and he pitched dead out of the wagon on his head, scattering money all over the ground.

"Evans was not too surprised to jerk out his six-shooter, but the gun fell out of his hand when one of the old German's bullets broke his right arm and another crashed through his lungs. Evans toppled out of the wagon almost on top of Hill, but, badly wounded as he was, he bolted for his pony and, managing somehow to scramble into the saddle, never stopped going until he had put sixty miles between himself and this 'harmless old Dutchman.' He found refuge at a ranch in the San Augustine Mountains, where Deputy Sheriff Dave Wood arrested him a few days later. He was taken to the hospital at Fort Stanton, where he was kept until he got well. Then he strolled away and disappeared.

"Hill was generally hated. The only tears shed over his death were tears of laughter. The frontier split its sides at the way this bad man cashed out. The old German was greeted everywhere with laughter and applause. People seemed to think him a sort of humorist.