Hanson.
Things looked black indeed for Dodge and blacker still for Hummel. How
the little attorney, eating his midday lunch four thousand miles away,
at Pontin's restaurant on Franklin Street, must have trembled in his
patent leather boots! His last emissary, Cohen, at once procured an
assistant by the name of Brookman and with him proceeded to Wharton
County, Texas, where they secured a new writ of habeas corpus and
induced the local sheriff, one Rich, to swear in a _posse comitatus_ of
one hundred men for the purpose of coming to Houston to take the
prisoner by force of arms out of the hands of the United States Marshal.
This was one of the most daring and desperate attempts made in recent
years to frustrate the law. Jesse believes that the real object of this
_posse_ was to precipitate a fight between themselves and the Federal
authorities. It is not inconceivable that in such an event Dodge might
either have escaped or been killed. The men composing the _posse_ were
of the most desperate character, and consisted largely of the so-called
"feud factions" of Wharton County, known as "The Wood Peckers" and "The
Jay Birds.
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