A Night of Gunfire and Ropes in Sultan

A bold robbery was perpetrated at Index, fifteen miles east of Sultan City, about midnight of Sunday. Two men, named Riley, alias Brown, and Hanley, entered A. E. Walker's saloon just as he was closing up, and began shooting the lights out, and then ordered all hands up. They forced Walker at the point of their pistols to open his till and fork over the contents, about $30 in cash and checks, and then turned their attention to some laborers who were in the place, from whom they got about $24 more. During the fracas one of the laborers, named Tom Burke, made a dash for liberty, and succeeded in getting outside. Hanley, one of the robbers, followed him and commanded him to return to the saloon, but Burke was game, and engaged the highwayman in a short struggle, with the result that the latter was beaten most unmercifully with his own weapon. The robbers were allowed to go, but Monday morning Hanley was captured in a shack nearby in company with another man named McManus, and both were put under arrest. While waiting for a train to bring the prisoners to Sultan a movement to lynch them was started, and the wrathy railroaders went to the shack where the prisoners were, broke down the door and led the men out with ropes around their necks. They, however, lacked a leader, and the movement was abandoned. Riley, or Brown, the leader of the gang of robbers, got control of the booty and has not been captured, which is a fortunate thing for him, as the intention to lynch them would have been carried out if he had been caught.