Historic Gunfighters

Luke Short

The subject of this narrative might have "died with his boots on," for he had many chances — but he didn't. The fact that he lived to die in bed, with his boots removed, as all good folk like to do when the end has come, may have been due to good luck, but I hardly think so. That he was the quickest at the critical moment is, perhaps, the best answer. When the time came for Luke Short to pass out of this life — to render up the ghost as it were-he was able to lie in bed in a home that was his own, surrounded by wife and friends, and peacefully await the coming of the end.

There was nothing in his wan and drawn features as he lay on that last bed of sickness at Fort Worth, Texas, to indicate that luck had ever been his friend. He knew that his time had come and was reconciled to his fate. Every contour in that cold, stern face, upon which death had already left its impress, showed defiance. He could almost be heard to say: "Death! You skulking coward! I know you are near; I also realize I cannot defeat you, but if you will only make yourself visible for one brief moment, I will try!"

That he was willing to try, no matter how great the odds might be against him, was the one trait in his character that was ever conspicuously present.

Was Known as a "White Indian"

Luke was a little fellow, so to speak, about five feet, six inches in height and weighing in the neighborhood of one hundred and forty pounds. It was a small package but one of great dynamic force. In this connection, it will not be out of order for me to state that, though of slight build, it required a 7 1/8 hat to fit his well-shaped, round head. When he left his father's ranch in western Texas, where he had been occupied as a cowboy in the middle seventies, for the Red Cloud Agency in South Dakota, he was nothing more than a white Indian. That is, he was an Indian in every respect except color. And, as nearly all of our American Indians living west of the Missouri River in those days were wild and hostile and on the warpath most of the time, a fair idea of Luke Short may be gleaned from this statement. Luke had received none of the advantages of a school in his younger days; he could hardly write his name legibly. Indeed, it was doubtful if he had ever seen a schoolhouse until he reached man's estate. But he could ride a bronco and throw a lariat; he could shoot both fast and straight and was not afraid.

He had no sooner reached Nebraska's northern boundary line, hard by the Sioux Indian Reservation, than he established what he was pleased to call a "trading ranch."

His purpose was to trade with the Sioux Indians, whose reservation was just across the line in South Dakota. Instinctively he knew that the Indians loved whiskey. As even in those days he carried on his shoulders something of a commercial head, he conceived the idea that a gallon of whiskey worth ninety cents was not a bad thing to trade an Indian for a buffalo robe worth ten dollars. Accordingly, Luke proceeded to lay in a goodly supply of "Pine Top," the name by which the whiskey traded to the Indians in exchange for their robes was known.

Uncle Sam Objects to His Business

He was not long in building up a lucrative business, nor was it long before the Indian chiefs of the Sioux tribe got on to him. Drunken bands of young bucks were regularly returning to their villages from the direction of the Short rendezvous, loaded to the muzzle with "Pine Top," and, as every drink contained at least two fights and as it usually took about ten drinks to cause an Indian to forget that the Great White Father abode in Washington, the condition of those who had found entertainment at the Short ranch, when they reached their camp, can better be imagined than told.

The Indian agent in charge of this particular branch of the Sioux tribe, with whom Short had been dealing, soon got busy with Washington. He represented to the Department of the Interior that a band of cutthroat white men, under the leadership of Luke Short, were trading whiskey to his Indians and that he was powerless to stop it, as the camp of the white men was located just across the reservation line, in the State of Nebraska, which was outside of his jurisdiction. He requested the government to instantly remove the whiskey traders and drive them from the country. Otherwise, said he, an Indian uprising will surely follow. As was to be expected, the government instructed the post commander at Omaha to get after the purveyors of the poisonous "Pine Top," who were charged with causing such havoc among the noble red men of the Sioux reservation.