but they said he was a
white man or nearly so. The search continued all day without effect, save
the arrest of two or three strange Negroes. A bloodhound was brought from
the penitentiary and put on the trail which he followed from the scene of
the murder to the river and into the boat of a fisherman named Gordon.
Gordon stated that he had ferried one man and only one across the river
about about half past six the evening of July 5; that his passenger sat in
front of him, and he was a white man or a very bright mulatto, who could
not be told from a white man. The bloodhound was put across the river in
the boat, and he struck a trail again at Bird's Point on the Missouri
side, ran about three hundred yards to the cottage of a white farmer named
Grant and there lay down refusing to go further.

Thursday morning a brakesman on a freight train going out of Sikeston,
Mo., discovered a Negro stealing a ride; he ordered him off and had hot
words which terminated in a fight. The brakesman had the Negro arrested.
When arrested, between 11 and 12 o'clock, he had on a dark woolen shirt,
light pants and coat, and no vest. He had twelve dollars in paper, two
silver dollars and ninety-five cents in change; he had also four rings in
his pockets, a knife and a razor which were rusted and stained. The
Sikeston authorities immediately jumped to the conclusion that this man
was the murderer for whom the Kentuckians across the river were searching.
They telegraphed to Bardwell that their prisoner had on no coat, but wore
a blue vest and pants which would perhaps correspond with the coat found
at the scene of the murder, and that the names of the murdered girls were
in the rings found in his possession.

As soon as this news was received, the sheriffs of Ballard and Carlisle
counties and a posse(?) of thirty well-armed and determined Kentuckians,
who had pledged their word the prisoner should be taken back to the scene
of the supposed crime, to be executed there if proved to be the guilty
man, chartered a train and at nine o'clock Thursday night started for
Sikeston. Arriving there two hours later, the sheriff at Sikeston, who had
no warrant for the prisoner's arrest and detention, delivered him into the
hands of the mob without authority for so doing, and accompanied them to
Bird's Point. The prisoner gave his name as Miller, his home at
Springfield, and said he had never been in Kentucky in his life, but the
sheriff turned him over to the