his place on his visits
to San Antonio, and received treatment which left him with a grudge
against Harris, whom he resolved to kill. He followed his man into the
bar-room one day and killed Harris as he stood in the semi-darkness. It
was only another case of "self-defense" for Thompson, who was well used
to being cleared of criminal charges or left unaccused altogether; and
no doubt Harris would have killed him if he could.

After killing Harris, Thompson declared that he proposed to kill Harris'
partners, Foster and Simms. He had an especial grudge against Billy
Simms, then a young man not yet nineteen years of age, because, so it is
stated, he fancied that Simms supplanted him in the affections of a
woman in Austin; and he carried also his grudge against the gambling
house, where Simms now was the manager. Every time Thompson got drunk,
he declared his intention of killing Billy Simms, and as the latter was
young and inexperienced, he trembled in his boots at this talk which
seemed surely to spell his doom. Simms, to escape Thompson's wrath,
removed to Chicago, and remained there for a time, but before long was
summoned home to Austin, where his mother was very ill. Thompson knew
of his presence in Austin, but with magnanimity declined to kill Simms
while he was visiting his sick mother. "Wait till he goes over to
Santone," he said, "then I'll step over and kill the little ----."
Simms, presently called to San Antonio to settle some debt of Jack
Harris' estate, of which as friend and partner of the widow he had been
appointed administrator, went to the latter city with a heavy heart,
supposing that he would never leave it alive. He was told there that
Thompson had been threatening him many times; and Simms received many
telegrams to that effect. Some say that Thompson himself telegraphed
Simms that he was coming down that day to kill him. Certainly a friend
of Simms on the same day wired him warning: "Party who wants to destroy
you on train this day bound for San Antonio."

Friends of Thompson deny that he made such threats, and insist that he
went to San Antonio on a wholly peaceful errand. In any case, this
guarded but perfectly plain message set Simms half distracted. He went
to the city marshal and showed his telegram, asking the marshal for
protection, but the latter told him nothing could be done until Thompson
had committed some "overt act." The sheriff and all the other officers
said the same thing, not cari