Conquest

<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></SPAN>CHAPTER XX</h2> <p class="center">THE OUTLAW'S LAST STAND</p> <div class="drop"> <ANTIMG src="images/drop_a.jpg" alt="A" width-obs="90" height-obs="90" class="cap" /> <p class="cap_1">AFTER the vigilants had frightened the outlaws into abandoning their operations in the valley, the thieves skulked across the reservation to a strip of country some twenty-five miles northeast of where Megory now stands. Here, on the east, the murky waters of the Missouri seek their level; to the north the White River runs like a cow-path through the foot hills&mdash;twisting and turning into innumerable bends, with its lime-like waters lapping the sides, bringing tons of shale from the gorgeous, dark banks, into its current; while on the south runs the Whetstone, inclosed by many rough, ragged brown hills, and to the west are the breaks of Landing Creek. In an angle between these creeks and rivers, lies a perfect table land known as Yully Flats, which is the most perfectly laying land and has the richest soil of any spot on the Little Crow. It took its name from a famous outlaw and squaw-man, by the name of Jack Yully. With him the thieves from the Keya Paha Valley found co-operation, and together had, a few years previously operated as the most notorious band of cattle rustlers the state had known. For a hundred miles in every direction this band plundered, stole, and ran the cattle and horses onto the flats, where they were protected by the breaks of the creeks and rivers, referred to. Mixed with half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth breeds, they knew every nook and crook of the country.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</SPAN></span> These operations had lasted until the year of the Little Crow opening, and it was there that Jack Yully made his last stand.</p> </div> <div class="figcenter"><SPAN name="i140" name="i140"></SPAN> <ANTIMG src="images/i140.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="ctext">Although the valley could not be surpassed in the production of grain and alfalfa, the highlands on either side were great mountains of sand. <SPAN href="#Page_126">(Page 126.)</SPAN></p> </div> <p>He had for many years defied the laws of the county and state, and had built a magnificent residence near a spring that pours its sparkling waters into a small lake, where now stands a sanitarium. Yully had been chief overseer, dictator, and arbitrator of the combined forces of Little Crow and Keya Paha County outlaws and mixed bloods. The end came when, on a bright day in June, a posse led by the United States Marshal sneaked across the Whetstone and secreted themselves in a cache between Yully's corral and the house. Yully was seen to enter the corral and having laid a trap, a part of the men, came in from another direction and made as if to advance when Yully made a run for his house, which took him alongside the men hidden. Before he could change his course he was halted and asked to surrender. He answered by dropping to the opposite side of the horse and began firing. In the skirmish that followed the horse was shot and fell on Yully, but in the shot's exchange two of the posse and Yully were killed.</p> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</SPAN></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />