Pg 361

         This ruffian and bully was imported by Switzer and his friends to overawe the court and court officers, as well as the spectators in the event of a verdict of guilty. He was present when that term of the court commenced, and swaggered around through the court room with the air of a braggart and a desperado. He dressed for the convenience of the occasion and the purpose for which he had been imported. His pantaloons were of blue jeans, held in place by his suspenders tied around his waist. The legs were stuffed in the tops of his boots. His shirt was made of some kind of coarse stuff—red flannel, it is believed. He wore neither coat nor vest—only a gentleman’s cloak of the old style—thrown loosely over his shoulders. When the time for battle came, all that was necessary was to throw the cloak from his shoulders, and thus freed from restraint, and making a bold dash among a miscellaneous gathering of men, and taking them by surprise, he would have been more than a match for twenty ordinary men. And that was his programme. It was unmasked, however, soon after the trial commenced, and measures inaugurated to defeat the bully. Some of the old pioneers—men of nerve and muscle—prepared themselves to meet and beat the bully at his first attempt. They warned the officers of Burns’ purposes and intentions. The Sheriff and his deputies armed themselves and used every possible precaution to maintain the dignity of the court and enforce its mandates. The disagreement of the jury and the flight of Switzer, probably saved a bloody scene in the Cedar County Court House, for it is certain that if the jury had returned a verdict of guilty, Burns would have attempted to rescue Switzer from the officers. And, maddened as the pioneers were over the repeated outrages of Switzer and his accomplices, there is no reason to doubt that short work would have been made of Burns and his co-workers in iniquity.

         The punishment visited upon Conlogue, Case, Goodrich, McBroom and others by the vigilantes, by whipping, and the arrest of Switzer and his subsequent flight from the country, did not entirely free the settlers from the presence of outlaws and plunderers. The snake was not killed—only scotched. If the vigilantes did not follow up their scourging of suspected parties, they kept a close watch upon their movements. Knowing they were under the espionage of a community they had repeatedly outraged, they were very cautious and guarded in their movements. From 1841 to 1855, the settlers in the county were left comparatively free from the operations of horse thieves, although good horses were not considered the safest kind of property.