A BAD INDIAN

Zeke Proctor, the Most Conspicious Killer in Cherokee Nation

The most conspicuous fighter and killer now living in teh Cherokee Nation is Zeke Proctor, ex-high sheriff of Goingsnake district, writes a correspondent of the New York Times. He is a full blooded Cherokee, is near 65 years of age, and notwithstanding his numerous battles and scars made by club, knife and bullet he is still vigorous, active and keen eyed.

He went to the nation from Georgia when a boy, when the Cherokees were removed from their southern reservation to their present lands. When he was yet a young man, he became noted among his people as a hunter, trapper and fighter. His first victim was a man named Yearl Old, a young Indian with whom he became involved in an altercation. He buried the body of Year Old and adorned the grave with flint rocks. Not long after this tragedy, Proctor attended a dance in the Goingsnake district and during the festivities he became involved in a fight with two Indians named Jay Bird and Big Drum. He shot Jay Bird dead and sent a bullet through Big Drum's body, but the latter recovered.

This occurred just as the outbreak of the war of the rebellion, and as soon as Proctor recovered from his wounds he offered his services to the United States government as a scout, in which capacity he was a power as spy, scout and sharpshooter.

At the close of the war, Proctor ran for sheriff of the Goingsnake districk and was elected. During the second year of his service the council of chiefs, for some offense on the part of Proctor, deposed him. Shortly after he got tinto a difficulty with one Jim Kesterson, in which he brought his revolver into action, firing at Kesterson, missing him adn killing a woman spectator named Hilderbrand. He was arrested for the killing of Mrs. Hilderbrand, tried and scquitted. Then he was arrested for shooting at Jim Kesterson. The trial was set for May 15, 1872. He was held as a prisoner at Goingsnake courthouse. In the forenoon of that day Proctor was in the courtroom with a number o fhis friends. Among his opponents wer eight United States deputy marshals. By order of the court the men of both parties had stood their rifles and hung up their revolvers in the corners on each side of the judge's bench. But while waiting for Proctor's case to be called Sut Beck, a nephew of Mrs. Hilderebrand, appeared in the courthouse door with a double barreled shotgun. He was in the act ofleveling it at Zeke Proctor when the latter's brother, Johnson Proctor, caught the muzzle of the gun and pulled it toward him. Beck at that instant, pulled the trigger and Johnson Proctor fell dead.

Beck then shot Zeke Proctor with the remaining charge, but at that instant some one from the outside handed Proctor a gun through a window and he began to use it most effectively, although growing weak from loss of blood. Both factions rushed to their stacked guns, and a battle at close range followed. The smoke became so dense in the courthouse that the firing was mostly at random, but after it ceased and the smoke lifted a deputy United States marshal, a posse man and ten other lay dead on the floor and in the yard. Proctor and his friends escaped and were finally pardoned by President Grant with the provision that they cease their sanguinary contentions.

Proctor is still riding as deputy United States marshal and with his record as a killer and the government at his back, his prowess is feard and his authoriuty is respected.