It was a sweat wiping hot July day as Shorty stood with a prisoner on the loading platform of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in San Bernardino, California. Beside him wearing handcuffs was Lambert Hartley, a vicious killer. While being captured, he and his men killed two deputies and wounded a third man before a lucky shot from a rifle bounced a bullet off his thick skull knocking him out. During a long week recovering, word was sent to New Mexico that he had been captured. U.S. Marshal Shorty Thompson had been sent all that way to bring him back to Santa Fe, New Mexico where he would spend the rest of his life in prison for the ruthless murder of a young girl. People wanted him hung, but that judge said no to that, being on a chain gang for the rest of his life would be the worse punishment. Hanging would be too quick, this man needed to suffer like no other that had stood before him.