H.H. Hancock was made justice of the peace and he tried to enforce a little lay, but it was definitely an uphill struggle. He made a promise to the shop owners that the next time Pogy Bill cut loose he would show him no mercy when he appeared before the bar of justice.

When the word was given to Pogy Bill, he responded by sending work to Judge Hancock that he would dump the judge in the lake, and many believed he would do it.

However, the judge that other plans. He assembled a group of deputies, consisting of several of the most fearless cowhunters, traditional opponents of the fishermen, and on Pogy Bill’s next frolic, he was arrested and placed in a boxcar jail.

The next morning in court, which was held in the back of Darrow’s Park Drug Store, the room was packed with belligerent fishermen. When Pogy Bill appeared in court, he was not in the best of spirits either. The judge proceeded to find Bill guilty of every kind of skullduggery in the statute book, and as he pondered to heaviest sentence he could impose, he thumbed through the paper-backed "Statutes of Florida." Which was laying on the table.

At this point Pogy Bill shouted, "I don’t mind being arrested, but I ain’t gonna be sentenced out of no @$!%#$ Sears Roebuck catalog." The statement cost him an additional $25 in fines.