HOWIE AND FETHERSTUN
Several days after the execution of “Red” and Brown, when their bodies
were taken down for burial, there was found, fastened to each, a
monograph which has few parallels for brevity in the annals of
necrology. “Red! Road Agent and Messenger!” “Brown! Corresponding
Secretary!” Laconic, but explicit, they fitly epitomized the history,
both in life and death, of these ill-fated men.
The little company of Vigilantes arrived in Nevada early the morning
after the execution. The Committee assembled immediately to consider
what action should be pursued with reference to the disclosures made by
“Red,” but, as the results of their recommendations will hereafter
appear, no further allusion to the subject is necessary at this time.
The fluttering among the robbers, when it became known that two men of
their number had fallen, was very perceptible both at Bannack and
Virginia City. Many of them fled at once; others, who would have
accompanied them, had they heard of the disclosures made by “Red,”
believed themselves secure, until some testimony should appear against
them. Not anticipating treachery from any of their comrades, they
regarded such treachery as wholly unattainable.
Dutch John was not of this number. Alarm grew upon him day by day, after
the execution of Ives. He knew that, with the unhealed bullet wound in
his shoulder, his identity with the robbers who attacked Moody’s train
would be clearly established. He went to Plummer with his fears. Plummer
advised him to leave the Territory. In pursuance of this advice, he
shouldered his saddle and left Bannack in the direction of Horse
Prairie. A person who saw him leave, suspecting that he had designs upon
a fine gray horse, wrote to the owners of the animal, warning them of
his approach. They lay in watch for the thief, and discovered him
sitting in the underbrush. They immediately hedged him in, and captured
him. After a severe lecture and taking his saddle, they gave him an old
mule and blanket, and bade him depart. Accompanied by a Bannack Indian,
he rode slowly down the road leading to Salt Lake City.
A few days after the execution of Ives, John X. Beidler, who had
officiated on that occasion, went down the Salt Lake road to meet a
train which was expected from Denver. Meeting it at Snake River, he
returned with it to Beaverhead valley, where he was told of the attack,
by Dutch John and Marshland, on Moody’s train, and furnished with a
description of the robbers. His informant, believing that Moody’s shot
would prove fatal, told him that he would know the body of the robber by
his leggings.
“I need a pair of leggings,” replied X., “and, if I find the man dead,
will confiscate them.” Beidler turned back, and met Dutch John and the
Indian in Beaver Cañon, at the toll-gate. Failing to recognize him as
the robber, he offered him a drink from a bottle of schnapps. John’s
hands were so severely frozen that he could not grasp the bottle.
Beidler soaked them in water, to take the frost out. While thus
employed, John asked,
“Is it true that George Ives has been hanged?”
“Yes,” replied Beidler; “he’s dead and buried.”
“Who did it?” inquired John.
“Oh, the Virginia and Nevada people.”
“Did they find out anything?”
“They found out some things,” said Beidler, “and are now after the
robbers of Moody’s train. One of them, Dutch John, was shot, and I
expect to find him dead upon the trail. If I do, I shall confiscate his
leggings, for I need a pair very much.”
“Would you take his leggings if you found him?” inquired Dutch John.
“Of course I would, if he was dead,” said Beidler.
They continued to chat till late in the evening, passing the night
together, Beidler never suspecting him to be the robber he was in
pursuit of. The next morning Beidler dressed John’s frozen hands, and
they separated.
The next day, while making his way through Beaver Cañon, John was seen
and recognized by Captain Wall and Ben Peabody, who were encamped there
by stress of weather, with a pack train, _en route_ to Salt Lake. They
saw him and the Indian take shelter in a vacant cabin at no great
distance beyond their camp, and went immediately with the information to
John Fetherstun, who was also near at hand with eight teams and drivers,
awaiting an abatement of the temperature. Fetherstun recommended that
John should be hanged to one of the logs projecting from the end of the
cabin. Wall and Peabody wanted him to be returned to Bannack. Being
unable to agree, Wall and Peabody proceeded down the road to the camp of
Neil Howie, who was on his return from Salt Lake City, in charge of
three wagons laden with groceries and flour. If they had searched the
world over, they could have found no fitter man for their purpose. Brave
as a lion, and as efficient as brave, Neil Howie inherited from nature a
royal hatred of crime and criminals in every form. He laid his plans at
once for the capture and return of John to Bannack. The men belonging to
his train promised him ready assistance. In a short time John and the
Indian appeared in the distance, and the courage of Neil’s friends,
which began at that moment to weaken, “grew small by degrees, and
beautifully less,” as the stalwart desperado approached, until, to use
an expression much in vogue in those days, they concluded that as they
“had lost no murderers,” the reason given for the arrest of this one
were not sufficiently urgent to command their assistance in such a
formidable undertaking. In plain words, they backed out of their
promise. Neil, whose contempt for a coward was only equalled by his
abhorrence of a murderer, still determined upon the capture. It would be
a libel upon the honest Scotch inflexibility which had come down to him
through his Covenanting progenitors to recede from a resolution which
his conscience so fully approved. Dutch John rode up and asked for some
tobacco.
“We have none to spare,” said the train master. “Go to the big train
below. They will supply you.”
He cast a suspicious, uneasy glance at the men, and, with the Indian by
his side, rode on. Neil looked after him until nearly lost to sight,
then mounted his pony and rode rapidly in pursuit, with the hope of
obtaining aid from the big train, which belonged to James Vivion. He
soon overtook the fugitive, whom he found with rifle in hand, ready to
defend his liberty. The Indian, too, apprised of Neil’s approach, passed
his hands over his quiver, seemingly to select an arrow for instant use.
Carelessly remarking, as he passed, that he had to borrow a shoeing
hammer to prepare the stock for crossing the divide, Neil rode on under
the muzzle of John’s rifle, without drawing his reins until he arrived
at the train. The remark disarmed John’s suspicions, or he would
doubtless have fired upon him.
Neil related the particulars of John’s career. “It is a burning shame—a
reproach to the Territory, and will be an eternal reproach to us if we
permit so great a villain to escape. Just reflect,—he is a horse-thief
and a murderer, stained with blood, and covered with crimes. Let us
arrest him at once.”
[Illustration:
NEIL HOWIE
_Captor of “Dutch John”_
]
All to no purpose. The men, one and all, declined having anything to do
with it. Meantime John came up and asked for some tobacco.
“Have you any money?” inquired one of the men.
“Not a cent,” was the reply.
“Then,” said his interrogator, “we have no tobacco for you.”
“Oh! let him have what he wants,” interposed Neil. “I will pay for it.”
John’s face wore a grateful expression. He thanked Neil, and with the
Indian took his departure. Neil made another hurried appeal, not to let
the murderer and road agent escape, but the men refused to help.
“Then,” said he, “I will arrest him alone,” and he strode rapidly after
John, shouting,
“Hallo, captain! hold on a minute.”
John wheeled his mule half round, and sat awaiting the approach of Neil.
To the stature and strength of a giant, John added a nature hardened by
crime, and the ferocious courage of a tiger. His face, browned by
exposure, reflected the dark passions of his heart, and was lighted up
by a pair of eyes full of malignity. Nature had covered him with signs
and marks indicative of his character. Neil, on the other hand, was
rather under the medium size, with nothing in his general make-up that
denoted uncommon strength or activity, though, when aroused, no mountain
cat was more active in his movements, and strength seemed always to come
to him equal to any emergency. His clear gray eye, calm and gentle in
repose, became very powerful and commanding under excitement.
With his gaze fixed steadily upon the ruffian, he marched rapidly
towards him. John slewed his rifle around, grasping the barrel with his
left, and the small of the stock with his right hand, as if preparing
for a deadly aim. Neil’s hand fell with an admonitory ring upon the
trusty revolver in his belt, which had never failed him. For an instant
only, it seemed that either the rifle or pistol would decide the
adventure; but the ruffian quailed before the determined gaze of Howie,
who passed unharmed beyond the muzzle of his rifle, and stood with his
hand upon the flank of the mule. Looking John steadily in the eye, in a
quiet but authoritative tone, Neil said to him,
“Give me your gun and get off your mule.”
With blanched face and trembling hands, John complied, at the same time
expressing his willingness to submit to the capture.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” said he as he alighted, and handed
the reins to Howie. It is said that occasions will always find men
suited to meet them. This occasion found, among a crowd of twenty or
more experienced mountaineers, only Neil Howie as the man endowed with
moral and physical courage to grapple with it.
The prisoner accompanied his captor to the camp-fire. The weather was
intensely cold. Many of the oxen belonging to the trains had died from
exposure, and others were so severely frozen that they lost their hoofs
and tails the succeeding spring. As soon as Howie and his prisoner were
thoroughly warmed, Neil said to him,
“John, I have arrested you for the part you took in the robbery of
Moody’s train last month. Every man in that company charges you with
it.”
“It’s a lie,” said John. “I had no hand in it at all.”
“That question can be easily decided,” replied Neil, “for the man they
supposed to be you was wounded by a shot in the shoulder. If you are not
the person, there will be no bullet mark there. I don’t wish to make a
mistake, and your denial of the charge makes it necessary that I should
examine. Just remove your shirt.”
John reluctantly complied, all the while protesting his innocence. When,
however, the shoulder was bared, the scarcely healed perforation settled
all doubts in Howie’s mind concerning the personal identity of his
prisoner.
“How is it,” said he, “if you are not the man, that you have this scar?”
“I got it accidentally while asleep by my camp-fire. It was cold, and I
lay near the fire. My clothes caught fire, and the cap ignited,
discharging my pistol, which was strapped to my side.”
“Let me prove to you that this story cannot be true,” said Neil.
Placing a cap upon a stick, he held it in the hottest blaze of the
camp-fire. Minutes elapsed before it exploded.
“Do you not see,” he continued, “that long before the cap on your pistol
would have exploded, you would have been burned to death? But there is
still another reason. If it had exploded, as you say, the ball could
never have wounded your shoulder. You must go with me to Bannack. If you
can prove your innocence there, as I hope you may, it will all be well
with you.”
Leaving his prisoner in charge of the train company, Neil started in
pursuit of a person to aid in conveying him to Bannack. Unsuccessful in
this, he left with John in company, and proceeded to Dry Creek, where
was a camp of fifty or sixty teamsters. Such was their fear of the
roughs that they one and all refused to assist him. While deliberating
what next to do, a man by the name of Irvine suggested to him that if
Fetherstun could be induced to aid, he would be a suitable man for the
purpose. Neil went immediately to Fetherstun’s camp, fully determined,
if again rebuffed, to attempt the journey with his prisoner alone.
Fetherstun volunteered without hesitation, and for the two following
days while awaiting an abatement in the weather, took the prisoner in
charge and confined him, under guard, in the cabin he had left but the
day before.
On the third day Howie and Fetherstun started with John for Bannack, the
weather still so severe that they were obliged every few miles to stop
and build fires to escape freezing. On one of these occasions, while
Fetherstun was holding the horses and Howie building a fire, their guns
having been deposited some forty feet away, the prisoner, under pretence
of gathering some dry wood which was in a direct line beyond the guns,
walked rapidly towards them, intending evidently to possess himself of
the weapons, and fight his way to an escape. His design, however, was
frustrated by his captors, who fortunately secured the guns before he
could reach them.
During the night when they were encamped at Red Rock, misled by the
apparent slumber of his captors, John rose up, but, upon gazing around,
met the fixed eye of Howie, and immediately resumed his recumbency. As
the night wore on, the two men, worn with fatigue, again sunk into
repose. Assured by their heavy breathing, John again rose up, but
scarcely had he done so when Neil, rising too, said quietly,
“John, if you do that again, I’ll kill you.”
The ruffian sunk upon his blankets in despair. He felt that he was in
the keeping of one who never slept on duty. Still the hope of escape was
uppermost. Seeing a camp by the roadside, he naturally concluded that it
belonged to a company of his comrades, and commenced shouting and
singing to attract their attention. As no response followed and no
rescuers appeared, he soon became silent and despondent.
This trip of three days’ duration, with the thermometer thirty-five
degrees below zero, and no other food than the shank of a small ham,
uniting with it the risk of assassination and personal contest with
robbers, exposure to an arctic atmosphere, and starvation, while it bore
ample testimony to the moral intrepidity and physical endurance of Howie
and Fetherstun, and marked them for a pursuit which they ever after
followed, was also rife with associations which bound these brave
spirits in a friendship that only death could sever. It is no injustice
to any of the early citizens of Montana to say that, not less for its
present exemption from crime and misrule than for the active and
vigilant measures which, in its early history, visited the ruffians with
punishment, and frightened villainy from its boundaries, is the
Territory indebted to the efficient coöperative labors of these
self-sacrificing, heroic men. They were pioneers who deserve to rank in
future history with such men as Boone and Kenton; and long after the
names of many now oftener mentioned in connection with circumstances of
trifling import are forgotten, theirs will be remembered and honored.
Noble Howie! how short a time it seems since he was cut down in the very
prime of his manhood, upon the distant shores of Guiana. Many, many
years must pass before the memory of his heroic actions, his genial
nature, his warm, impulsive friendship, will be forgotten by those who
knew and loved him in his mountain home.
To return to the narrative. When the captors had arrived at Horse
Prairie, twelve miles from Bannack, Fetherstun encamped with the
prisoner, while Howie rode on to the town to reconnoitre. Fears were
entertained that the roughs would attempt a rescue. It was understood
that if Howie did not return in three hours, Fetherstun should take the
prisoner into town. Accordingly, he proceeded with him without
molestation to Sears’s Hotel. Soon afterwards Howie, meeting Plummer,
said to him,
“I have captured Dutch John, and he is now in my custody at Sears’s
Hotel.”
“You have?” replied Plummer with a leer. “What is the charge against
him?”
“Attacking Moody’s train.”
“Well, I suppose you are willing he should be tried by the civil
authorities. This new way our people have of hanging men without law or
evidence isn’t exactly the thing. It’s time a stop was put to it. I’ll
take John into my custody as sheriff, and relieve you from all further
responsibility.”
“Not exactly, Plummer,” replied Howie. “I shall keep John until the
people’s tribunal decides whether they want him or not. I’ve had a good
deal of trouble in bringing him here, and don’t intend he shall escape,
if I can help it.”
After a few more words they separated. Meantime Fetherstun had left
Sears’s Hotel with his prisoner, and gone down the street to Durand’s
saloon. Fetherstun, being an entire stranger, kept close watch of his
prisoner. They sat down at a table and engaged in a game at cards. Howie
came in, and warned Fetherstun to be on the alert for a rescue,
promising to return in a few minutes. Buck Stinson and Ned Ray soon
after made their appearance, and shook hands with John. They were
followed by four or five others, and the number finally increased to
fifteen. Fetherstun’s suspicions, excited from the first, were confirmed
on seeing one of the men step up to John, and say in an authoritative
voice,
“You are my prisoner”; which remark was followed by a glance and a smile
by the ruffian, as much as to say, “I’m safe now, and your time has
come.”
[Illustration:
JOHN FETHERSTUN
_Overland express messenger_
]
Fetherstun, anticipating an attack by the crew, stepped into a corner,
and drew his revolver. Those of my readers who have since had frequent
opportunity to estimate the cool, determined courage of the man, will
know that this preliminary movement was only preparatory to the
desperate heroism and energy with which, had occasion required it, he
would then have sold his life to a crowd of supposed desperadoes. They
took the prisoner away without resistance, and Fetherstun returned to
his hotel. Four or five men were there, of whom, on inquiry, he learned
that Howie had not been there. As soon as he heard this, he said to
them,
“Gentlemen, I don’t know whom I am addressing, but if you’re the right
kind of men, I want you to follow me. I am afraid the road agents have
killed Neil Howie. He left me half an hour ago, to be back in five
minutes.”
He seized his gun, and was about to leave when a man opened the door,
and told him not to be uneasy. This seemed to satisfy all the company
except Fetherstun. He left the hotel, gun in hand, and at no great
distance came to a cabin filled with men, with Dutch John as the central
figure. Being denied admission, he demanded his prisoner. He was told
that they were examining him. The men whom Fetherstun had mistaken as
road agents had mistaken him for the same. Explanations soon set both
right, and John was restored to the custody of Howie and Fethertsun, who
marched him back to the hotel, where he was again examined.
After many denials and prevarications, he finally made a full confession
of guilt, and corroborated the statements which “Red” had made,
implicating the persons whose names are contained in the list he had
furnished. This concluded the labors of that day, and at a late hour
Howie and Fetherstun, unable to obtain lodgings for their prisoner in
any of the inhabited dwellings of Bannack, took him to an empty cabin on
Yankee Flat.