A MINING CASE IN ALMA, COLORADO--A PROSPECTING TRIP WITH A HALF-BREED
MEXICAN--TAKING PRISONER TO KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI--WORKING ON UNITED
STATES SENATOR SMOOT.
After returning from Salt Lake, I was detailed on many different kinds
of operations, some of them taking me out of the city and state for
a few weeks at a time. On one of these trips to Gunnison, Colo., and
other places, I looked up evidence against the noted English mine
promoter, Whittaker Wright.
Another operation was for a very prominent financier, of Denver. On
this work I spent about a month in the mining town of Alma, Colo.,
and of course, I had many visits with my old friend “Doc” Lockridge.
I found him living alone high up in the mountains on the edge of
timber-line.
[Illustration: “DOC” LOCKRIDGE AND THE AUTHOR.]
Strange to relate, I saw in the Alma livery stable “Jacky’s” bronco,
which I broke to ride about fourteen years previous. He was now a swell
driver.
This operation proved a success, but I hated to face one of the
financier’s mining partners who had in confidence given me the secrets
of a crooked deal.
This partner was a nice fellow, and he and his lovely young wife had
treated me royally at their nice home in Alma. I had passed myself off
as a rich mining man from New Mexico.
While with this financier, in his private office in a certain firm
of Denver, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. ----, one of the high
officials of this firm. This brought back memories of my first winter
in Denver as a detective, over fifteen years previous.
He was then a young man trying to sprout a mustache. For one whole
month they had me shadowing this young man, who held a minor position
in the said business firm, so as to find out his habits, which were
model, and of the Sunday School order. But I prayed that he would get
“bad” and spend his evenings down town. Twice a week he would visit his
sweetheart out on Capitol Hill, which was then a howling wilderness,
with the exception of a few new residences scattered here and there,
and no sidewalks.
I had to remain out in the bitter cold while he did his courting in
the parlor. One bitter cold night I got warmed up by peeping under the
window curtain at the bright fire and the red-hot love-making. They
were pure and innocent, and kept a bright light burning in the lamp.
About midnight he would depart for his room down town and he would
whistle every step of the way, which made it easy for me to follow.
No doubt my favorable reports started Mr. ---- to the high position he
now holds.
About the time that this operation was finished I was detailed on a
case at Hastings, Colo. The Wonder Fuel Company there had one of their
large barns full of horses burned up, and I was sent there to find
out who did it. No one but the president of the company, Mr. Delma B.
Capilla, and the local manager, Mr. Johnson, were to know me. But
later I found out that Mr. Johnson became frightened for my safety and
confided in the two town marshals, Hightower and King.
In the course of a few weeks I was positive that Joe Johnson, a
half-breed man-killer, who lived with his Mexican family there,
had committed the crime with the help of his brother-in-law and a
half-breed Mexican by the name of Wilford H.
But the question was to get evidence sufficient to convict. Therefore,
it was decided that I hire Wilford H. and go on a gold prospecting trip
through the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico. The idea was to get
him off by himself in hopes that he would confess.
After a few days spent in the little city of Trinidad, on the border of
Colorado, Wilford H. and I boarded a northbound D. & R. G. train for
Walsenburg, where we bought our saddle animals and outfit.
In Walsenburg, Wilford had many Mexican friends. I had two friends in
the town to whom I confided. They were the sheriff, Jeff Farr, brother
of sheriff Ed. Farr, who was killed by Bob McGinnis of the “Black Jack”
gang, and undersheriff Jack McQuerry.
Not having my rifle with me, Jeff Farr loaned me the Winchester rifle,
owned by his brother Ed. before his death, for the trip.
On Wilford’s and my leaving Walsenburg, our first camp was pitched
at the foot of the Spanish Peaks about two miles from the Staplin
ranch, a tourist’s resort. We camped here about a week or ten days and
prospected the Spanish Peaks from one side to the other, even up to the
extreme summit of the highest peak.
From the Spanish Peaks we drifted into New Mexico and camped in many
wild spots where a human being would not be seen for days at a time.
At the once prosperous boom mining camp of LaBelle, New Mexico, we
rested a couple of days. In this town there were buildings enough for
several hundred inhabitants, but only one lone Dutchman lived in the
place then. I had visited LaBelle once years before, when the “boom”
was on, and the town was overcrowded with people from every corner of
the earth; hence I couldn’t help but notice the great change. On my
former visit while on trail of a “bad” man from the Wet Mountain Valley
in Colorado, I arrived in the town after midnight and at that late hour
the saloons were filled with drunken life.
That operation was for Mr. Hiram Wilkins, a big hardware merchant of
Colorado, and while on it I had many ups and downs and hard rides.
From LaBelle we went to Elizabethtown, thence crossed the big mountain
range to Taos, the home and burial place of the noted Kit Carson. Here
Wilford had some Mexican relatives, as he was born and partly raised in
Taos. For the time being, he dropped his Colorado name of Wilford H.
and took up his right name of Wilford W. Of course, I was cautioned not
to give it away that he had been using another name.
After a few days rest in Taos, we drifted south twenty-five miles into
the high mountains where no one lived, and where we didn’t see any one
for a whole week. Here I did my best to get a full confession out of
Wilford, but failed. He gave the full details of how the stable was set
afire in revenge for the company running an opposition hack and stage
line to ruin the business of Joe Johnson, and he gave me to understand
that Joe Johnson, with the help of others, set fire to the stable and
that he (Wilford) saw the first blaze and could have saved the horses
from burning up had he desired to do so.
The fact is, he wanted me to know that he knew all about the crime, but
he didn’t want to say enough to incriminate himself and Joe Johnson. He
proved to be a pretty foxy half-breed.
I had received orders from our Asst. Supt. P. P. Berriman, now
superintendent, who had charge of the operation, to “shake” Wilford H.
as soon as I felt satisfied that sufficient evidence to convict could
not be secured, and come home.
As Wilford wanted to remain in Taos with his relatives, I shook him and
then started down the Rio Grande river, two days’ travel to Embudo,
where my outfit was sold. It being only a few hours run on the D. & R.
G. railway from Embudo to New Mexico’s ancient capital, Santa Fe, I
went there to visit my ranch and put in one day and night with my pets.
Then I returned to Denver and discontinued the operation after being on
it about two or three months.
Soon after this, Joe Johnson shot and killed a prominent man by the
name of Fox in Trinidad, Colo. Mr. Fox was writing a letter in the post
office when Joe Johnson stepped up to him and blew out his brains with
a shot from a large pistol, and for this Johnson was hung by the neck
until dead. Thus society got rid of one “bad” man, even though I had
made a failure of sending him to the penitentiary.
Soon after my return to Denver, I was detailed to work on the Gratton
case in Colorado Springs, for the Gratton Estate.
Millionaire Gratton, the lucky carpenter who had discovered the rich
Independence mine in Cripple Creek, had died and his son was trying to
break his will, through the courts. I was sorry when the contending
forces compromised their differences, as it knocked myself and several
other Dickenson operatives out of leading a high life in the lovely
little city of Colorado Springs.
Soon after the Gratton case ended, I had a pleasant trip to Kansas
City, Mo., with a man who had no suspicion that I was a sleuth. Had he
suspected me he would have jumped off the train and possibly broken
his neck. We wanted to get him into Kansas City to save extradition
expenses. The moment he stepped off the train in Kansas City I pointed
him out to Mr. Williston, the superintendent of our Kansas City office,
who was at the depot to meet me. Then he had a local officer arrest the
man without his ever knowing that I was in the game.
I boarded an early morning train for home.
My stay in Denver was short, as Asst. Supt. “Rank” Curran hustled me
off to Utah in company with operative J. V. Marke, now an assistant
superintendent of the Denver office, and operative B., our work being
to dig up evidence against a distinguished citizen of Provo, Utah, to
prevent him taking his seat in a public place, our clients being boss
workers in the Lord’s vineyard, who didn’t like the taste of the sour
grapes coming from the corner of the same vineyard where this gentleman
worked.
We operatives were divided into different districts, mine being the
beautiful little city of Provo, the home of the quarry. In Provo my
headquarters were established though some of my work was done in
Salt Lake City, where I knew one church leader, Mr. Cannon, whose
acquaintance I had made while on my first operation for Banker James.
I had adopted the name of Charles T. Lloyd in Provo, and passed myself
off as a well-to-do mining man from New Mexico.
I had been instructed to run down a certain young lady of Provo, who
was supposed to have married this citizen and was living in one of the
church colonies of Old Mexico, as one of this man’s plural wives. No
one in Provo seemed to know what had become of this young lady after
her supposed plural marriage to him, as she had promptly dropped out of
sight as though the ground had swallowed her up.
I worked on the high and mighty, the low, leading people of Provo, and
others, who had more wives than the law allows, and I secured “cinch”
cases against some of them.
I found out that Miss Bessie Johnson had been a schoolgirl chum of the
young lady who was supposed to be in Mexico as the wife of the hunted
one. Therefore I started out to win the friendship and acquaintance of
Miss Bessie. A Mr. Moran, who owned a barber shop in Provo was used
as the cat’s paw to pull my chestnuts out of the fire. He was a fine
fellow and a friend to the Johnson family.
I had made up my mind to pretend to be in love with Miss Bessie, no
matter how homely she might be. But these pretentions turned into facts
the moment that Mr. Moran introduced me to the young lady at her home.
It was one of my many genuine cases of love at first sight, and even to
this day little Cupid gives me a dig in the ribs with his dart, when I
think of her, which is quite often, although she is now married to a
Salt Lake City business man.
During the balance of my stay in Provo, not a day passed without my
meeting Miss Bessie, who was just as sweet as she was pretty. She used
to play the piano for me while her pretty young sister Marie sang, and
they made a team hard to beat.
From Miss Bessie I found out all about the supposed young plural wife
of Mr. ----. She was then in a college at Logan, Utah, finishing
her education. She and Bessie, who was twenty-one years of age,
corresponded with each other, and Bessie had the young lady’s photo
which was shown to me.
After nearly a two months’ stay in Provo, during which time much of the
honey of life was sipped by yours truly, my tent was folded and a start
made for Denver, Colo.
As my reports showed, the intended victim came out with flying colors.
He lived a happy contented life with a lovely wife whom I talked with,
and a house full of nice, bright children, and if he had other than
this lawful wife, I failed to discover it.
Mr. ---- owns a business in Provo, and I failed to find one individual
who had a bad word to say against his moral character.