A COWBOY OPERATION IN EASTERN OREGON--A TRIP TO SOMBRERETE, OLD
MEXICO--A VISIT TO THE COEUR D’ALENES WITH JAMES MCPARLAND--LAYING FOR
TRAIN HOLDUPS IN NEBRASKA--AN OPERATION IN MEXICO CITY.
On returning home from Roswell I was sent at once to Santa Fe, New
Mexico, in response to a telegram from Absolom Stuck, a wealthy retired
merchant of that place who wanted a shrewd detective sent on the first
train.
On arriving in the Ancient City of the Holy Faith, I found Mr. Stuck
greatly worked up over the receipt of a threatening letter demanding
that a large sum of money be dropped by him at a certain out-of-the-way
place at midnight, on a designated night, or he would be killed and his
fine residence blown up.
Deputy U. S. Marshal Fred Fornoff and U. S. Postal Inspector A. P.
Smithers had started to work on the case. I joined them and we three
worked together for the next couple of weeks.
We finally decided that the letter had been written as a bluff, with
a chance that Mr. Stuck would get scared and drop the cash in the
roadway, as requested; but we advised that a guard be kept around the
residence at night, though I didn’t think that an attempt would be made
on Mr. Stuck’s life, which has proven correct, as the old gentleman is
very much alive up to the present time.
On leaving Denver I had wired to Silver City, New Mexico, for my
daughter Viola to meet me in Santa Fe. She had just completed her
education in the Territorial Normal College of that place, and
therefore was at leisure.
Mounted on offsprings of my race mare Lulu, Viola and I had some
exciting races after jackrabbits, led by Eat ’Em Up Jake and Klondike.
Viola enjoyed the races after the jackrabbits, but she hated Eat ’Em
Up Jake for his bloodthirsty cruelty in killing the poor bunnies after
having them in his power.
After a pleasant two weeks spent with Viola and my Pets, at Mr. Stuck’s
expense I returned to Denver, thankful to the gentleman who had sent
the threatening letter. It is only the ill winds which scatter roses
and thorns in the pathway of a Dickenson sleuth. On this occasion the
thorns were omitted and placed under Mr. Stuck’s feet.
A day in Denver and I was off for Steamboat Springs in the heart of the
Rockies, to investigate the burning of a lumber mill for R. H. Manning
and his associates in the First National Bank of that place.
A lovely trip over the mountain range on the new Moffat Railway brought
me to the terminus at Hot Sulphur Springs. From there I had to make an
eighty mile stage ride to Steamboat Springs near the corner of Utah and
Wyoming.
While on this operation I made trips into the mountains on deer hunts.
In the town of Yampa I was introduced to Attorney F. E. Brooks, one of
Colorado’s U. S. Congressmen, but I didn’t tell him of how I dodged
him and played his client Duke, in Tucson, A. T., “double” during the
Clark-Duke mining suit.
After a couple of weeks work in the mountains I placed the crime of
setting the Manning mill afire at the door of another mill man, and
a bitter enemy. But as he had evidently committed the crime alone, I
concluded that it would require several months’ time at great expense,
to get evidence sufficient to convict. I had gained the friendship of
this no doubt guilty party, and he and I hunted deer together.
On meeting the clients in Steamboat Springs I advised against retaining
me there unless they felt willing to spend a large sum of money for
a conviction, with only a chance of success, as we might fail. They
agreed to my advice, and I boarded a stage for Wolcott Station on the
D. & R. G. Ry., a distance of over eighty miles over a route which I
had traveled on a previous operation.
A week’s rest in Denver and I was away for a long operation in the
far-off golden west.
On arriving in Portland, Oregon, I called at our office there and
consulted with the Supt., Capt. Jas. Bevins and the Asst. Supt. D. G.
Doogan, both of whom I was already acquainted with.
An attempt had just been made near Seattle, Washington, to rob a
Great Northern Ry. train, and Capt. Bevins took me along with him to
investigate this train holdup.
Phil. Berne, an ex-operative friend of mine was the superintendent of
the Seattle office, hence I was not a stranger in that city.
Here I put in a couple of weeks and experienced a touch of high life in
the lower stratum of society, my work being mostly among the dance hall
“girls” in the six concert halls there.
After running down several clues and getting evidence against suspects,
I returned to Portland to take up the operation which had brought me to
the far west.
Capt. Bevins, who had the supervision of the Portland, Seattle and
Spokane offices, returned to Portland in time to see me off for eastern
Oregon on my important operation which had been held for me several
months.
I went to Shaniko by rail. There I boarded a stage coach and traveled
about seventy-five miles over a rocky road to Prineville, the county
seat of Crook County, Oregon, in the eastern part of the state.
In Prineville, a prosperous town of 2,000 people, I secured a nice room
and settled down for a long stay. My room was in the house of Judge
Bell, and he and his wife made my stay a pleasant one. They were a fine
old couple who had lived in Oregon for about fifty years.
Prineville is the center of the finest horse country in the United
States, and the rough lava hills are alive with wild horses. There are
also many large cattle ranches, but the cattle have to be fed hay in
winter, as the snow gets pretty deep at times. The horses require no
feed as they can paw the snow from the wild bunch grass in the rocky
cliffs.
I adopted the name of Chas. Tony Lloyd and palmed myself off as a horse
dealer. I opened a bank account with the First National Bank, and had
my first money come through my friend John W. Poe, President of the
Citizens National Bank of Roswell, New Mexico, so as to show that I was
from that territory.
Owing to it being November, the range horse business was at a
standstill, except a few small bunches sold at auction.
At one of these auction sales shortly after my arrival, I made myself
solid as a cowboy by roping horses by both front feet. Previous to this
there was doubt about my ever having been a cowboy. I had purchased
five head of broncos at this sale, and they had to be branded in my own
“iron,” which had just been recorded.
In order to test my cowboy abilities it was agreed that Charlie Bedell,
one of their crack ropers, a young man who stands six feet in his socks
and is built from the ground up, and whose face stands “ace high” with
the girls, and I were to get in the corral and catch these five horses
by the front teeth; the one who caught the greatest number to be the
winner.
Luck seemed to be on my side, although I had had very little practice
for many years. I never missed a throw and caught four head, while poor
Bedell only had one to his credit. He didn’t object to “setting ’em up”
to the large crowd, so much as being beaten by a “foreigner”; for the
Oregon boys think they can beat the world at roping and riding.
For reckless riding over rocky hills the Oregon boys can’t be beaten;
but if their mounts were not the most sure-footed animals on earth,
the graveyards there would be more plentiful.
The winter was spent in making friends with the wild and woolly
element, scattered over the thinly settled mountainous country for a
hundred miles east and south. Trips were made through this country, and
a few horses bought or traded for, as a “blind.”
Finally I received orders to discontinue the operation and return to
Portland. Therefore the dozen head of horses then on hand were sold,
and I made preparations to leave under the pretense that I was going to
Alaska. My work had been successful. I cannot disclose the nature of
the operation as the agency may have other work to do on it.
As a whole I found the people of Crook county, Oregon, good
open-hearted citizens, and among them were some pretty girls. One of
these, a Miss Dora Crane, woke up little Cupid so that he gave me a dig
or two in the ribs with his dart. I had to visit her brother Charlie
who owned a horse and cattle ranch up the Ochico River, quite often,
and Miss Dora and the cute little dimples in her cheeks did the cooking
for us.
On the first day of May, 1906, my friends were bidden goodby and I
boarded a four-horse stage coach for Shaniko at the terminus of the
Columbia Southern Railway.
In Portland I received instructions from Supt. B. A. Cuppel, who had
recently taken the place of Capt. James Bevins, who had resigned to
try ranch life on his farm in the state of Washington, to hurry on to
Denver, as Mr. Jas. McCartney wanted to use me. I then bought a ticket
for Denver, Colo., over the Union Pacific railway, and at Echo we got
mixed up in a bad washout, with no prospects of getting through for a
week.
I then returned to Portland and went to Spokane, Wash., over the
Northern Pacific railroad. But in Spokane I found there were no trains
running over the Union Pacific line out of there, owing to washouts.
There was nothing to do but lay over all day and take the Northern
Pacific by way of Butte City, Mont.
In the Dickenson office here I had a pleasant visit with Supt. J. G.
Gascom and his assistant, George Jamesworth, who was an operative
with me in the Chicago office twenty years previous. Also met Mr.
George D. Bangs, the general manager of the whole Dickenson system,
with headquarters in New York City; and Tom F. Kipple, general
superintendent of the Portland, Seattle and Spokane offices since the
resignation of Capt. Bevins, Mr. Bangs and Mr. Kipple had just arrived
from Seattle.
My plans were changed by the receipt of a telegram to meet Mr. James
McCartney who would leave Denver next day, in Boise, Idaho.
At 10 P.M. Mr. Bangs and I boarded a N. P. train for Butte, Mont.
There we branched off on the Union Pacific for Pocatello, Idaho, where
we separated, he going east to Denver and I west to Boise City, the
capital of Idaho.
I arrived in Boise a few hours after Mr. McCartney. On meeting him
at the Idan-ha Hotel he informed me that contrary to his wishes the
Dickenson brothers had insisted that he have me and old Colts 45
accompany him on his trips to Idaho in the future. For it had been
learned through secret sources that an attempt would be made on his
life by the Western Federation of Dynamiters.
In the early part of the year Ex-Governor Steunenburg of Idaho had been
blown up and killed at his home in Caldwell, Idaho. A bomb had been
placed at his gate by Harry Orchard, one of the inner-circle of the
Western Federation of Miners. Orchard was arrested on suspicion after
the murder, and Mr. Jas. McCartney was sent for by Governor Frank R.
Gooding of Idaho, and he secured a full confession from Orchard as to
how he had been paid by the officials of the Western Federation of
Miners to murder enemies of their noble order. He had only helped to
blow up twenty-six in all. He had made a big killing when he blew up
the Independence railroad depot in the Cripple Creek, Colo., district,
killing thirteen so-called “scabs” and maiming many others for life.
Governor Steunenburg in the Coeur D’Alene riots of 1899 had offended
this Noble Order of Dynamiters by putting many of them in the
“bull-pen,” and for doing his sworn duty, as he saw it, he was marked
for a horrible death; this being done to intimidate other officials.
But in this they underestimated the true, noble qualities implanted in
most men whom the people elect to run the Ship of State.
Governor F. R. Gooding, despite the threats of murder through the mail
and otherwise, went to work with heart and soul ablaze with right and
justice, to run down the murderers of his predecessor in office.
At the Idan-ha Hotel I found our agency conducting a miniature branch
office with operative Thiele and stenographer H. in charge and doing
the open work. The secret operatives being kept in the dark.
In company with Mr. McCartney I visited the Idaho penitentiary several
times, and saw the noted Harry Orchard who had confessed; also Steve
Adams who later confessed to Mr. McCartney in order to save his own
neck. He too, says he was employed by the Western Federation of Miners
to murder enemies. His confession unravels many mysteries wherein
detectives and others have been “put out of the way.”
The warden of the penitentiary, E. L. Whitney, proved to be an old-time
cowboy, he and I having worked for the same Texas cattleman, W. B.
Grimes, in 1876; hence we “harked back” to the good old days of pure
air, poison liquor, “snap and ball” pistols and long horn steers.
At the penitentiary I found an old acquaintance in the person of Rube
Robbins who had been a “bad” man chaser in Idaho for thirty-one years.
He had taken part in the Coeur D’Alene Miners’ Union trouble of 1892,
under Governor Wiley’s administration, and it was then we first met.
In the county jail in Boise my friend, George A. Pettibone, the
dynamiter who blew up the Frisco Mill at Gem, Idaho, in 1892, was now
sleeping behind steel bars. With him were President Moyer and Secretary
Haywood of the Western Federation of Dynamiters. They were being held
for the murder of Governor Steunenburg.
According to the confessions of Orchard and Adams, Pettibone is the
wretch who placed the bomb and pocketbook on a cut-off trail across a
vacant lot in Denver, to blow up Judge Gabbert of the Colorado Supreme
Court. But a poor stranger coming across the lot in the opposite
direction from the Judge, picked up the pocketbook and the buried bomb
did the rest, leaving only a hole in the ground and pieces of flesh
and bones. Pettibone witnessed the scene from a distance, according to
these confessions.
In the course of a week Mr. McCartney and I went to the town of
Caldwell where Governor Steunenburg was blown up. We put up at the same
hotel where Orchard made his headquarters previous to the murder.
While in Caldwell I saw the widow of Governor Steunenburg and his sons
who are bankers there. I also saw the spot where the bomb did its
hellish work.
Finally Mr. McCartney and I made a trip to Spokane, Wash. Here many
of my old Coeur D’Alene friends were met, among them being “Mace”
Campbell and John A. Finch, and their secretary, W. A. Corey; also
William Finch, Wm. T. Stoll, the attorney, and the merchant prince, F.
R. Culbertson; and last but not least, the fighting sheriff of Shoshone
County, Idaho, Mr. Angus Sutherland.
Angus Sutherland had much to tell me of the ups and downs of his county
in the Coeur D’Alene mining district after I left in 1892; how he had
to fight the dynamiters, and how my friend Dr. Simms, was shot through
the head and killed as he was coming out of the theater in Wallace;
also the killing of Kneebone and Whitney and many others. In fact his
narrative was sprinkled with human gore enough to float a small steamer.
From Spokane Mr. McCartney and I returned to Boise, thence a few days’
visit in Salt Lake City, Utah, where I met many former friends. Here
“Tex.” Rickard presented McCartney with his pet Colts 45 pistol, which
he had carried for years.
After over a month of high living at Idaho’s expense, we returned to
Denver.
My next out-of-the-city operation was a trip to the State of Zacatecas,
Old Mexico, for Mr. Pierce Akerman of Colorado Springs, Colo.
Of course, I had to go by way of Santa Fe, New Mexico, to visit Eat ’Em
Up Jake and my other pets, including Mr. J. W. Best, my foreman, and
old man Atwood who had worked for me on the ranch off and on for many
years.
A six hundred mile ride from El Paso, Texas, on the bumpity-bump old
Mexican Central Railway, after two long delays on account of wrecks, in
which two men were killed, and I arrived in Gutierrez, Mexico. Here at
midnight I boarded a six-mule stage coach for a seventy-five mile ride
over a rocky road to Sombrerete, a mining camp of 8,000 dark-colored
souls. We arrived at our destination the following evening.
An interesting traveler on the stage coach with me was an elderly
American gentleman by the name of G. He was going to Sombrerete to
round up a 12-year-old boy whom he had found out had a nose just like
himself.
Mr. G. had been absent several years from Sombrerete and had become
well fixed financially, near the City of Guadalajara, Mexico. He said
this boy must be a chip off the old G. block, hence he intended to
give him a fine college education in the United States. In Sombrerete,
later, Mr. G. showed me this boy after he had been scrubbed up and put
into knee-pants, and he showed me the peculiarity of his own nose and
of the boy’s. There was no doubt in my mind as to where this boy got
his nose.
The lad’s mother who had other younger children, hated to part with her
son, but the promise of a college education for the boy, won the battle
for old man G.
Who knows but what this is the starting of another nosy race of people,
and who can divine the intentions of old Mother Nature in this case? I
tried to peep into the future about 1,000 years, and in imagination I
could see a populous race of men with noses just like the elder G. and
his son. And in their family trees I read how ’way back in the dim and
dusty past, one Mr. G. who was of a roving disposition, left his native
land of California and settled in Sombrerete, Mexico, where he married
a princess of royal blood and begot sons and daughters.
Thus, in my mind’s eye, could I see history repeating itself “all
same” when the Spanish soldiers and dons started the foundation of the
Mexican race; and the hardy French trappers of the north established
the French Canadians; and other Frenchmen in the south laid the
foundation stones of the Creoles. Of course they all sprang from royal
blood, now that old Father Time has washed away their sins.
Mother Nature seems to have her own peculiar way in which to improve
the human races, and in doing so, she uses the poor white man as
catspaws to pull her own chestnuts out of the fire. I could even see
at the end of these thousand years where the old lady had completely
straightened out the kinks in the negroes’ hair.
In Sombrerete and the surrounding country I spent over a month.
In La Noria, a mining camp twenty miles north of Sombrerete, I made the
acquaintance of B. Clark W., the energetic ex-son-in-law of the once
noted governor of Colorado, “Bloody Bridles” Waite.
I knew Mr. W. in Aspen, Colo., in the early days, but he didn’t
recognize me as the Chas. Leon he met there in the year 1888. Mr. W.
treated me to high wines, and without knowing it, divulged secrets
which I had come after. He supposed I was a mining man looking for
investments. He himself is operating the La Noria silver mine and has
working for him several hundred men.
I also worked on many of Mr. W.’s friends and associates.
On this trip I was using the name of Chas. T. Lloyd.
In Sombrerete I met half a dozen pleasant Americans. Among them was
young Arkins, a son-in-law of the wealthy Arkins of New York who
founded the “Judge” which is read all over the world; also a jolly
Irishman by the name of “Christoval” Mansfield. He and his good wife
forced me to be their guest for Sunday dinners. Of course this was
a treat, as the hotel food was “on the bum,” same as it is all over
Montezumaland.
My work being finished, I appointed Mr. Adriano Agualda, a wealthy
Mexican lawyer, to look after our clients’ interests, which footed up
about $100,000.00. He was instructed to have the trap set and ready to
spring at a moment’s notice. This freed me, so I boarded the stage at
midnight during a howling rain and wind storm, for the railroad station
of Gueteras. There the next evening I boarded a railroad train for El
Paso, Texas; thence on to Denver, by way of Eat ’Em Up Jake’s den.
On arriving in Denver, Supt. “Hank” Geary went with me to Colorado
Springs, Colo., to close up the operation with the clients, Mr. Pierce
Akerman, Mr. Robert Tolles and Attorney Wm. Breen.
Soon after returning home I had to accompany Mr. Jas. McCartney on
another trip to the northwest to see that dynamiters didn’t blow him
off the face of the earth.
We stopped awhile in Boise, Idaho, and visited Harry Orchard, the
self-confessed murderer of Governor Steunenburg, in the state
penitentiary.
During our absence the other Western Federation dynamiter, Steve Adams,
had been transferred to the county jail as his wife and uncle had been
there and persuaded him to go back on his confession in order to help
the officials of the Western Federation of Miners.
On this trip in Boise I met many of my former friends in the Coeur
D’Alenes; among them being U. S. Judge James H. Beatty, Judge Fremont
Wood, ex-U. S. Marshal Joe Pinkham, T. A. Doud, and last but not least,
U. S. Senator W. B. Heyburn, all of whom had taken part against the
dynamiters after the first riots in 1892.
Much of our time was spent in the office of Jas. H. Hawley & Son,
laying plans to outwit the Western Federation attorneys so as to get
Steve Adams to Wallace, Idaho, without taking him through an outside
state.
In order to reach Wallace in the Coeur D’Alenes by rail, it is
necessary to travel several hundred miles either through Oregon and
Washington or Montana, and in passing through these states we felt
confident that Clarence Darrow, the leading attorney for the Western
Federation, would get out habeas corpus papers to delay matters.
Finally sheriff Angus Sutherland arrived from Shoshone County in the
Coeur D’Alenes, with a warrant for Steve Adams on a murder charge.
After the court had turned Adams over to the sheriff, the Western
Federation lawyers and their helpers had guards out all night so that
Adams couldn’t be taken out of town without their knowing it. But here
we played a “dirty Irish trick” and got him headed north in a covered
rig. He was taken most of the way overland to avoid entering other
states. J. C. Mills, Jr., Deputy Warden, and Geo. C. Huebner, chief
clerk of the pen, helped to smuggle Adams out into the cold night air.
Warden Whitney of the penitentiary, and state detective Gene Johnson
accompanied the sheriff and his prisoner across the rough mountains,
hundreds of miles north into the Panhandle of Idaho.
When Attorney Darrow and his associates found that their bird had
flown, they gave vent to a string of sulphuric oaths which would have
scorched the lips of some people, so I was told. But they couldn’t find
out which way their vulture had “flew’d.”
[Illustration: WALLACE, IDAHO.
The X marks the spot where the Author stood when the soldiers
arrived.]
A few days later Mr. McCartney and I boarded a train for Wallace, Idaho.
The Western Federation attorneys were in Wallace when we arrived, but
their client, Steve Adams with his escorts, didn’t arrive until a few
days later.
Al. C. Watson and Chas H Burkhart, two of sheriff Nesbit’s deputies
from Denver, Colo., were also in Wallace to take charge of Steve Adams
for murders committed in Colorado, in case the court here should
liberate him.
Wallace seemed like home to me after my long absence of about fourteen
years. More especially after viewing the high timbered mountain south
of town where Frank Stark and I made our home until the soldiers
arrived.
The town had built up and changed wonderfully. Only a few old landmarks
like the Carter Hotel remained.
Also the faces of long ago had changed. Still, there were a few of
my old friends and enemies left. Among the friends were: Judge W. W.
Woods, Judge Mahew, Mr. E. H. Moffit, a leading merchant, Mr. Al.
Dunn, postmaster, Mr. Jack Dunn of the Weekly Press and Robt. Dunn of
the U. S. Land office; also Chas. E. Bender and Chas. White, leading
merchants; M. J. Flohr, cashier of the First National Bank, Dr. Hugh
France, Joseph Turner, lumberman and contractor, merchant J. W. Tabor
and my good-natured friend, Jerry M. Savage, who formerly owned the Gem
Hotel, where I crawled through the window to escape dynamiters; and
last but not least, J. G. Boyd, the trusted general agent of the N.
P. Railroad in Wallace. It was he who turned the switch and gave the
train load of Joe Warren “scabs” a clear track to Burk, while sheriff
Cunningham and several hundred union miners, myself included, were
eagerly waiting to capture the poor “scabs” and tear them to pieces if
they refused to return from whence they had come.
Many of the old Miners’ Union gang came from Burk and Mullen to see
the dastardly Dickenson detectives, Jas. McCartney and Yours Truly. I
recognized many of them and a few looked daggers at me. It was voiced
around that they intended making a raid some night on Mr. McCartney
and me. From that time on I kept a Winchester rifle and a supply of
ammunition in my room, which adjoined Mr. McCartney’s.
During the nights, up to bedtime, two learned anarchists who called
themselves socialists, from Chicago, made speeches to large crowds on
the streets. In these talks they would abuse the officers of the law
and detectives in general. They would dare Mr. McCartney to come out
and dispute their assertions. Often I would slip into the crowd and
on the sly hear their harangue. But with the law-abiding people now
in control of Shoshone County and with such brave officers as sheriff
Angus Sutherland and his deputies: Thomas McCabe, Harry Williams, C.
C. Hicks, William Baily and Phil Chandler, the latter being one of the
“scabs” blown up with the Independence depot in Cripple Creek, Colo.,
at the helm, we felt reasonably safe.
After a two weeks’ stay in Wallace our “bad” man Steve Adams was bound
over by the judge, J. H. Boomer, to the District Court, without bail.
Then there was much gnashing of teeth by attorney Darrow and his
anarchist friends. I came very near writing it socialist friends, as
that dynamiting “bunch” claim to be socialists, which ought to give a
true, pure-hearted socialist the jim-jams.
According to my views there are many good points in socialism, which,
if adopted, would make the world better; and for the men and women who
strive for the betterment of mankind, I have the highest regard.
The charge against Steve Adams was murder. He, Jack Simkins, now a
hunted outlaw, and some pals were accused of murdering two men in cold
blood at the head of the St. Joe river in the Coeur D’Alenes.
The mother and stepfather of one of these murdered men gave damaging
testimony against Adams, and so did Mr. Archie Phillips, whom the same
Western Federation gang tried to murder.
Mr. McCartney and I took the Coeur d’Alene lake route by rail and
steamer for Spokane, Wash. In that city we laid over a couple of days
and visited with our friends.
A couple of days’ stop in Boise, Idaho, and Mr. McCartney and I
returned to Denver, Colo.
I hadn’t more than reached home when I was detailed to help our Kansas
City, Mo., office spring a trap on some train holdups. The holdup was
due to take place at a small station called Sweetwater on the C. B. &
Q. railroad in Nebraska on a certain night. The railroad officials had
got a tip that their No. 41 western passenger train was to be robbed.
Hence they wished to kill or capture the gang while in the act.
Of course I took along my trusty old 30-40 caliber, smokeless powder,
Winchester rifle. I had been told that the railroad company would
furnish us sawed-off shotguns for the fight; but a Winchester rifle,
and a Colts 45 pistol to “nigger” with, are good enough for Yours Truly.
Of course I couldn’t leave Kansas City without seeing my old Caldwell,
Kansas, friend, Frank Jones, the proprietor of the Jones liquor
emporium, even though it did mean a headache next day.
It was 3:00 o’clock A.M. when I bade Mr. Jones and his friends goodby,
after drinking them the following toast:
Here’s to wine enough to sharpen wit;
Wit enough to give zest to wine;
And wisdom enough to quit at the right time.
Then I “hiked” to the depot and, hic, tumbled into my Pullman berth.
Early in the day assistant superintendent W. H. Hart, and Jno. A.
Hermanson had supplied me with ammunition and instructed me to leave in
the morning for Omaha, Nebraska; hence taking my half-grown “jag” into
the Pullman sleeper so as to avoid getting up to catch the train.
In Omaha, Nebraska, Mr. W. B. Coughman, the superintendent in charge
of our office there, introduced me to the operative who was to be my
partner in guarding train 41 from holdups. He happened to be a young
man after my own heart, whom I felt sure would stick to the bitter end
in case of a show-down.
This Mr. V. L. S. had been an officer under Ben. Williams, special
agent of the A. T. & S. F. Ry., also town marshal of coal camps in
northern New Mexico, and during these periods he had to use his gun
more than once.
V. L. S. and I were sent to Lincoln, the capital of Nebraska, there to
make our headquarters for the next few weeks.
Four other operatives were also sent to Lincoln to guard other trains
running out of that city for the west; this being done as a precaution
for fear the holdups might change their plans. But these operatives
did their work in the western part of the state, as their trains left
Lincoln in the day time.
For the first couple of weeks V. L. S. and I rode in the smoking car
and kept our eyes peeled for holdup men. Our train No. 41 left Lincoln
at 1:20 A.M. and we would remain aboard till after daylight, then get
off at Broken Bow, west of the small station of Sweetwater, where
the holdup was billed to come off. Then we would catch the eastbound
passenger about 9:00 A.M. and return to Lincoln, so as to be ready to
take 41 out again the following night. This allowed us from four to six
hours sleep in our room at Lincoln, when the return train was on time,
which was seldom. Often we would not get to bed at all.
On the night that “41” was to be held up, an empty express car was
coupled onto the train next to the engine, and in this, operative V.
L. S. and I “sneaked,” so no one outside of the conductor knew of our
presence. When inside of this car we bolted the two side doors and
awaited results. The car was kept dark inside.
That night Supt. Williston of the Kansas City office rode out of
Lincoln to Broken Bow in the chair car, so as to be on the ground if
the holdup occurred.
About an hour and a half before daylight No. 41 stopped to let off a
passenger in Sweetwater station. Operative V. L. S. was guarding the
north door, while I watched the south door. We each had our door open
about six inches so as to see outside.
Just as our train pulled out, operative V. L. S. called me over to his
side to point out three men hiding in some tall weeds about fifty yards
from the track. We saw one of them stand up and then sit down again,
and as soon as the train had got past them they all struck out towards
the south. They were evidently holdup men who had smelled a “mice”
on seeing this extra express car attached to the train, which was
something unusual.
Operative V. L. S. and I had discussed the putting on of this extra
express car and had decided it to be a mistake, as train robbers are
not fools.
The railroad agent in Alliance reported selling a ticket to Sweetwater
station the day before the robbery was to take place, and two on the
day of the proposed holdup. This being something out of the ordinary,
it may account for the three men seen in the weeds.
We rode in the express car the next night also, and were then ordered
to discontinue the operation. Of course we were glad of it, as we had
been losing sleep and rest for more than two weeks, and a cold blizzard
had been raging most of the time.
Thus did another of my bloodless battles fade into thin air.
I then returned to Denver after bidding my partner goodby in Lincoln,
he returning to Kansas City.
Secret information gained pointed to my friend Bob McGinnis, the train
robber lately pardoned from the Santa Fe, N. M., penitentiary, as being
connected with this proposed train holdup; also a railroad brakeman who
had served a two or three years’ sentence in the New Mexico “pen”, and
who had been a cell-mate of the notorious Bob McGinnis, alias Elza Lay.
On arriving in Denver I was detailed on an operation down in Old Mexico
to run down a “bad” man who was supposed to be traveling with Col. W.
C. White, the Cananea copper king, in his new private car, the Verde.
I arrived in El Paso, Texas, just in time to catch the Verde as she
entered Mexico at that point. She had just come from Cananea, Mexico,
through Arizona.
I rode on the same train with the Verde into the City of Mexico. There
Col. White and his dozen companions were wined and dined by Mr. Diaz,
the president of the Mexican Republic, while poor Yours Truly was
wining and dining with Harry King, the negro chef of the Verde.
On the 1,200-mile journey to the Mexican capital from El Paso, Texas, I
had made the acquaintance of this yellow New York “nigger” so as to get
the names of Col. White’s guests, and other secrets.
In taking in the swell hurrah resorts of the city I had to pass Harry
King off as a rich Cuban. At one place the landlady got me off in one
corner to ask on my word of honor if my chum was not a cottonfield
“nigger.” I assured the “lady” that the gentleman who tipped the scales
at 240 pounds was a blue-blooded Cuban, whose ancestors were of royal
descent.
A few days in Mexico City and we were off for Chihuahua, 600 miles
north.
Before leaving the city I had the pleasure of examining the inside of
the Verde, a palace on wheels. King showed me every nook and corner in
the car. I also got to visit all the noted places of the city with the
Greene party. They rode in carriages while I followed in a common hack.
In the city I found one old friend, Mr. J. W. Seibert, now
superintendent of the Wells Fargo Company there. He was an assistant
under Supt. Daniel Turner when I followed the Wells Fargo express
robber to Mexico City in 1888. Now poor Turner is a patient in a
sanitarium in California, so says Mr. Seibert.
From Chihuahua the Verde went a couple of hundred miles up into the
Sierra Madre mountains, where Col. White and his associates are
building a new railroad west, to connect with the Greene Cananea
railway.
Up in these mountains I found a town named Detrick, after my old friend
one-arm Sam Detrick who ran a “bull-train,” freighting between Socorro
and White Oaks, New Mexico, in 1880, ’81 and ’82. Now he is said to be
quite wealthy. I thought it best not to make myself known to him, as he
stands in with the Green outfit, and at that time I was not sure that
our “bad” man was not a guest of Colonel White’s. One of the men in
the Verde answered the description of our “bad” man. I had found out
this gentleman’s name as he had claimed to be a wealthy capitalist from
Waterbury, Conn. I was waiting until Supt. David C. Hornybill of our
New York office could investigate the matter in Waterbury. I had wired
in cypher, the full particulars to New York.
On arriving in El Paso, Texas, late one night I received a telegram
from New York to the effect that the suspect was not our “bad” man.
I then bade the Verde goodbye. She returned that morning to Cananea,
Mexico.
Our New York client had put us on to this false scent, hence our
failure was not the fault of the agency. Possibly it was a put up job
by kind Providence to give me a little winter outing in the tropics
after my late tussle with blizzards in Nebraska.
While in El Paso, Texas, I had the pleasure of meeting my old friends,
John Y. Hewett and Mr. E. W. Parker of White Oaks, New Mexico. I had
not seen Mr. Parker for many years. He is now in the mining business in
El Paso with his son Morris Parker. I had first met Mr. E. W. Parker in
the spring of 1878, when he and a crowd of Uncle Sam’s men were putting
through the first mail line ever run over the staked plains of Texas.
The Parker crowd had camped near the L X ranch where there were about
thirty cowboys getting ready for the spring round-up. As Parker kept
his business to himself, we all suspected them as being Texas rangers
in disguise, searching for outlaws; the outcome being that we only had
half enough cowboys to start the round-up. About a dozen of our “boys”
mounted their pet horses and struck out for “tall timber” in New Mexico
and Arizona, where some of them helped to swell “Curly Bill’s” outlaw
gang.
One of these “boys” who left for Arizona was known to us as a “bad”
Texas outlaw. He was supposed to be dead, though. His wealthy
uncle had built a fine monument over his supposed grave down in the
settlements; this being done to throw the officer off the track. One of
his former chums, Cape Willingham, had told the secret to me; hence I
was not surprised when George skipped by the light of the stars while
Mr. Parker and his crowd of supposed sleuth-hounds were asleep.
We heard of other cattle outfits being short of round-up hands that
spring, on account of the presence of this star-route mail-line gang.
I landed in Denver after an absence of about three weeks.
A few days’ rest and I was off with Manager Jas. McCartney for Boise,
Idaho.
In Boise we visited Harry Orchard in the penitentiary and made other
preparations for the coming trial of the Western Federation officials.
The Supreme Court of the United States had just rendered a decision
that these dynamiters had not been kidnapped by the Dickenson agency
and the Idaho officials out of Colorado where they were arrested; hence
there was nothing to prevent the case being brought into court now, to
determine if these high union officials really had a hand in the murder
of ex-Governor Steunenburg.
Mr. McCartney was anxious to eat Christmas dinner with his wife and
little niece in Denver, therefore we hurried back.
On our return we stopped a couple of days in Salt Lake City, Utah. We
got back to Denver on Christmas eve. This ended my third trip into the
northwest as Mr. McCartney’s bodyguard.
[Illustration: ORCHARD AND GUARDS.
Reading from left to right: 1. Pen Guard Ackley. 2. Harry Orchard. 3.
R. Barthell. 4. Chas A. Siringo. 5. Bob Meldrum. 6. Warden Whitney.]