CHAPTER XVI
A Big Railroad Stealing Case in Texas and Old Mexico—A Bullion Stealing Operation in Salt Lake, Utah.
On returning to Denver, I was hardly allowed time to get my breath, when Supt. J. S. Kaiser detailed me on a railroad case which had been awaiting my return.
I was told that Mr. W. L. Dickenson, of Chicago, had been holding this operation for me, as the work was for one of his personal friends and one of the agency’s best clients. Therefore I was advised to do my best.
The work lay in Texas and Old Mexico, and the general manager of the big railway system was not to know of the operation as the object was to get at the bottom of big steals and crookedness.
I landed in a twin city on the Texas-Mexico border with my saddle and cowboy outfit, and pretended to be a horse buyer. In the course of a few weeks I had made myself solid with the brother of the railway manager. He was a high Mason and a swell sport. He stood at the top notch for honesty and business ability. He was a fine-looking, large man of middle age.
During the progress of this operation I made two trips into San Antonio, Tex. On the first visit to the Alamo City, I was taught a new lesson in how clothes really do make the man.
I made the trip from Old Mexico to San Antonio in rough cowboy clothes. It was late Saturday night when I arrived, so that I couldn’t buy clean clothes. Next day being the Sabbath, I concluded to ride out to the Hot Sulphur Wells and take a bath so as to pass off the time. An electric car dumped me off at a swell place a few miles out of the city. The bath house and hotel were connected. They were grand and must have cost a million dollars, and were grand new buildings.
After taking a Turkish bath and getting back into my old clothes I went into the office to pay my bill. The new manager of the new institution waited on me. He was a fine-looking, dark-complexioned man with winning ways. He asked me as a favor to go up to the new hotel and try their Sunday dinner, and that if I didn’t say it was the finest meal served west of New York, it wouldn’t cost me a cent. I begged to be excused on account of my rough clothes, but he argued that clothes don’t make the man, that my face covered all the defects in the clothing. He finally offered to borrow some clothes for me to wear in the dining room, but this I wouldn’t hear to. So to please the gentleman I agreed to go. It was then after the noon hour.
Strolling through the quarter of a mile of covered walk, I arrived in the hotel rotunda. After registering I made a bee line for the large dining room, which was crowded with fashionable ladies and gentlemen. Throwing my big cowboy hat on the hatrack I entered the dining room door, but here I was stopped by a black, shiny individual, whose forefathers way back in the dark and woolly past, fought their battles with cocoanuts from the tree-tops. His face was so black that charcoal would have made a white mark on it. He said: “Hold on dah, mister, who is it you wants to see?” I replied that I wanted a square meal. He then said: “Dats all right sah, I’ll show you whar you can fill up.”
He then led me to a small side room fronting on the hallway. My head began to swell up for I thought he was going to put me into a choice, private dining room away from the common herd, so that I could verify the manager’s promise that they served the best meal west of New York.
I was shoved into the small room where sat a lady and small child eating their dinner.
After a long wait a small negro boy came to get my order. He called off a few common articles and I told him to bring me the best in the house. The stuff he brought was “on the bum,” and no doubt it tasted worse because the manager had screwed up my mouth for a fine meal. The meat was so tough I couldn’t eat it.
After another long wait the boy came back and I ordered cake and preserved figs. The boy looked at me with astonishment and said: “No siree, you can’t get no figs in dis room. You can hab de cake but de figs don’t go.” I asked why, and he replied: “Caus we don’t dish out figs to de serbents.”
Then my wrath which had been accumulating ever since the tough meat was laid to one side, broke loose. Things were said which were uncomplimentary to such a swell establishment. I left the room at once, with the intention of bending the barrel of my old pet Colts 45 pistol around the African’s head for putting me into the servants’ dining room. But on reaching the hallway I concluded that such a scene on Sunday would be brutish, as it might cause some of the ladies and children in the dining room to faint. It would at least have spoiled their dinner. Then I decided to go down to the bath house and give the manager a piece of my mind.
In walking through the rotunda the clerk called my attention to the fact that my dinner hadn’t been paid for. He soon found out though, that he had stirred up a hornet’s nest, so he allowed me to pass out.
On reaching the bath house, I learned that the manager had boarded a car and gone to the city. I then did likewise, and in a cafe got a square meal.
About two weeks later, on finishing my work in Old Mexico and the western edge of Texas, I spent another Sunday in San Antonio. This time I wore good clothes and made another trip to the Hot Sulphur Wells. I found the manager absent, but nevertheless I tried his Sunday dinner, and found it fine. The big African usher didn’t know that he had ever seen me before. He was all smiles when he turned me over to the head waiter, who, no doubt, thought I was good for at least a twenty-five cent tip, but he was mistaken, as I hadn’t gotten over my disappointment of the previous visit. All “coons” still looked alike to me.
This experience convinced me, beyond a doubt, that clothes do make the man, especially among people who cannot judge human nature through the face.
Asst. Supt. “Hank” Geary, now superintendent of our Denver office, came to Old Mexico to assist me in closing the operation.
The windup was a success, as I had caught the brother of the general manager stealing money from the railway company outright; also caught many of his friends among the passenger conductors.
I arrived back in Denver after an absence of about two months, but only to remain over night as an operation had been awaiting my return for nearly two months. Mr. Z. B. James, the Salt Lake City, Utah, banker and smelter man, was the client and he wouldn’t have any one but me to do the work. Of course, I was anxious to get back to the swift little city by the great Salt Lake, and it was a pleasure to know that banker James had overlooked my sin of having “flim-flammed” him out of that silver dollar the night that operative Billy S. and I had the stolen ore in his residence.
A five hundred mile ride on the D. & R. G. Railway, over the backbone of the American continent, landed me in Salt Lake City. Mr. James was met in his private office in the Z. B. James’ bank, and the work discussed. He explained that his large smelter at Murray, six miles east of the city, had been sold to the smelter trust, hence this work was to be done for them under his supervision. He explained that bars of bullion had been missed from the smelter and also from sealed cars after their arrival at the eastern refinery, so he wanted me to get in with the tough element of Curran and Salt Lake City and find out who were doing the stealing.
In the smelter town of Murray I secured a cheap room, and with “bum” clothes on, I loafed in the toughest saloons in the town.
In the course of a couple of weeks I was in solid with the toughest thieves and cut-throats ever allowed to go unhung. Some of them were married men, and when not on raids, they were at home with their families, bringing up a new set of criminals for the future. Some lived in Murray and others in Salt Lake City. Of course, I visited freely among them and became one of the gang, though I refused to assist in their petty thieving and robbing, as I claimed to be holding my energy in reserve for large deals.
My two months’ operation showed up big steals wherein cars of bullion were broken into. Also where bullion was stolen direct from the smelter.
A Mormon, whose brothers were high up in the church and in with county officials, was the leader of these steals. And to save their good name the small caliber superintendent of the Rio Grande Western Railway, Welby, and his Mormon Special Agent, John Brown, did underhand trickery which would have been a disgrace to a Piute Indian.
My work, though, put a stop to future steals and banker James was satisfied. Several of the smelter employes, who stood in with the steals, lost their jobs. My friend “Cunny” helped me to close the operation.