A cowboy detective

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.

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.