“Kid” Curry only remained in the vicinity of Rawlins two days. He then boarded a train for the east. I didn’t know of his being in Rawlins until two days after he had gone. Then I got the secret from Jack R. and Sid. J. The latter told of how “Kid” Curry had seen me in a saloon one night when he was watching the crowd through the rear door. He singled me out as a suspect, saying that I looked too bright and wide-awake for a common rounder; but Sid. J. assured him that I was all right, though “Kid” Curry wouldn’t believe it until told so by Jack R. They called Jack R. out of his saloon into the alley. Then Sid. J. said he asked Jack R. if Harry Blevins was “right;” that Jack replied “yes.” Then “Kid” Curry was satisfied. I considered it quite a compliment to be called bright by such a wide-awake judge.

But poor “Kid” Curry ran up against a live issue on this trip east. In Knoxville, Tenn., he was arrested after shooting two officers. He finally had a trial in the United States Court, for passing money stolen in the Great Northern train holdup. He was convicted on several different counts and was sentenced to the pen for a total of 130 years, so it was said.

During the trial I was told that my friend Jim T. of the Little Rockies in Montana, was on hand with a good supply of the “long-green” which makes the mare go. The result was that “Kid” Curry made his “getaway” from the high sheriff before reaching the penitentiary walls, and the supposition is that the aforesaid “long-green” and Jim T. were the lifting powers which placed the “Kid” on the smooth road of freedom.

The sheriff was arrested for liberating the “Kid,” as it was said he received the snug sum of $8,000.00 for being asleep at the proper time. But I never heard how this honorable official got out of the scrape. The chances are though, that he had to use some of his tainted money to get himself out of the law’s clutches.

Kilpatrick, the “Tall Texan,” received a sentence of 15 years in the pen, and “Kid” Curry’s sweetheart got a long sentence behind prison walls.

Early in the spring another one of the “Wild Bunch,” Bill Carver, was killed in Texas while trying to make his escape. Bert C. informed me confidentially, that Bill Carver was the notorious “Franks” of “Black Jack” fame.

I put in a lively fall in Rawlins and the towns adjoining, including Grand Encampment, the big mining camp, and I drank poison liquor enough, against my will, to kill a mule.

In Rawlins I was considered an ex-outlaw, though no one but my friends knew where I came from. Sheriff McDaniels wrote a full description of me to the Dickenson officials in Denver, and in the letter he said I was the toughest looking fellow he had ever seen, and he knew that I must be an outlaw from the way I stood in with Bert C., Jack R. and their gang. McDaniels even went to Denver and had Asst. Supt. Curran look into my case to see if something couldn’t be dug up against me, but Mr. Curran couldn’t find any one in the agency’s rogue’s gallery who would fit my complexion.

During the fall I was arrested in Rawlins and paid a $20 fine for carrying a pistol. Judge Smith gave me the full extent of the law on the strength of my tough looking face and the company which I kept.

There was a big machinists’ and boiler-makers’ strike under headway on the Union Pacific railroad, and Rawlins was the hot-bed of slugging matches on “scabs,” and of course, I was in a position to give valuable tips on the matter in my reports. My friends, the city marshal and his policemen, all stood in with the union sluggers.

Among my friends who stood in with the “Wild Bunch” gang was Charlie I., a saloon man of Ft. Steel, Wyo. As boys, he and I had run cattle together in the Panhandle of Texas. He would have known me had I been going under my own name.

Another tough “hombre” whom I knew in Caldwell, Kans., when he was a wild and woolly cowboy there, was Newt. Kelly, the man who stabbed my friend Tim Corn to the point of death in Baggs, Wyo. Once when drunk he felt sure that he had seen me in the Indian Territory or Kansas, but I made him forget the idea.

Early in the winter U. S. Deputy Marshal Joe LaFors came to Rawlins and Jack R. asked if he knew a Dickenson detective by the name of Charlie Siringo. Not knowing that I was in the country, LaFors replied “Yes,” and described me to a dot. Later Jack R. introduced us. We pretended to never have met before, and LaFors insisted to Jack R. privately, that I was not Charlie Siringo, although the same size and complexion, etc. LaFors and I met to talk the matter over later.

I could see a coolness on the part of Bert C. and Jack R. which showed that they were suspicious of me, although they tried to hide their true feeling.

A couple of days later I boarded a train for Salt Lake City, Utah, thence to join my friend Jim F. in Palisade, Colo. My horse was put in a pasture in the Ferris Mountains, and my saddle and camp outfit were stored in Jack R.’s saloon to show that I intended coming back. Several years later Joe LaFors found out that Bert C. had left the country with my saddle and outfit and that my horse was killed and used for wolf bait in poisoning wolves.

After visiting a week with Jim F. in Palisade, I started for the Big Horn Basin in the vicinity of the Hole-in-the-Wall in northern Wyoming. I had received instructions from Asst. Supt. Curran to go up there and get in with friends of the “Wild Bunch,” and learn their secrets.

In order to reach the Big Horn Basin and the Wind River country I had to go by rail through Denver, Colo., and Sidney, Neb., thence to Cody, Wyo., at the edge of Yellowstone Park, thence by stage coach 100 miles south to Thermopolis, Wyo. Thermopolis I found to be a small town with the largest hot water springs in the United States. Her hope for the future was also large.

Here I registered at the Keystone hotel under a new name—Chas. Tony Lloyd—so that my associates further south wouldn’t learn of my being here.

The Keystone hotel was run by an ex-cowboy, Emory, who was friendly with all the tough characters in the surrounding country, therefore I courted his friendship and led him to believe that I was a hard case. Mr. Emory was a law-abiding citizen himself, but having been a cowboy he naturally sympathized with other cowboys and cattlemen who were in trouble. In fact, I found the general sentiment here to be on the side of the “Wild Bunch” and their class. Those who didn’t sympathize with them didn’t dare express themselves; that is, with the exception of a few men, among whom was a Dr. Hale and an ex-deputy sheriff by the name of Cameron. But the latter had been put out of business a few weeks previous to my arrival. He now lay at the Keystone hotel shot full of holes and at the point of death. He had been shot by Fred Sted, a young tough. Cameron was the worst shot up man, to be alive, that I had ever seen. He was shot in different places through the arms and body with soft-nose Winchester rifle bullets, which generally tear a hole big enough for a cat to crawl through. He finally recovered though, but was disfigured and crippled for life.

In Thermopolis and the surrounding mountains, I put in the winter and made friends with all the hard cases, among whom were Fred Sted, the fellow who shot Cameron, Jim McCloud, an ex-convict who escaped from the Leavenworth, Kan., penitentiary, and Tom O’Day, one of the original members of the “Wild Bunch,” who had helped “Kid” Curry and his gang rob a Belle Fourche, S. D., bank, besides many other crimes.

I also made friends with Mike B., a well-to-do cattleman who stood in with the “Wild Bunch,” by furnishing them grub, horses and money, and going on their bonds when in trouble. He had gone on Fred Sted’s bond for the shooting of Cameron, and before the trial came off, Sted jumped his bond and “hit the road” for “tall timber.” He waited until green grass came in the spring, of course.

Tom O’Day hung out at Lost Cabin, about 20 miles out in the mountains, while Jim McCloud made his headquarters with ex-convict Shaffer and a bad “hombre” by the name of Frank James at the Mike B. cattle ranch a few miles down the Big Horn River. Before the winter was half over, I had become “chummy” with O’Day and McCloud.

One morning O’Day came to town and we met in Skinner’s saloon. As O’Day was hungry he sat at a table with Fred Sted in the rear of the saloon, where there was a restaurant, to eat a lunch. Before doing so he unbuckled his big Colts 45 and belt of cartridges from his waist and gave them to the barkeeper to lay behind the bar. After he had sat down to eat, an enemy walked up in front of him and pulling a pistol shot six times at O’Day’s head, but the fellow was excited and didn’t take time to aim. Each bullet went over O’Day’s head, just missing him by a scratch. After the pistol was empty the fellow broke to run out of the door. As he did so O’Day threw his coffee cup at him with such force that it struck the door knob, shattering it into a hundred fragments. Then O’Day put on his pistol and swore he wouldn’t be so foolish as to play law-abiding citizen by putting it behind the bar again.

This excitement started O’Day to getting drunk earlier than usual, and of course, I joined him. At the Beals bath house, where we had gone with a crowd, tougher than ourselves, we came very near getting into a pistol war with the Beals family, who ran a respectable place. We ran the place to suit ourselves, and I had to endure the agony of hearing O’Day call Mrs. Beals all the foul names in the cowboy language, and furthermore, I had to tell the good lady to keep her mouth shut and to keep her hubby hid out if she didn’t want to become a widow.

O’Day and I had agreed to paint the town red and stick to each other in spite of hades and high water, hence I couldn’t follow the dictates of my conscience, as that wouldn’t be business. Of course, if it had come to a matter of saving the life of a good citizen, business wouldn’t have been considered.

It was 3 o’clock next morning when O’Day became too drunk to navigate. Then we retired to our virtuous couches.

For several days after, I received lectures from the preacher and two civilized school marms who boarded at the Keystone hotel. They thought it a shame that a man like me should throw himself away by associating with such men as O’Day and his lewd female companions. These good people had been trying to reform me ever since my arrival, and this last carouse seemed to be the straw which broke the camel’s back, hence the lectures. Of course, these were bitter pills for me to swallow, but I had to gulp them down as though they were sweet, for it wouldn’t be policy to make a face showing they were bitter, for fear of offending O’Day and his gang, should they hear of it.

This hurrah life was kept up until late in the spring, when I shook the dust of the Big Horn Basin from my feet. I hadn’t been gone very long when my chums, O’Day and McCloud, were arrested for holding up a stage coach and stealing a bunch of horses.

While awaiting trial in the Cheyenne City prison, Jim McCloud and the noted stock detective, Tim Corn, broke jail, but both were captured before getting out of the city, and soon after Corn was hung. Both McCloud and O’Day were sent to the Wyoming penitentiary for six years each. My friend, Joe LaFors, helped to land them in prison, where they both belonged. Of course, it was tough on me to thus lose two dear “chums.”

Having finished my work in Wyoming, I was hurried to Arizona to find out the whereabouts of a certain “bad” man, who was supposed to be in with the “Wild Bunch,” so that our agency could keep track of his movements. I had nothing to work on but the fact that he was getting mail at Flagstaff, Ariz.

From the postmaster in Flagstaff, I found out that this “bad” man had left for parts unknown and left instructions that his mail be forwarded to Gunnison, Colo.

I had also been instructed to locate a brother-in-law of the late outlaw, Bill Carver, alias Franks, and get some secrets from him.

A trip to Phoenix, thence to Douglas on the Mexican border, put me on trail of my man. I had found my old cowboy chum, Jim East, in Douglas, and he assisted me.

Up in the mountains near Rodeo I found Bill Carver’s brother-in-law, and got all the information wanted. Then I made a little jump of over 1,000 miles to Gunnison, Colo. Here I located a sister of my “bad” man. She had a pretty 18-year-old daughter whom I had to fall in love with, in order to find out the whereabouts of her “bad” uncle. For about two weeks I did some swift courting and learned new lessons in human nature, and the power of wealth.

I had made a confidant of Mr. George Holmes and his lovely wife, who owned a large store in Gunnison. They introduced me into the upper crust of Gunnison society, so that I could take my girl to the club dances, and Mr. Holmes gave the young lady a tip that I was a wealthy timber man. That settled it; she did the courting after that. She actually proposed to me one night when we were out buggy riding. If I blushed she couldn’t see it as the night was very dark. Of course, I tried to reason with this tender bud by telling her that I was too old to marry a young creature like herself, but she argued that age “cut no ice” where there is love and plenty of money to keep the pot boiling. I managed to put off the wedding until I could give the matter mature thought, and in the meantime I advised her to figure out about how much she would need for a swell wedding gown with the necessary trimmings. She thought $250.00 would cover the bill nicely.

After getting the information wanted, I cut my suspenders and went straight up, so far as the poor girl was concerned. But in reality my confidants, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes and Sheriff Watson, were bade goodby. Then the train carried me home.

On reaching Denver, I closed the Union Pacific train robbery case after having traveled more than 25,000 miles by rail, vehicles, afoot and on horseback, and after being on the operation constantly for about four years.

The “Wild Bunch” during these four years were pretty well scattered, many being put in their graves and others in prison. The only two really “bad” ones who escaped were “Butch” Casiday and Harry Longbough. But through my work on Jim F. we found out for the first time who Longbough was, and where his relatives live. Jim F. had first known him as the “Sundance Kid” up in northern Wyoming.

And “Butch” Casiday would no doubt have been caught had my hands not been tied by Asst. Supt. Curran, who insisted that he was not Jim Lowe, whose rendezvous I wanted to visit; but before his death Mr. Curran acknowledged his mistake. Also Mr. W. L. Dickenson confessed to me that there was no further doubt about “Butch” Casiday and Jim Lowe being one and the same person.

And if Sayles and I had been allowed to use our own judgment in hurrying to Dandy Crossing instead of going to Ft. Duchesne, matters might have taken a different turn, although it might have caused one or both of us being planted on a Utah desert.

During these four years of strenuous life along the West-Pacific Railroad lines, I secured much valuable information for the Dickenson agency. That is, information not connected with train holdups, the agency having a system wherein matters of importance are put on record, for immediate or future reference.