CHAPTER XXXI.
THE LIVELY TIMES OF ’76—HOW THE ROAD AGENTS BETWEEN CHEYENNE AND DEADWOOD FLOURISHED—AN ATTEMPT TO DITCH THE UNION PACIFIC TRAIN AT MEDICINE BOW BRIDGE, WHEREBY A HUNDRED LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN LOST—FRANK JAMES AT THE HEAD OF THE “AGENTS”—THEIR ESCAPE INTO THE ELK MOUNTAINS, WHERE DEPUTY SHERIFFS WIDOWFIELD AND VINCENT ARE MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD.
The years 1876, ’77, ’78 and ’79 were characterized by numerous stage-coach robberies in Wyoming, Dakota and Montana, performed by highwaymen, who found refuge in the wild and mountainous region of the north. The roads leading to the Black hills were the scenes of some of the boldest exploits of the kind ever known to criminal history. Many thrilling stories of the dare-devil work of these highwaymen are told, and will long be remembered as a part of the history of the settlement and development of the region round about Deadwood. Large treasures of gold dust taken from the mines were frequently shipped out on the stages, and many men of wealth traveled over the line, going in for the purpose of starting in business or making mining investments. The stages were stopped by these knights of the road, who soon became known as “road agents,” at places convenient to the hiding places of the highwaymen, who, safe behind protecting trees or bluffs, commanded a halt and compelled driver and passengers to hold up their hands while they should “go through” the coach and the people on board, one or two of the agents performing the search while others held their cocked guns loaded upon the terrified travelers, who were, as a rule, only too willing to escape with their lives and let their valuables go to enrich the stores of the brigands. Often, however, the travelers “showed fight,” and then there was sure to be bloodshed, the highwaymen sometimes getting the worst of it, but most frequently coming out best.
When the travel to the hills began to slacken and the coaches to be better guarded than they had been in the earlier days of the gold excitement, the “agents,” not finding their field as profitable as it had been before, started out to look for new fields in which to show their prowess, and fresh fields to conquer. They turned their attention to the railroads.
And thus it came about that a member of the Rocky Mountain Detective Association came to have much to do with them, in the story which is about to be related as well as in others of a like character. This member of the association is Mr. N. K. Boswell, a resident of Laramie City, Wyo., for several years back, who is now warden of the state penitentiary at Laramie City, and has frequently been sheriff of Albany county, and who has for very many years been considered one of the most efficient of Gen. Cook’s assistants.
It was in August, 1878—August 14—that a bold attempt was made by a party of these road agents to commit one of the most fiendish crimes ever perpetrated by outlaws in any land. The party consisted of Frank James, one of the James brothers, but who went by the name of McKinney; of Dutch Charley, Frank Toll, Sim Wan, Big-Nosed George, Tom Reed, Sandy Campbell and Cully McDonald. They had come in from the northern country to a point on the Union Pacific railroad where it crosses the Medicine Bow river, eighty-two miles west of Laramie City, in Wyoming. The embankments of the road approaching the river are exceedingly steep, about sixty feet high, and are made of large, rough stone taken from the cuts in the road. A more jagged or more broken place than these embankments it would be difficult to imagine.
It was to this place that these road agents had come with the intention of throwing the west-bound passenger train, on the 14th of August, from the track, and of precipitating it down the embankment, hoping to kill or to badly cripple all the train operatives and passengers, and thus make easy work of the robbery, which was the purpose of the undertaking. To accomplish this task they had cut the telegraph wire at the point and had tied one end of a long piece of wire, after loosening the spikes, to a rail, the other end being in the hands of the robbers, who were secreted behind a convenient embankment. The plan was to pull the rail out just as the locomotive should reach it, and to tumble the entire train and its burden of treasure and humanity down this fill. The time as well as the place was well chosen, the train at that season of the year passing the spot about dusk.
But for what really seems a special act of Providence, the entire train would certainly have been hurled over this precipice; and the wires being cut, the highwaymen would have been far away with their booty before the terrible deed could have become known. The instrument whom fate chose to avert this terrible catastrophe was an humble member of the race—the boss of the repair section of the road—who, finding after quitting his day’s work that he had left his tools on the Medicine Bow bridge, returned to procure them. Passing along he noticed that the spikes were out, and saw the wire attached to the rail. He comprehended the situation in a moment, and his heart must have leaped into his mouth. But he was a man out of a thousand in coolness and self-possession. Manifesting no sign that he had made a discovery, he walked quietly forward, picked up his tools, came back and passed the dead-fall again on his return, still showing no concern whatever by his manner. Had he made the least sign, there is no doubt that he would have been killed, and that the robbers and murderers would have been enabled to put their hellish plot into execution.
Walking past the trap, he proceeded towards home. He had scarcely gone around the next curve when he heard the train humming forward at a fearful rate of speed. He quietly flagged it and, of course, when he had told his story, the train was backed. The robbers were foiled in their purpose, and one hundred and fifty lives, to say nothing of property, were saved.
The whole country was aroused to vengeance when the full scope of the terrible plot was developed and comprehended in its hellish entirety. Large rewards were offered for the capture of the outlaws, and numbers of good people turned out to hunt down the men who had demonstrated that they lacked opportunity only to be guilty of a deed which would have caused the entire continent to shudder in the contemplation of it.
But the robbers were not caught then. Indeed, some of them, including Frank James, are still at large. The pursuit was kept up for several days. Detective Boswell joined the pursuing party, but they succeeded only in driving the rascals out of the section; not, however, until they had shot down in cold blood two deputy sheriffs—Vincent and Widowfield—who were searching for them in the Elk mountains. After this shooting the robbers left for the north, maintaining for a short time a rendezvous on the Dry Cheyenne river, and evaded all pursuit, which was ultimately abandoned. Soon after the band began to operate on the stage lines again, and it gradually changed until there were but two left who had been in any way identified with the railroad raiders, these two being Dutch Charley and Joe Manuse. Frank James had left for Montana, and John Erwin had become leader of the Dry Cheyenne band.