A Criminal Catcher.
For more than twenty years Joseph L. Le Fors, of Sheridan, Wyo., has acted as detective for the Live-stock Association of Wyoming, and during that time has chased criminals all over the West and into Mexico.
Le Fors started as a cowboy in the Southwest. His brother was shot dead on the street of one of the early-day border towns. Joe heard of the deed, quit his job, came in, and quietly attended to the matter of his brother’s burial. Then he got an officer’s commission and went after the murderer, who was known as a “bad man.” When the cowboy, in a spring wagon and without much knowledge of the roads in that vicinity, drove out of town on his mission, most of those who saw him guessed that he would not come back. But he returned, and after no great length of time. In the bottom of the wagon was the corpse of the murderer. Le Fors has never talked to any extent of that fight, except to say that he gave the man a chance and he lost.
Among the detective’s most notable feats was the capture of Tom Horn, said to have killed seventeen men. Horn’s quickness with a gun was marvelous, but when the test came, Le Fors proved too fast for him.
It is said that Le Fors had done more than any other man to make stock raising on the open ranges more than a mere venture.