So the murderers were freed from their burden and they passed on over the country. But were they happy? And did they find that contentment of mind which they had hoped would come after getting rid of the corpse of their late friend? At Green River, Welcome said to a barkeeper whom he met there: “I can not sleep well at night; I am afraid.”
He then asked the barkeeper:
“Did you ever kill a man?” and added, “I never did.” Then he stopped for a moment as if engaged in thought, and said: “Yes, I have; I have killed a young and innocent man in cold blood.”
He seemed lost for a moment, and soon took his departure with a troubled countenance.
From the time the body was disposed of in the lonely spot in Echo cañon, the men pushed rapidly eastward, making an effort at every opportunity to dispose of their barley and their teams and wagons. They disposed of the grain at Evanston, and of the first team at Piedmont. Journeying on, they stopped for a few days at Green River, where the second team and wagon were sold. The articles were all offered at prices below their real values, and some suspicion was created. The murderers declared that they had owned the animals for four years; but they at last found a man who had known the team as belonging to Turner, and who had telegraphed him of the effort of a stranger to sell them.
This was the first clue which the father had of the son’s murder. While he was coming to Green River, accompanied by his friend, Sheriff Allison, the two men, having at last disposed of the property, took their departure quietly, and no one seemed to know which way they had gone. The pursuers only reached the place to find that their game had flown, and to find themselves arrived at the place with nothing to do, and with the prospect of starting back home without finding the object of their search. The old father’s heart was almost broken. As a last resort they telegraphed to Detective Carr, Superintendent Cook’s assistant at Cheyenne, on the 23d of July, and succeeded in getting him interested in the case. He had no idea that the murderer was near him at the time of receiving the telegram, but he immediately set to work with his usual vigor and shrewdness to bring down his game. He did not have to wait long.
Mr. Carr soon learned that there was a young man in the city who answered the description given of the murderer of young Turner. A brief investigation convinced the officer that this was the man that was wanted, but the detective determined to “make haste slowly” and as he knew that the fellow could not dodge him, he decided to watch him awhile before taking him in, merely for the sake of entirely satisfying himself as to the correctness of his conclusions. He found that the young man had been a guest at a leading hotel for a week past, and that he had been making himself generally agreeable, spending money freely and seeming to be in very easy circumstances. He was especially fond of buggy riding, and was a liberal patron of the livery stables. On the day that the telegram was received the young man went out for a drive, but, although he did not know that such was the case, he was closely shadowed by Carr.
The dispatch came just in time, for later in the day the murderer undertook to continue his journey eastward, going to the depot to take the train for Omaha. He was followed to the platform by Detective Carr, who by this time had learned that the pursuing officers would arrive in Cheyenne on the same train which Welcome had intended to board.
The scene as arranged and enacted proved tragic in the extreme. As the old father and his friend Allison stepped off the train at one end of the smoking car, Welcome undertook to step on at the other end.
Carr had stood around carelessly up to this time, but as the young man started to the train he said, sotto voce, “No you don’t,” and walking up to the young man laid his heavy hand on his shoulder, causing the youth to look with something of an astonished air, and exclaim: