The detectives undertook to find Bernheim, or Blume, if possible, although the outlook seemed very gloomy. No one could be found who had seen the rascal since he had disappeared from Dr. Buckingham’s office, and there was no trace to be had of him. The next day the man Thompson, who had brought the letter to Bernheim, was arrested at the American house. He denied all knowledge of the affair, except that he bore a letter from Lake City to Denver for Bernheim. But when, upon searching him, a telegram, written to be sent Bernheim at Wallace, was found in his pocket, he confessed that he knew something was wrong, and that he had come to Denver in answer to a telegram from Bernheim, and had received from that worthy the letter he represented as having brought from Lake City. He said, furthermore, that his name was H. A. Morris, and that he took a fictitious name at Bernheim’s instigation, as he knew that party had done. Thompson was locked up.
The next morning, November 1, Deputy Smith, at the instigation of Chief Cook, took the east-bound express on the Kansas Pacific in pursuit of Bernheim, or Blume, it being very evident from the dispatch found on Thompson that he was somewhere on that road. At noon of the same day a telegram was received from Deputy Smith to the effect that Bernheim had stolen a ride on the special car carrying Judge Foster to Wallace, and instructing the officers to head the man off by telegraph. The wires were at once clicking, sending word to the agents of the detective association at Junction City, Topeka, Leavenworth and Kansas City, and that night about 9 o’clock word came over the wire from Sheriff D. R. Kiehl, at Junction City:
“Your man Bernheim is under arrest.”
He was brought back without difficulty, and had to serve out an eight year’s sentence in the penitentiary at Cañon City. At last accounts his first wife was still living in Lake City, and the second was still in Denver. Morris was discharged from custody.
TWO OF A KIND.
CHAPTER XLIII.
HORSE-STEALING IN THE EARLY DAYS—GEORGE BRITT AND WILLIAM HILLIGOSS, AND SOME OF THEIR OPERATIONS—OFF WITH A RANCHMAN’S VALUABLE TEAM—GEN. COOK ON THE TRAIL, WHICH IS FOLLOWED AND LOST—ANOTHER CLUE IS OBTAINED, AND THE SCAMPS ARE TRACKED TO KANSAS.
Back in the early days, two of the most noted desperadoes and horse thieves of the Rocky mountain region were George Britt and William Hilligoss, who, like many others, did not come to grief until Gen. Cook got on their track. They had been guilty of many crimes, but no one ever succeeded in overtaking them until Dave Cook was elected city marshal of Denver, and made it his duty to track them down, which he did, almost unaided, and brought them to town in four days after their crime.