USA > Idaho > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 28
USA > Montana > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 28
USA > Oregon > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 28
USA > Washington > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 28
USA > Wyoming > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 28
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Avoiding Elk City by a circuitous route, the party, after several days' travel, arrived at the ford of the Clearwater. Two broad channels of the river at this crossing encircled a large island. A
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mountain torrent at its best, the river was swollen by recent rains, and its current running with frightful velocity. Page, who was perfectly familiar with the ford, dashed in, and was followed by Lowry. They were obliged to swim their mules before reaching the island, and had still a deeper channel to cross beyond. Romaine and Howard, who had witnessed the passage from the bank, were afraid to risk it. A long parley ensued, which finally terminated in the return of Page and Lowry, and an abandonment of the ford. A single day's rations was all the food the company now possessed. None could be obtained for several days, except at Lewiston, the mention whereof brought their crime before the ruffians with terrible distinctness. But there was no alternative. Risk of detection, while a chance presented for escape, was preferable to physical suffering, from which there was none. They
encountered the risk. Near Lewiston they fell in with a rancheman, to whom they committed their animals, with instructions to keep them until their return, and, concealing their faces with mufflers, entered the town at a late hour of the evening.
With the design of stealing a boat, and making a night trip down Snake river, to some point accessible to the Portland steamboats, they pro-
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ceeded at once to the river bank fronting the town. Piling their baggage into the first boat they came to, they pushed out into the stream. The wind was blowing fearfully, and the mad- dened river rolled a miniature sea. They had proceeded but a few rods when a sudden lurch of the boat satisfied them that the voyage was impracticable, and they returned to shore.
Their only alternative now was to secure a pas- sage that night in the coach for Walla Walla, or remain in Lewiston at the risk of being recognized the next day. It was a dark, blustering night. Hill Beachy, whose invariable custom it was to retire from the office at nine o'clock, from some inexplicable cause became oblivious of the hour, and was seated by the stove, glancing over the columns of a much-worn paper. His clerk stood at the desk, preparing the way-bill for the coach, which left an hour later for Walla Walla. The street door was locked. Suddenly the silence without was broken by the heavy tramp of ap- proaching footsteps. A muffled face peered
through the window. Beachy's attention was arrested by a hesitating triple knock upon the door, which seemed to him at the time ominous of wrong. Catching the lamp, he hurried to the door, on opening which a tall, well-proportioned
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man, in closely buttoned overcoat, with only his eyes and the upper portion of his nose visible, en- tered, and with a nervous, agitated step, by a strangely indirect, circular movement, advanced to the desk where the clerk was standing.
Addressing the clerk in a subdued tone, he said, " I want four tickets for Walla Walla."
" We issue no tickets," replied the clerk, " but will enter your names on the way-bill. What names ? " he inquired.
For a moment the stranger was nonplussed. Recovering himself instantly, with seeming non- chalance, he gave the names of John Smith and his brother Joseph, Thomas Jones and his brother e Jim ; and, throwing three double eagles upon the desk, he hastily departed.
As he closed the door, Beachy said to the clerk, " I'm afraid there will be a stage robbery to-night. Go to the express office and tell the agent not to send the treasure chest by this coach. Don't wake the passenger in the next room. I will see the citizens who have secured passage, and request them to wait until to-morrow."
Still reflecting upon the suspicious conduct of the visitor, Beachy determined to get a sight of his companions. "There are too many Smiths and Joneses to be all right," he said to himself,
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as he slipped the hood over his dark lantern and took his way to the hotel where they lodged. Ascertaining that their apartment fronted the street, he stole quietly up to the window, which was protected by shutters with adjustable lattice. This, by a cautious process, he opened, and, peer- ing through, beheld the four inmates, three of whom he recognized as the ruffians who had left Lewiston and gone to Bannack three months before.
More deeply confirmed than at first in the be- lief that a robbery was intended, he awaited the approach of the coach, designing to make a care- ful survey of the group after they were seated preparatory to departure. Fifteen or twenty per- sons, who had heard of Beachy's suspicions, seve- ral of whom were old associates of Howard and his companions, followed the coach from the barn to the hotel.
Enveloped in overcoats and blankets, their faces concealed by mufflers, and their hats drawn down to hide their eyes, the four men clambered into the coach. Just as the driver gathered up his lines Beachy opened his lantern, and before the men could wrap their blankets around them, his quick eye detected that two of the number had each a pair of well-filled cantinas on his lap. After
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the coach had driven off, he turned to Judge Berry, who was standing near, and, in a low but meaning tone, said, -
" Lloyd Magruder has been murdered."
" What makes you think so?" inquired the judge. " Do you recognize these fellows ? "
" Yes, three of them : Howard, Lowry, and Ro- maine. Their cantinas are filled with Magruder's money. I'll furnish horses and pay all expenses if you and the sheriff will join me, and we'll arrest them to-night."
" Arrest them for what ?" asked the judge.
" On suspicion of having murdered Magruder."
" Why, Hill, the whole town would laugh at us. We certainly could not detain them without evidence. Besides, your suspicions are ground- less. Mrs. Magruder told me last evening that she did not expect her husband for ten or twelve days. Let matters rest for the present."
"I know that Magruder is dead, and that these villains killed him, as well as if I had seen it done," rejoined Beachy. "From this time forth, I am on their track."
Bidding the judge good-night, he wended his way home, and, on entering his house, held the conversation with his wife with which this chap- ter opens.
HILL BEACHY, Lloyd Magruder's Avenger.
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CHAPTER VIII.
HILL BEACHY.
BEACHY'S DEVICES TO FERRET OUT THE MURDER - HIS TRIP UP SNAKE RIVER WITH TOM FARRELL - DIS- APPOINTMENT - FINDS THE ANIMALS RIDDEN BY THE MURDERERS - THE STORY OF THE SADDLE- THE INDIAN BOY - RECOGNITION OF THE HORSE- BEACHY'S PURSUIT OF THE ROBBERS - PROVIDEN- TIAL OCCURRENCES - ARRIVAL AT PORTLAND - SUC- CESSFUL RUSE - DEPARTURE OVERLAND FOR SAN FRANCISCO - TELEGRAPHS FROM YREKA - ROBBERS ARRESTED - THE LAW'S DELAY - RETURN WITII PRISONERS - PAGE ADMITTED AS STATE'S EVIDENCE -CONVICTION AND EXECUTION OF HOWARD, LOWRY, AND ROMAINE - VIOLENT DEATH OF PAGE.
MR. BEACHY's convictions gave him no rest. Without a shadow of evidence to sustain him, or a clew to guide him, he went to work to ferret out the crime. His friends laughed at and discour- aged him. The roughs of Lewiston threatened him. A few charitably attributed his conduct to mental derangement. The face of every person he met wore a quizzical expression, which seemed
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to imply both pity and ridicule. Often, when thwarted, he half resolved to abandon the pursuit, but a voice within whispered him on with assur- ance of success, and he could not, if he would, recede. Three days were spent in a fruitless search for the animals which he knew must have borne the men to town. At the close of the third day a party arrived from Bannack. The first inquiry he addressed to them after the usual salu- tation was, -
" Where is Magruder ?"
" Hasn't he arrived ?" was the surprised re- joinder. " He left four days before us, intending to come through as quickly as possible."
Beachy heard no more.
"He is dead," said he, "and I know the murderers."
" Tut, tut, Hill, you're too fast. He has prob- ably gone around by Salt Lake. He'll be in all safe in a few days."
Beachy resumed his search for the animals. In a few days a man came in from some point above Lewiston, and reported having seen, on his ride down the river, a party of four men encamped in a solitary nook on the opposite bank. The thought flashed through Beachy's brain that they were the murderers, who, thwarted in their effort
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to leave the country at Walla Walla, had returned by a circuitous route, in search of a point more favorable.
In Tom Farrell, a harum-scarum dare-devil of the town, Beachy found one man who shared his suspicions. He consented to go with and aid him in arresting these men. It was freezing weather, and the trail was rough and mountainous. Both men were well armed and of undoubted courage. Urging their horses to their utmost speed, they rode on till past the hour of noon, when Tom descried a thin column of smoke ascending from the camp of the supposed freebooters. Securing their horses in a thicket, they crept to a point where, concealed by the willows, they could observe all parts of the camp. Alas for their hopes ! The suspected robbers developed into a hunting party of honest miners, who were enjoy- ing a little holiday sport in the mountains. Worn down with fatigue and anxiety, they returned to Lewiston, to encounter afresh the gibes and sneers of the people at the failure of this sorry expedi- tion.
Another day of patient search was rewarded with the discovery of the rancheman who had possession of the animals. Beachy returned from a visit to his ranche, bringing with him one horse
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and seven mules, and the saddles, bridles, and other accoutrements, which he submitted to the inspection of the citizens. Not an article was identified as the property of Magruder. One man thought an old saddle resembled one that he had seen in Magruder's possession, but, as old saddles were plenty, this one, without any distinc- tive marks, was valueless as evidence.
Thus far Beachy's investigations had only involved the subject in deeper mystery; but as day after day passed, bringing no tidings of his friend, he felt an increasing conviction of the great evil that had befallen him. Reflecting upon the partial identification of the saddle, " Perhaps," thought he, "this may furnish a clew. If the saddle ever belonged to Magruder, some of his family will identify it. I have it. Jack will certainly know it. I can but try him." He sus- pended the saddle on a small peg attached to the stall occupied by his pacing-horse.
Jack was an Indian boy who had been Magruder's hostler for several years. Late in the afternoon Beachy met him.
"Jack," said he, accosting him, "don't you want to take a ride ? "
"I am always ready for that, Mr. Beachy."
" Well, our cows haven't come home to-night.
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I'll have my pony in the stable in ten minutes, and you can saddle him, and have a good time hunting them. Will you go ?"
" All right," replied Jack, " I'll be there."
Beachy immediately went to the stable, and, ascending to the haymow, placed himself in a position where he could observe the actions of Jack when he saddled the pony. The boy was punctual. Leading the pony from the stall, he took down the saddle and placed it on him.
" It's a failure," reflected Beachy, as the boy fastened the girth, and seized the pommel prepar- atory to mounting.
Just at this moment Jack's eye caught sight of tlie stirrup. He paused, and, taking it in his hand, surveyed it narrowly. An expression of surprise stole over his face. Dropping the stirrup, he caught up the. crupper and examined it more carefully. He then looked at other parts of the saddle in detail. At length he mounted, and, while leaving the stable, looked back with aston- ished interest upon the crupper. The cows at this time were discovered on their way home. Jack rode around and drove them up, and, dis- mounting, said to Beachy, who met him at the stable door, -
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" Mr. Beachy, this is Massa Magruder's saddle. He took it with him when he went to Bannack. How came it here ? "
" How do you know it is his, Jack ?"
" By that crupper. There's where I mended it myself with a piece of buckskin. I know it's the same old saddle. I've ridden on it a hundred times."
" A clew at last !" said Beachy. " I'll follow it up. Jack cannot be mistaken."
Calling to some friends who were passing, he told them the result of his experiment. The old saddle was produced. and Jack was examined. Alarmed at the scepticism of his interroga- tors, Jack wavered in faith, and his testimony · only confirmed the belief that Beachy was crazy.
The following day a train was seen descending the mountain by the Nez Perce .trail. A tall man, seemingly the leader, who wore a peculiar hat, like Magruder's, was pointed out as the missing man. Hundreds of eyes watched the slow descent of the mules into the valley. The wife of Magruder, whose thoughts and feelings had been alternating between hope and fear for a week or more, awaited with delighted surprise the certain approach of her husband. Hill Beachy looked on with doubt-
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ful interest, hoping, but faithless. Alas ! it was not Magruder.
" For him no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care."
When the train-master, in reply to their eager inquiries, expressed his own surprise, and told them that Magruder should have reached home ten days before, the people for the first time felt that he might have fallen a victim to robbers. Still they doubted. The crime was too great, in- volved too many lives, and the probability that he had changed routes and was returning by the way of Salt Lake was greater than that he and his large train had been destroyed.
Firm in his belief, Beachy, like a sleuth-hound, continued to follow the track leading to discovery. " They do not know the desperate character of those villains," he said, as he turned from the crowd to pursue the clew furnished by Jack. His wife, who until this time had feared for his safety at the hands of the town ruffians, now for the first time gave him encouragement.
Falling in company with the men who had just arrived from Bannack, he plied them with inquiries concerning Magruder's operations there.
" Why," observed one, " he told me on the
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morning he left that he should surprise his wife, for he had written her the day before that he would not leave for ten days. ' She will tell this to all inquirers,' said he, 'and the roughs of Lewiston will be thrown off their guard. I shall reach home about the time they think I will leave here.'"
" Would you know any of the stock ?" inquired Beachy.
" Yes ; there was one large, white-faced sorrel horse belonging to some of the party, that was a very good race-horse. I saw him run one night, when some of the boys were at our camp. I think I should know him. They intended to bring him here, and make a race-horse of him."
The only horse which Beachy had found in pos- session of the rancheman corresponded with this description. He placed him in one of a long range of stalls in his stable, in each of which was a horse, and requested his informant to select him, if pos- sible, from the number. When the man came to the sorrel, he said, -
" If this horse were two or three sizes larger, I should think he might be the one I saw ; but he is too small, and I know nothing of the others."
Knowing how much the size of a horse is seem- ingly increased when in motion, Beachy saddled the sorrel, and told his hostler to lead him to the
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end of the street, mount, and run him at his best speed back to the stable. As he dashed down to the spot where Beachy and the man were stand- ing, the latter involuntarily raised his hands and exclaimed, -
" My God ! that is the identical animal."
" You are sure ? " said Beachy.
" I would swear to it," was the instant reply.
" And now," thought Beachy, " I have a white man on my side. The evidence is sufficient for me. To-morrow I start for the murderers."
Armed with requisitions upon the governors of all the Pacific States and Territories, the next morning Beachy, accompanied by the indomitable Tom Farrell, made preparations for his departure. When all was ready, his wife, who had felt more keenly than he had the ridicule, sneers, indiffer- ence, and malignity with which his efforts had been regarded, with tearful eyes approached him, and, taking him by the hand, in a tone softened by the grief of parting, said to him, -
" Hill, you must either return with those vil- lains, or look up a new wife."
" The look which emphasized these words," says Beachy, " the expression, the calm, sweet face which said stronger than words that failure would kill her, filled me with new life. They were worth
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more than all the taunts I had received, and I bade her adieu with the determination to succeed."
While Mr. Beachy was speaking thus fondly of his wife, whose death had occurred but a few months before he narrated to me these incidents, the tears rolled down his cheeks, - and he added in a voice broken with emotion, "I then felt that the time had come when I needed something more than human help, and I went out to the barn and got down upon my knees and prayed to the Old Father, - and that's something I haven't been much in the habit of doing in this hard country, - and I prayed for half an hour ; and I prayed hard ; and I promised that if He'd only help me this time in catching these villains, I'd never ask another favor of Him as long as I lived, and I never have."
Three changes were made in the transmission of the mail over the route between Lewiston and Walla Walla. The log dwellings and stables at the several stations were the only evidences of settlement for the entire distance. Beachy was the proprietor of the stage line. His station- keepers had been in the habit of transporting way travellers over parts of the road, for pay, at times when the horses were unemployed. This practice had been strictly forbidden by Beachy. But
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when he and Tom Farrell drove up to the first station, such was his anxiety to overtake the fugitives, that he did not stop to reprimand the unfaithful employé, who had just harnessed the stage horses to a light wagon, with the intention of turning a dishonest penny. He took the wagon himself, and without delay drove to the next station, arriving there in time to hitch a pair of horses just harnessed by the hostler for his own use, to his wagon, and hurry on to another station. Here, as he and Tom alighted, a light buggy with a powerful horse came alongside. The driver was an old acquaintance. He was going to Walla Walla in haste for a physician. Beachy offered to do his errand if he would allow him to proceed in his buggy. The gentleman assented. The horse's flanks were white with foam when, at dark, Beachy and Tom Farrell rode into Walla Walla.
Before entering the town, Beachy concealed his face in a muffler, to avoid recognition. Half-way up the street he observed a man, of whom he expected to obtain information, engaged with another in conversation. Jumping from tl wagon he approached him cautiously, and, by a significant grip, drew him aside and made known his business.
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" They left four days ago for Portland," said the man, " with the avowed intention of taking the first boat to San Francisco. They were here two days, lost considerable at faro, but took plenty of gold dust with them."
" Did they explain how they obtained their money ? "
" Yes. Howard said that they, in company with five others, had purchased a water ditch in Boise Basin, and had been renting the water to the miners at large rates. The miners became dissatisfied with their prices, and a fight ensued. Men were killed on both sides, and they were the only members of the ditch company that escaped. They were now on their way out of the country, to escape arrest. They feared the authorities were pursuing them."
While engaged in this conversation, Captain Ruckles, the agent of the Columbia River Steam- boat Company, happened to pass. Beachy hailed him, and told his story. Ruckles gave him authority to use a Whitehall boat in descending the river from Wallula, and an order upon the captain of the downward bound steamer from Umatilla, to consult his convenience on the trip to Portland.
The evening was far advanced when Beachy
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and Farrell started on a midnight drive of thirty miles to Wallula. Day was breaking when they drove up to the landing. The river, at all times boisterous, had been swollen by the flood into a torrent. Rousing a wharfinger, they were informed that all navigation was suspended until the waters should abate, that no steamboats had been there for several days, and to attempt the passage of Umatilla rapids in a Whitehall boat would be madness.
Fortunately, the next man Beachy met was Captain Ankeny, an old river pilot, who knew every crook and rock in the channel.
" It's a dangerous business," said the captain, after listening to his story, " but I think we can make it in a Whitehall boat. At all events, if it's murderers you're after, it's worth the risk. I'll take you down if anybody can."
At daylight the three men, with the pilot at the helm, pushed out into the stream, every spectator on shore predicting disaster. It was, indeed, a lively passage, and not a few hairbreadth escapes were attributable to the skill of the man who knew the channel. The boat dashed through the rapids, and rounded to at Umatilla, twenty-two miles below, two hours after it left Wallula.
Beachy found a willing coadjutor in the captain
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of the steamboat at Umatilla, and, to expedite the departure of the boat, employed eighteen men to assist in discharging the cargo. When the boat had blown her last whistle and rung her last bell, two large wagons laden with emigrants, who had just arrived after a tedious journey across the plains, thundered down to the wharf to be taken aboard.
"Too late," shouted the captain. "The boat cannot be delayed. Cast off."
The spokesman for the emigrants pleaded hard for a passage. Beachy relented. 1
" Take them on board for luck," said he to the captain.
No other cause for detention occurring, the boat swung off, and proceeded down the river, arriving at Celilo, eighty-five miles below, late in the evening. From that point navigation is im- peded by rapids for sixteen miles, which distance is travelled by railroad. The cars would not leave until the next morning, - a delay which might afford the fugitives time for escape. In this exi- gency Beachy applied to the emigrants, and by pledging the boat as security for the return of their horses, and paying a round sum, hired three of them to convey Captain Ankeny, Farrell, and himself to the Dalles. It was after one o'clock in
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the morning when they entered Dalles City. Ank- eny and Farrell rode down to the hotel to recon- noitre, and report to Beachy, who awaited their return in the outskirts. It was a bright, starlight night. A man, whose form Beachy recognized, passed hurriedly by the spot where he stood. Hailing him, he unfolded the object of his mis- sion, and learned that three of the party he was pursuing had left the Dalles on a steamboat for Portland two days before. The other, he was afterwards informed, had gone since.
In company with Tom Farrell, he took passage on the next steamer for Portland, arriving there twenty-four hours after the fugitives had left for San Francisco. Farrell hurried on to Astoria, the only port where the steamer stopped on its pas- sage to the ocean, to ascertain if they had landed there, while Beachy put in execution a little scheme by which he hoped to obtain full information con- cerning their future movements.
A year before this time, Beachy had concealed from the pursuit of the Vigilantes at Lewiston a young man accused of stealing, whom he had known in boyhood. During his concealment, with much other information, he told Beachy of the robbery of a jewelry establishment at Victoria, in British Columbia, in which he was concerned with
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Howard, Lowry, and Romaine. They deposited their plunder with an accomplice at Portland. This man still resided at Portland, and had prob- ably met with Howard and his companions during their stay. If so, he was doubtless possessed of information which would aid in their detection.
At every place where they had stopped on the trip to Portland, the guilty men had told the same story about their collision at, and flight from, Boise Basin. Acting upon the belief that they had re- peated it to their old confederate at Portland, Beachy, on the same evening of his arrival, wrapped in blanket and muffler, sallied forth to a remote quarter of the town, where he resided. No one responded to his rap upon the door. He crossed the street to a clump of bushes to watch. A half-hour passed, and a woman entered the dwelling. Recrossing, he repeated the alarm. The woman met him at the door. With much simulated nervousness, and mystery of manner and tone, he inquired for the man.
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