Fraser’s mistake also left them ten days behind their suspects, as they found when they reached Hanksville. But the owner of a local hotel also gave a report about another man, who fit the description of Harvey Logan and had herded five horses across the Colorado River only days before. At this stage Siringo suspected that Logan was the mastermind of the robbery as well as the leader of the Wild Bunch, so he followed the tracks, ascending an impossibly steep bluff and picking his way through rocky arroyos before finally losing them and turning back within half a mile of Logan’s campsite.9
The next day, Siringo and Sayers continued after their original prey, encouraged that they were on the right track by the appearance of some of the stolen bank notes.10 But when they reached Bluff, in southern Utah, they were angered to find that Fraser had sent two additional operatives south by train, and they were now ahead of the cowboy detectives. According to Siringo: “Sayers and I figured that we were born leaders of men, hence we didn’t like the idea of bringing up the rear.” They put their horses to pasture and, taking a train, caught up with the other two operatives. They then “led the chase by riding on trains, in buggies, and on hired saddle horses. We left the other two boys far in the rear, and they finally lost the trail entirely and returned to Denver.”11
Meanwhile, having heard from the old Pinkerton’s client J. M. Archuleta—whom Siringo had once saved from assassination—that the men had been seen in Lumberton, New Mexico, the two cowboy detectives followed them there. Once again, their quarry was gone, and shortly thereafter the two followed different leads, after disagreeing over where to go next. Siringo returned to Colorado and followed the robbers’ trail along the Arkansas River. He eventually passed through Dodge City, Wichita, and his old home in Caldwell, before crossing the Indian Territory to Arkansas, and thence proceeding into Tennessee, and eventually Mississippi. Finally, still several weeks behind the outlaws, he was recalled to Denver.12
Sayers, meanwhile, traced some of the unsigned bank notes to Harlem, Montana, where Lonnie Logan and Bob Lee—going under the name Curry—owned a saloon and were laundering their stolen money. Sayers found out their true identities, but before he could arrest them they had sold the saloon and skipped town. In the process, Sayers’s own identity was exposed, so he was unable to proceed with the investigation. He was named assistant superintendent of the new San Francisco office—a position that Siringo had turned down—and Siringo was sent up to Helena so that he could replace him in hunting down the Logans and Lee.13
Using the name Charles L. Carter, and claiming he was a fugitive outlaw from “old Mexico,” Siringo went to Landusky, where he became friendly with a ruffian who shared ownership of a ranch with Harvey Logan. Siringo also met Pike Landusky’s widow and daughter Elfie, with whom Lonnie Logan had a three-year-old son. He quickly turned Elfie’s head, gained access to her personal items, and read the letters she had received from Lonnie. In this way, and from Harvey’s partner, he learned a great deal about them and the other men with whom they rode. But as to the whereabouts of Harvey Logan, Siringo was still at a loss: “[H]e would never give a hint as to where ‘Kid’ Curry was, though I found out enough to convince me that they kept up a correspondence.”14
Meanwhile, other Pinkerton’s operatives were enjoying greater success. When Lonnie Logan and Bob Lee disappeared from Montana, they went to Cripple Creek, Colorado, where Lee returned to a job as a faro dealer that he had worked at on and off since 1894. Logan traveled on to Dodson, Missouri, to visit his aunt. In February 1900, Pinkerton’s agents traced him there. When Lonnie saw lawmen outside the farmhouse, he attempted to run out the back to escape, but he was shot down, falling dead in a snowbank.15 The same day, Lee was arrested at the Antlers Saloon in Cripple Creek.16 Three months later he went on trial in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his mother hired a Kansas City lawyer to dredge up an alibi. Instead, while the attorney was working with the Logan family, Siringo “was introduced to him, and learned all of his secrets.”17 With knowledge of the defense plans, it was easy for the prosecution to put together a case to prove Lee guilty of involvement in the Wilcox robbery; he was sentenced to ten years in prison.18
• • •
Not long after the Wilcox robbery, another former Pinkerton’s agent, Tom Horn, was called in—possibly by the Union Pacific but equally as likely by McParland19—to help find the three robbers who had headed north after the holdup.
By late December 1899, Horn was still conducting his search in Johnson County. Convinced that a man named Bill Speck knew more than he would admit, Horn visited him in early January. “In the morning it was snowing and I stayed all day,” he later wrote. “Occasionally I would bring up the train robbery, and he never wanted to talk about it, so on the morning of the fourth when I was going to leave I told him that he had some information that I wanted and he must give it to me, or I would kill him and be done with him.” Speck broke down and pleaded that the robbers would kill him if he told Horn anything. “I told him I was worse than they, because I would surely kill him then and there if he did not tell me, as no man was within eight miles of us.”20
Not surprisingly, Speck told him a great deal, including that George Currie had picked up four horses from Billy Hill’s ranch after the gun battle in which Sheriff Hazen was killed. Currie had told Speck and Hill all about the robbery, and had said that the two other men at the shootout were Harve Ray and a stranger “from the British possessions . . . [who] could blow Christ off the Cross with dynamite.”21 Frank Murray, the assistant superintendent in Denver, later enclosed a copy of the letter to U.S. Marshal Frank A. Hadsell, who was also leading a search for the Wild Bunch. In it, he speculated that Harve Ray might actually be Harvey Logan, meaning that he might not only have led the robbery but have been guilty of killing Hazen.22
Horn’s discovery meant that investigations intensified regarding both Flat Nose Currie and Kid Curry. This was significant, because as late as the end of November, McParland was still writing that “it is a ‘dead cinch’ that the Roberts brothers, Geo. Curry and very possibly ‘Butch’ Cassidy are the main movers, if not the entire outfit, that held up the train.”23 In other words, it had not yet become clear that the mysterious Roberts brothers were actually the Logan brothers.
It was not only the Pinkerton’s and the railroad detectives who were chasing the Wild Bunch. With large rewards on the criminals’ heads, apprehending them “dead or alive” became an alluring prospect for other citizens. One man interested in doing so was former U.S. Deputy Marshal Frank Canton, who, after having left government employ in Alaska, decided a route back into official law enforcement might be as a successful bounty hunter.24 In November 1899, Canton asked if Pinkerton’s would pay his expenses if he went after the robbers. McParland responded that he was not able to “offer any other inducements to you other than what is offered in the circular.” But, McParland told him, “if you want anything run down that you are not able to get after yourself, let me know.”25
When Canton developed a strategy to waylay Flat Nose Currie, McParland told him that although he was dubious of the plan, he did “hope your scheme will be successful, not only on account of rounding up these people, but for your own self. . . . [Y]ou will have a nice piece of money.” McParland then added some confidential agency information, noting, “This information is strictly for yourself and for your guidance and will help you in case you have got to act. You needn’t say where you got [it] . . . just give whatever story you see fit.”26
As it turned out, Canton’s efforts came to nothing, and he, like other lawmen, must have felt he was chasing wisps of smoke, because although there were many rumors, hard evidence about the gang was slim. Then, on April 17, 1900, a man was seen changing the brand on a cow near Green River, Utah. A pair of sheriffs—Jesse Tyler of Moab and William Preece of Vernal—rushed to the scene, thinking it was a small-time rustler named Tom Dilley. Shots were exchanged until Tyler, coming up behind the man, shot
him through the head. It was then that they discovered the dead man was actually Flat Nose Currie.27
While a wide range of law-enforcement officers searched high and low for the Wild Bunch, several of the outlaws were spending most of their time hiding out. For example, it is likely that the two men that Siringo and Sayers had followed south were Cassidy and Elzy Lay, who were en route to the WS Ranch in New Mexico, where they worked under the assumed names Jim Lowe and Willie McGinnes. However, although the pair generally stayed out of mischief while there, they appear to have taken a couple of weeks off to participate in the Wilcox robbery.28 Lay then made a major mistake in an effort to make a similar “score.” On July 11, 1899, he was one of three men—along with Sam Ketchum and Will Carver—who held up train No. 1 of the Colorado and Southern Railway about five miles outside Folsom, New Mexico, making off with between fifty thousand and seventy thousand dollars.29
Five days later a posse stumbled upon the three hiding out about eighty miles away in a place called Turkey Creek Canyon, not far from Cimarron. Alerted to their presence by a smoking campfire, the posse sneaked up on them. They might or might not have demanded that the robbers surrender, but, even if they did, they opened fire immediately thereafter. Lay was hit in the shoulder and back, and Ketchum had a bone just below his shoulder broken by a bullet, but Carver and the injured Lay took a heavy toll on the posse, killing Sheriff Edward Farr and wounding two others, one of whom died shortly thereafter. When the posse pulled back, the three men escaped, although Ketchum and Lay were captured a few days later. On July 24, Ketchum died in jail from blood poisoning. Lay, still insisting he was Willie McGinnes, was tried in October, found guilty of murdering Farr, and sentenced to life in prison.
About a month after Lay’s trial, Murray showed up at the WS Ranch, still following the trail of money from the Wilcox robbery. Some had been spent by a ranch hand named Johnny Ward at a store in Alma, New Mexico, not far from the WS. Murray spoke to ranch owner William French, who called in Ward; the cowboy admitted to passing the money, which he had received for selling a horse to another ranch hand named Clay McGonagill, who had since moved on.30 Surprisingly, Murray allowed Ward to keep the remainder of the stolen money.
Murray then showed French pictures of three men, and when the owner recognized one of them as his trail boss, Jim Lowe, Murray told him that it was actually Butch Cassidy. Only that very morning, Murray said, he had seen Cassidy in Alma. But when French asked if he intended to arrest the man, the assistant superintendent said that to do such a thing he “would need a regiment of cavalry,” and that he would instead turn his attention to finding McGonagill.31
When French next saw Cassidy, he mentioned the meeting, but the outlaw “only grinned when I told him the name he had given him, and said that he and Tom [Capehart] had already spotted him. In fact, they had stood him a drink when he returned to Alma. As he put it, they suspicioned who he was, and they invited him to drink to make sure.”32 It did not take long to confirm his true identity, and it appears that at least several men intended to kill Murray before he could leave Alma and send in his reports. It is thought that there were other men at the WS who had ridden with the Wild Bunch, such as Capehart—a popular cowboy who has been rumored at times to have been the Sundance Kid under another alias—or possibly Will Carver, Ben Kilpatrick, or Harvey Logan.33
But Cassidy evidently liked Murray, because Siringo later wrote that the agent would have been killed had it not been for Jim Lowe, but instead was just driven out of town.34 One suspects that Murray was grateful to Cassidy for saving his life, because he did not ever mention that Lowe was Cassidy, and he later told Siringo that he was wrong when the cowboy detective said the two were the same man.35 On the other hand, although Cassidy gave all appearances of not being too worried about another Pinkerton’s agent showing up, before long he sold off his holdings in the area and once more disappeared.
• • •
Unlike Cassidy, it is safe to say that not many wanted outlaws would have let Murray leave Alma alive. Included in those who would have finished off the Pinkerton’s operative were most of the members of the Wild Bunch, men who were neither gentle nor very nice. But of all of them, Harvey Logan was the nastiest.
On May 27, 1900, Sheriff Tyler of Moab was still searching for Tom Dilley, this time near Hill Creek, some seventy-five miles northeast of Green River, Utah. Seeing three men wrapped in blankets around a campfire, he left one of his deputies behind and rode toward the men with Deputy Sam Jenkins to ask if they had seen Dilley. Suddenly the three opened fire, killing both lawmen. The other deputy raced off for help, but the killers escaped despite an intensive search. It was later shown that the murders were planned by Logan as revenge for the killing of his mentor, Flat Nose Currie.36
Three months later, on August 29, Logan was back in action. Shortly after the second section of Union Pacific No. 3 left Tipton, Wyoming, and headed over the Continental Divide, a masked man slid down from the coal tender, pointed a gun at the engineer, and ordered him to stop the train when he saw a fire next to the track.37 Three more men then forced the engineer to uncouple the passenger cars and move the rest of the train a mile up the track. Leaving the mail car untouched, they blew open the Oregon Short Line Express car, which suffered comparatively little, and the Pacific Express car, which was considerably more damaged.38 Inside the latter was their old acquaintance from the Wilcox robbery, C. E. Woodcock. Although the Union Pacific claimed the robbers left with almost nothing, according to Woodcock they netted fifty-five thousand dollars.39
After the robbers rode off, the engineer drove the train toward Green River, Wyoming, where a report was sent to the Union Pacific headquarters. Posses were immediately organized, and they headed to the scene of the crime, where, led by U.S. Marshal Frank Hadsell, U.S. Deputy Marshal Joe LeFors, and Sheriff Pete Swanson, they joined into one unit and set off in pursuit. Within a short time they saw the tracks of the four riders had been joined by those of a fifth. Riding hard, with LeFors leading the way, the posse covered 120 miles toward Colorado that day, but dwindled from about fifty men to a dozen as their horses gave out. At dusk they could see three men in the distance, but they had to stop due to fears of losing the trail in the dark. The next day they gave up after finding the outlaws’ horses, which had been switched for fresh ones.
From the beginning authorities believed that both Cassidy and Logan participated in the robbery. There have since been strong arguments against Cassidy’s involvement, however, and although Logan undoubtedly was at Tipton, the other men’s identities have not been established with certainty.40
What does appear to be a possibility is that if the weather had turned out slightly differently a short while before, Cassidy might not have been robbing anyone. At some point during the previous year, he seriously considered turning away from a life of crime.41 His initial idea had been followed by a visit to the influential Salt Lake City attorney Orlando Powers, and then a request to Parley Christensen, another prominent lawyer and rising Utah politician, to arrange a meeting with Utah governor Heber Wells to discuss a deal. Remarkably, Wells granted the request and met with Cassidy not once but twice while considering an amnesty should Butch turn himself in and reform. The potential plan was ultimately rejected when Wells was told that Cassidy was wanted for murder in Wyoming. Of course, even had Wells moved ahead, he did not have the power to speak for the governors of Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Montana, or South Dakota.
Undeterred, Powers and Cassidy’s longtime Wyoming attorney, Douglas Preston, proposed a meeting with Union Pacific officials to consider the same offer—presumably hoping that if the railroad decided to stop its pursuit of Cassidy, the states would follow suit. A meeting was arranged for a remote location, but on the day that Preston was scheduled to bring the railroad officials, a terrible storm delayed them. When they finally reached the meeting place, Cassidy had departed, leaving behind a note: “Damn you Preston, you have doub
le-crossed me. I waited all day but you didn’t show up. Tell the U.P. to go to hell. And you can go with them.”42
As a last-ditch effort, Powers approached Wells again, and in August 1900 the two men sent Matt Warner, recently released from prison, to find Cassidy, explain what had happened, and try to get him to reconsider. Warner was on the train heading for the area where he expected his friend to be when he was handed a telegram from Wells: “All agreements off. Cassidy just held up a train at Tipton.”43
Cassidy had not, in all likelihood, been involved in the Tipton robbery, but that was most likely because he was already on his way to another heist. On September 19, three men without masks robbed the First National Bank of Winnemucca, Nevada, of $32,640. With fresh relays of horses, they easily left behind the hastily organized posses. The target was so far out of the Wild Bunch’s normal stomping grounds that the authorities initially gave little consideration to his potential involvement, but it later became accepted that the three robbers were Cassidy, Longabaugh, and Will Carver.44
Siringo was now assigned to the Tipton case, and he began his search by going after two men reported to have been seen near Grand Junction, Colorado, one of whom, being very tall, was thought to be Ben Kilpatrick. At one point he found that his quarry—evidently Kilpatrick and Logan—had left only the previous morning.45 He could not close the gap on them, however, so he rode to Circle Valley to see what information he could obtain from Cassidy’s family instead. He spent a week in Circleville, where “I had hard work to keep from falling in love with Miss Parker, the pretty young sister of Butch.” He also “found out all about ‘Butch’s’ early life and much about his late doings. His true name was Parker, his nickname being ‘Sallie’ Parker when a boy. This nickname of itself was enough to drive a sensitive boy to the ‘bad.’”46
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