St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-03-27
Sixty-Three Of the Depreda-
tors Bit the Dust in Three
Months.
Inside History of the Purify
ing Of the Morals Of
Montana.
St. Louis Globe.Democrat.


stantly on the move, but the town
where they appeared oftenest, perhaps.
was the collection of shanties known as
Little Missouri.
This little hamlet has achieved a
national reputation, and for years was
known as the toughest town in America.
1t is in the heart of the famous Bad
Lands; the discriminating point for
tourists who wish to visit Cedar Canyon
and the burning coal mine. and is the
scene OF the encounter in which Mar
quiS de Mores killed Luffsey, the hunt
er. Its palmiest days were in 1884.
AT the time the troops stationed there
had just been removed; Commodore
Gorringe had bought their quarters
known as the Cantonment; cattle by
the tens of thousands were being
brought into the Bad Lands; cowboys
were taking the place of the Indian; the
Marquis de Mores was beginning the
establishment of immense slaughter
houses and scores of frontier characters
were attracted to the new town.
Numerous among these characters
were the hOrse-thieves, with whom the
region soon became infested. 1t was
perfect paradise for this gentry. The
Duties, or hills, of which the Bad Lands
is made up. were placed in no more
order than if shot out of gun. One
might as well try to follow the trail
of bullet through the air as the
one left by man who took
the slightest pains to cover his
tracks. Twelve miles from Little
Missouri ran the Montana line. Once
t1,a 60
service by Dakota sheriff. The near
est officer of the law with jurisdiction
was in Mandan, 100 miles to the east
ward. To the southeast one could 90
300 miles and never see sign of human
habitation. To the south, 200 miles
away, were the Black Hills. In
the intervening country there
was but an occasional cow-camp.
To the northward, IT'S miles,
was the Canadian line. Once across it
there was no difficulty in disposing of
horsefesh at fancy prices. These points
were at once grasped by the ''rustlers,"
and it was ''dead cinch" that man
from the South with a string of horses
mad either run them off from Wyoming
or the Black Hills country. Horse
suit when they reached the Bad Lands.
Good citizens even now Shudder at
mention of this terrible band of aven-
gers. Their reign was "short, sharp and
decisive" They had mission to per-
form. and we'll did they perform it. Ia
less than three months they had hung
or shot sixty-three men in various parts
of Montana and Western Dakota. Only
SiXty-twO of these men were horse
thieves, the other being a son of the
Fort BufOrd post-trader. He was with
the horse thieves when he was shot,
however.
Hardly Montana or Western Dakota
newspaper has to this day the courage
to speak of this red-handed band of
regulators. Its information was so Sc
cret, its operations so swift, bloody and
effectual, and its disarmament so sud-
den that not fifteen men outside of the
members know who its members were.
All the public knows, or cares
to know. is that horses and cattle run
ming on the range were afterWard as
safe fifty miles from the home ranch as
If they were under the eye of the owner.
The organization of the horse thieves
was completely broken up. From that
bloody raid of the "Stranglers'' was born
an almost perfect reign Of safety for
range stock.
known as the montana Strangers
was as much an outgrowth of necessity
as is the passage and enforcement of
proper laws in well-settled commu-
nifty. 1t is not a hard task to justify the
acts of the "StranglerS' to man who
has lived on the frontier for anv
length of time. Aside from shoot
ing ScrapeS and the occasional NAL
treatment of stranger, there
was but little law breaking
in Little Missouri, but it was recognized
by all that man had only a "six-shoot-
er right" to life and property. Numer-
Gus warrants had been issued in Man
dan, 160 miles away, for the arrest of
men in Little Missouri, but not one of
them was ever served. The officer of
the law might come up to the tough
hamlet in the Bad Lands and hob
mob day OF two with the man for
whom he had the warrant. but the
legal document was always returned
with the Endorsement mot found" 1t
was simply impossible to receive any
support from the law, and the ''rust-
lers" took advantage of the opportunity
to carry on their operations with i'm
punity. The cattiemen were widely
separated, some of the ranches
being sixty or seventy miles from
their nearest neighbor. All were
sufferers from the depredations
of the horse-thieves, but even the
bravest among them did not dare deal
out even border justice to the men they
knew were robbing them. The
thieves had perfect organization and
would have taken summary vengeance
on any one rash enough to oppose them.
A MURDERoUS GANG.
al, -
last forever, and the end came about
The first was the organization of cattle
men known as the Montana Stockgrow-
ers' association, and the second was the
order of President Cleveland ordering
all the range cattle to be driven from
the Indian territory. Eleven men,
berS of the association bound
themselves together in secret
order whose sole object it was to
free the country from cattle thieves.
The method of carrying this plan into
execution was not fully solved until the
issuance of the presidents famous Or
der. 1t had been settled from the first
that wholesale slaughter of the thieves
was the only effectual way to get rid of
them, but the trouble was in finding
men to perform the CORY task.
The presidents order solved
the problem. Almost every cow
boy in the ''Nation' was origi-
nally from Texas, and belonged to
the old schOol-recruited from desper-
ADDE'S and border ruffians of the lowest
class. Crime and bloodshed were their
food and drink. The presidents order
threw the most of these men out of
work by forcing the immediate sale of
the cattle they had been herding.
Here were exactly the men the
looking for. They thought no
more of ''stringing up a rustler''
than they did of shooting a prairie
chicken. A secret messenger of the
Montana men was dispatched to Indian