The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-05-18


q few questions, he remarked very abruptly,
Tanning. you are shamminR; You have
been drinking"
mo, doctor, the captain can tell you there
il no liquor in the camp"
"Wel1, il you amt drunkard you arc a
tenance, and You have taken an emetic to
shame Sickness"
Tanning, Of course, denied all this, and
finally broke cut with:
my God, doctor, that should live to
hear myself charged with such an enormity!
If wanted to kill any man in this party I
would have shot him. What object would !
have in killing fifteen men when could not
make off with their OUTFIT" etc.
The doctor and agreed that Tanning
should be sent away as soon as possible:
EARLY next morning Tanning was hauled
to Coberly's stage station, three miles dis
tant, to 30 placed in "a coach running to
wagon. rolled up in blankets and pitifully
groaning.
The station reached, it was found there
was no coach on Sunday, but someone re-
marked: do you see that light wagon, and
the two men2 Those fellows are going to
Pioneer" "Where?' said Tanning, raising
his head. He rose suddenly and was out of
gone.
This is the last our party ever saw of
Tanning, but heard what follows from
others.
Overtaking the wagon, he was taken to
Pioneer. a mining town twenty miles to-
political meeting, (the election for dele
gate to congress causing considerable ex-
citement.) Tanning represented himself as
an assistant engineer from the Hellgate
party, returning to Helena for instruments.
He desired to make speech, was intro
4 kh~ ..1-A
engineer Of the railroad and greeted with
cheers. He made short, pithy and dorid
speech. After the meeting his snew-found
political friends took good care of him, and
loaned him about $50, on his supposed
connection with the railroad.
Next day he went to Deer Lodge, and re-
manned for several days until meeting DR.:
gone to procure morphine. He then
left for Helena. In Helena, he
again stopped at the Metropol-
itan hotel and occupied room with an.
other man. In the night his companion
heard Tanning moving about the room, and
ct, open the door and disappear into the
street, IN his night clothes. As rapidly as
possible he followed Tanning, rised an
alarm and, with two other men, gave chase.
Tanning was captured about mile from
town, where he sank down exhausted. He
0d0s ~ appears, DutleQ C00 W0CCQ O0IOfo
caught. His captors, pretending they were
vigilantes. and threatening to hang HIM if
he did not reveal the watch, frightened him
into confessing where it was hidden. Next
morning he was handed over to the authori-
ties for trial.
Before the trial came of an account of
the poisoning of our party was published in
name connected with it. In
court the jury found him guilty
of stealing the watch, and the judge SEN
fenced him to seven years. confinement in
the the territorial penitentiary. =
In the year following, 1872, the writer was
again in charge of surveys in Montana and,
for few days in August, the party camped
within sight of of the penitentiary walls at
Deer Lodge, whore poor Tanning was con-
fined. We learned that he was at the point
Of dying with consumption. While we were
in camp near by, he sent for lawyer OF
physician of the place, telling the
ment to make before he died. He e1aoted
a promise that what he was about to tell
should never be divulged. He requested
that his cot be carried out doors, go that it
could not be said he had died within prison
walls. It was done.
What his confession was I could never
learn. 1t must have been the story of a
strange life, mixed, perhaps, with many
dark crimes. Still, after all, he may have
been crazy. T. r. r.
Pittsburgh, February, 1876.