The morning times., 1895-07-07

seems to be as manlike as any of her COM
panions in crime. Such was the case with
the young woman in Missouri, who was
the leader of garg OF horse thieves, and
whose sex was never suspected until after
her arrest. And in the meantime her raids
upon stable and pasture had been par
ticularly daring and successful.
Of all the women whom fin de steele de-
generacy, or love Of adventure, or need OF
extracting a living from the world has
driven into this form of activity, the one
with the most checkered career is Mrs.
Helen Scott, OF Southern New Mexico For
four yearsthiS woman was one OF the leading
spirits in a gang Of ex-cowboys who
had become horse thieves. They ranged all
over Southern New Mexico and Arizona,
and slipped over the line into Old Mexico
whenever the sheriffs and deputy marshals
were too warm on their track. They cap
tured more horses, disposed of them 10 better
advantage and eludcd the officersof the law
more successfully than any other band Of
horse thieves in the southwest. One OF
the men, after they were finally captured,
privately declared that much OF their
success was due to the wariness and
astuteness of MIS-. Scott's counsels and
methods. She dressed all that time in
mems clothes, aud nobody would have
guessed from her appearance that she was
NllluE DIl Il c4GllNt-i suUllAS'li!C DDl. htI
companions all knew her Sex, and among
them and the sheriffs who chased her for
four years she was known as Curly Hank
Holder-shorteDed usually to Curly Hank
For her hair, unlike that of the Montana
woman, did not need the curling iron to keep
it in waves and curls all over her head
Mrs. Scott had been a wife aud the mother
of four children before she took to outlawry.
During her married life she had lived in
Texas, where existence for her had beeua
patient, uneventful and dutiful S it is for
thousands of other wives and mothers.
When her husband died she took her
children to Ell Paso and struggled along,
earning living for them S best she could.
Then one day she put them to board with a
poor womanand nd disappeared. For four years
afterward She would appear once in two
or three months, make them a short visit,
pay for their board in advance, buy clothes
for them, make then presents, and then
sink into the unknown again.
But the battle of wits between out
laws and sherffs, however long it may
last, is bound in time to be won by the
sheriffs. And so at last Mrs. Scott and
her cowboy band were capture din Dona
Ana County, New Mexico, and taken to
Las Cruces for trial.
Mrs. Scott's case aroused much sym
pathy, for her face was refined and at
tractive, her manner modest, and her
speech that ofan educated. cultured woman
And of course lawyers and Judge and jury
and everybody else in the commu nifty were
much impressed by her fine, womanly ap-
pearance, her lawyer made the most of the
feeling in her favor that was possible and
she was found not guilty.
After the trial was over, Mrs. Scott,
in conversation, frequently admitted her
connection with the horse thieves Asked
how she came to adopt such life, she
replied:
''I had to make n living for my chill
dren, and was tired of struggling along
in the hand-to-m sort Of way. l tried
my very best, and all could do was to get
them barely enough to eat and wear.
wanted to do more than that,and this was
the only way could see of accomplishing
anything else'
There may have been truth in what
she said, but it certainly was not the
whole truth. A part thereof is that
she was deeply in love with the leader
of the banda siX-foot specimen of cow
boy skill and daring. 1t was probably a
case in which love said Come and the