The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-12-25

to California in 1850, when he was only
II years old, and started in to try to
win his fortune by hard work, quietly
and decently. Although he never bat
tied around the world any guess it
was his first venture from hime-he
was a manly, plucky sort of young
chap, and buckled right down to hard
work as if he'd always been used to it.
He worked in the mines in Placer coun-
ty for about three years, he was getting
on fairly well. Then, one day in So a
miner from Iowa Hill started down to
Sacramento with a lot of dust packed
on a mule. a day or two afterward
his mule turned up in camp, and his
partner organized a search for him.
They found his body half buried beside
q bOWlder, with several bullets in it,
and no trace of his dust anywhere. His
partner accused Dick Barter of having
committed the murder for the purpose
of stealing the dead mans dust. 1t
was known that Dick had been over
that road at about the same time as
the dead man must have passed the
place where his body was found, and
that was about all the evidence there
was against him. But there had been
too much of that sort of thing going
on and everybody felt that something
must be done to inspire respect for
the possibility of punishment and make
life and property a little safer.
BARTER BECOMES A BANDIT.
Barter protested his innocence, but
the dead mans partner succeeded in
fishing up some evidence that made it
look as if Dick might be guilty. They
found some gold nuggets in his cabin
l believe, that the other man said he
was sure had belonged to his partner
The end of it was that Dick was ar
rested and tried, and, mainly because
everybody felt that an example must
be made, he was sentenced to prison
for two wears. Rather queer SEN
tence, III admit, for if he was guilty
he deserved more, and if he wasn't
he ought to have been acquitted. But
[ reckon the idea was not to make it
too hard on him for fear he might not
be guilty, and at the same time every
body felt that somebody had to be
punished. He served his time, and
when he came out he was a changed
man. He swore that if the officers OF
the law were so anxious to arrest and
punish criminals, he'd give them some
thing to do that would be worth while.
Barter was particularly revengeful
against Jim Boggs, the sheriff who had
arrested him, and he swore by every
thing he could think of that he would
| lead BOSgSA a DuSy lie from that time
on but he declared, too, that neither
Boggs nor any other officer should ever
| take him again. And then he started
out on his self-appointed mission to
get even with the law, the officers, and
the institutions which, he declared, had
wrongfully accused and punished him.
And he just everlastingly did it, too
1.-THE first thing he did was to go up
into Shasta county and hold up a stage
in order to get some money with which
to get his scheme started Then he
came right back to Placer county and
organized a gang Of the worst desper-
ADDE'S he could get hold Of All told
he had about dozen of the most reck-
| less, brutal characters to be found on
the coast, although they were not all
with him all the time. He was their
leader and chief, and the one thing he
required of them was implicit obedi-
ence. If any of them rebelled against
! his authority, or failed to carry out or
ders, that was the end of him. He
gave the officers no more trouble. OF
course, Dick held these villains to-
gether with the booty which they cap
tured. He himself did not care at all
for the money they stole, and divided
it all up among his gang. They al
said that he never kept for himself
any more than was necessary for very