Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-10-21

they rode over Flagstaff proper. They
turned several tricks with the aid of rope
that were nowhere near on the square,
and they kited several men who were
pretty generally thought to be innocent
by Flagstaff folks who didn't take any
name of stock in the Strangers or tho
strangers h~aphazard way of doing
things. So that when this thing that
I'm going to tell you about happened
there was a pretty strong und~er-current
of feeling in Flagstaff against the Strang-
lers. Nobody talked much about it, but
some pretty influential men in Flagstaff
were known to entertain the opinion that
the Strangers had been becoming decid-
edly too large as to their individual chest
measurements, and that the outfit need
Ell some trimming here and there.
UNWARRANTED ABUSE OF TWO
BROTHERS.
The beginning of the .tranglers' winds
up was when one of the most prominent
of their number began picking On the
Burns boys, Charley and Frank. Old
man Burns ran the Burns house in Flag
staff. and these boys were his sons.
Charley was about 33. and Frank was
2S. They were both square men. as men
went down in the southwest at that time.
They didn't pretend to be sanctified, but
they kept as well within the law as any
of us. There was no reason on earth
why they should have been singled out
to be picked on by the Strangers. but
they We're. One day this prominent
Stranger that l mentioned walke into
the Burns house. Charley and Frank
We're playing seven-up for dollars at the
table not far from the desk. A few by
ISLANDERS We're poking around. This
Stranger mar began shooting it into
Charley Burns in a pretty strong way of
limiting about stage robbery that had
been pulled off not for fran Flagstaff a
couple of weeks previous. Charley wasn't
a coward-not by a whole row of 'dobes-
but he knew that if he went at the
Stranger he'd not only get it himself,
but that his brother and his old father
would probably nave to tangle. Any.
way. he wasn't fixed. He had laid side
his belt for more comfort in sitting down.
So he didn't say much in reply TO the
Strangers rigs. Frank, his younger
brother, fumed. but he didn't cut in until
the Stranger walked over to the bar, at
the far end of the office, to get d drink
Then he said in an angry undertone to his
brother:
! "'Charley. if you're not man enough to
take your own end of it against that
juniper, l am
"I'm not fixed said Charley.
Crank passed his brother a gun under
the tables.
CHOW call him down. he said.
'tharley sort O. hesitated. He was a
cooler-headed man than his younger bro
ther, and he wanted to keep out of trouble
II he could. SO he damned the gun into
MS Walstband and sat in a sort of a
guess. The Stranger walked from tn,
bar toward the door.
You may hear something,' he said,
stopping at the door and looking at Char
ley Burns Significantly.
just wait a minute said Charley.
getting from the table and walking over
to the Stranger, Let's hear it now
DAVE BLACK AROUSED.
They got into q clinch right then. 1t all
happened pretty suddenly, but the only
man struck by a shot was the inevitable
innocent bystander. He was killed as
dead as a mackerel. Then the STRANGERS
seemed to come out OF the ground, and 10
minutes later both of the Burns boys
were landed in separate cells in the Jail.
ina night the Strangers broke into the
Jail and shot Charley Burns to death in
his cell. They shot Frank up a heap,
too, but he was still breathing when they
yanked him out of his cell and strung him
up.
Nov, here was a dirty bit of work. 1t
got on the nerves of all Of us, more or
less. who didn't belong to the STRANGERS.
There was plenty of ugly talk about the
ouftt from that night-plain talk, spoken
right out loud. Among the people who
didn't hesitate to express themselves
audibly of the way the Strangers were
ovtrstepping the mark We're Ed Fay and
Doc Radde, both of whom dealt faro in
Dave Blacks big place. They were both
quiet men, and game. But that Burns
job got the them on the raw and neither
of 'em hesitated a holy minute in saying
|. The result was that one afternoon
they got a joint invitation, conveyed in
writing. from the Strangers, to leave
Flagstaff on the l1:3O train for Phoenix
that night.
Are you going, Doc?' Fay asked Rad
de when they'd read the note,
NO. said Radde.
.Neither am L. said Fay,
They took the Strangers invitation to
Dave Black. their employer. There never
were many better nor gamer men in the
Southwest than Dave Black. He was a
man of absolute integrity. and he had a
heart as big as a bullock's under his vest.
But he Vas agin the Strangers from
away back. The Strangers note to Fay
and Radde made him hostile instantly.
He pasted the note on one of the walls
of his place. Then ne outs with both of
his guns, and he describes a pretty exact
circle on that piece of paper with bullets.
Then he took a carpenters pencil and
wrote this across the Whole face of the
punctured note:
strangers Take Warming
GETTING READY FOR RETRIBU-
e. TON.
"Dave Black was on the warpath. He
walked out in the air for a while and stud
led the situation, and then he retired to
his place, where his two warned dealers,
Fay and Radde, were waiting for him.
They had a talk. AT the conclusion Of the
talk Black handed each man a $500 bill.
I'm case the play doesn't go Trough
he explained, and you boys have to drill,