The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-20

Of hfs susplctohs anu ufbou nun - our party. The pilot came back alone, huf after another wait of a few min- utes tbe willows parted few feet away | and Foote emerged. He carried ms rifle cooked and resting across his left arm. while his right hand held the weapon in position for instant use. the trigger finger ready for action. Inere was a smile on the face of the outlaw. but 1t was one open to doube interpre- tation. It said: T am here 70 meet you either as friend or foe.
 On sight of him we of the PoWel crew threw up our hands in piayiu. submission and called out to him tha. we were his prisoners. HaVlhs
 all guns on the boat all being appar- oiled in rough shirts and trousers that precluded the secreting of weapons, we busied ourselves with the boat wniie Foote sat down upon the bank, rihc across knees, and watched us TUT time, gradually joining 'n the conNe
 sation and accepting us as what Me actually were--explorers With ho "
 sign upon his freedom.
 Camaraderis between men In the wilas comes easily. We were soon on good tesQs with the outlaw and ne m vited us D his cabin, laid down his own gun and busied himself as host
 Some six months previously PnlI Foote and a woman, while the opehias dance of the elegant new hotel at tns mountain spa was in progress, had robbed the guests of the Colorado Hotei at C,Ienwood Springs of tho jewels ana nurses they had left behind In their rooms while engaged in the festivities In inc ballroom. They had escaped ihto Utah with their booty, and after rear izing on the gems Phil, in true outiaw form. had proceeded to lose the spoiis at a gaming table In Salt Lake city. But as the last dollar passed into the cofYers of the faro dealer Phil drew | two guns, covered the dealer ana ue- l handed his money and all else m sish | Tn Western parlance he made gun | play for the bank roll and got sway with it." He escaped from the gam l h,,ng house. fled from Salt Lake to | Green River station. and was stopping | at inc railroad eating house at that | notnt when the United States Marshai of the then territory of Utah came | mon him with two deputies and sur | rounded him Tn his room In the hotei. Foote resisted arrest, hred upon tne | officers. wounded the marshal, ana, Tn | . rain of bullets, leaped from the | second story window of his room, ran under fire to the Green River, seized | a rowboat and put off down stream. | He made his escape by the river 10 q point some sixty miles away and went | into camp on this bottom. He, iike all outlaws, knew the Wild country | and In choosing the bottom on which | to make his camp had picked the one from which there is egress from the | canon walls for the 250 miles between | the mouth of the San Rafael and Hite crossing on the Colorado. A blind. narrow, almost indistinguishable foot trail had been lined by game up the | canbn wall from the river bottom to | the headlands, 2,000 feet above. as a passage to and from water and the | feeding grounds, and so formed the | only train in all that distance by which one might escape from the ca- non.
 Here Foote built him & cabin in the | shelter of the willows and the timber | of the bottom. He had made an occa- sional foraging trip to ranches far above and meagerly outfitted himself | with cooking paraphernalia to the ex- l tent of broken parts of stove to l build around some mud walls, a coffee | pot. skillet and tin cup. For bedding 6
 he had some skins and a blanket or two. He managed to live of the coun-
 try, killing an occasional deer or | mountain sheep that found It's way to | the bottom, or catching a Ash from | the river now and then.
 We had our cooking outfit and sup- | piles. A trip to the boat furnished | coffee, sugar, canned milk and vege-
 tables. Foote had some venison so we
 all turned In and helped get up some-
 thing Of feast. Foote enjoyed 1t, fer
 his food supply was extremely low. A
 new marshal had just been appointed
 in Utah largely on the promise that
 he would clear the territory of out
 laws, and Foote had not ventured from
 hiding for weeks. It was this new
 marshal that he suspected one of our party of being and of coming under
 cover of an exploration to trap him.
 The writer was familiar with the
 news and the men of the West. He
 knew many men that Foote knew and l of many incidents in which the out
 law had figured; he knew friends
 Foote made in his pre-crimlnai days l friends made when the then outlaw
 was the chief peace officer of @ Colo
 rado mining camp and good one, too,
 There was soon a running exchange of | "reminiscences between us. Foote be- gan to talk of discoveries he had made
 and incidents that had brought him
 into the newspapers He was partic-
 ularIy proud of his discovery and ex- | ploration of natural cave in the Glenwood section. It ended by Foote
 bringing to light a scrapbook contain
 ing among others a large number of
 clippings of newspaper accounts of his
 exploits and the robbery of the Colo | rado hotel.
 | Foote pointed these out with some- | thing of pride; his face flushed once | when he called attention to some ref l erence to the woman Dollie, made in
 them, but there was evidence of pride
 fin the exploit and the notoriety 1t | brought. How proud he was of the
 record could be judged by the fact
 that he had brought the scrapbook l into the wilderness with him at no | small sacrifice.
 One does not usually consider an outlaw as a patron of the press bu-
 reaus.
 We all slept In the Foote cabin that
 night, spreading our blankets on the
 dirt floor. It was the first night for
 week that we of the Powell had
 slept under a roof and we enjoyed the
 novelty. Foote had been hungry for
 company of mankind and after the
 suspicion wore off was pleased to have
 us there. Next morning he helped us l with some repairs on the boat talk l ing good care all the time We did not
 spring any trick on him when leaving
 time came, but outwardly displaying
 the most jovial spirit when submitting | to the camera.
 We were three weeks in the canon
 and on the return trip again slept in
 the Foote cabin.
 It was tacitly understood that when
 we reached the outside we were to
 respect the secret of the outlaw. Not
 a word of his presence did one of us
 utter. The honor, of the wilds, of the | xUoodG is hia own The world mt nf if