Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1906-01-02
RETIRED WESTERN OUTLAWS.
Former Bad Men Who Have Settled
Down Quietly.

| REIlRED WESTERN OO OIIAWS.
Former Bad Men Who Have Settled
| Down Quietly.
What to do with the ex-presidents
Is no bigger problem to politicians than
what to do with It's retired outlaws is
to the west" said an Indian Territory
official. I'm several notable instances
the courts have kindly solved the prob
lem and the erstwhile bandits are liv-
ing lives Of seclusion and industry in
the Federal penitentiary at Leaven-
worth.
But what is to become of the for
mer bad man who has finished his term
of imprisonment, or against whom no
jury will return a verdict, or, more
difficult still, who defies capture while
apparently courting it?
Oklahoma and the Indian Territory
are at present graphing with this de-
licate subject, but the time is not far
distant when 1t will travel westward, as
have many Of the outlaws whom 1t
concerns, and will be met in Wyoming
and Dakota where these men have fled.
Already No Mans Land Of northern
Wyoming has become known as a ref
uge where bandits, active or otherwise,
are safe from pursuit.
Its first settlers were the overflow
Of fugitive population from the Hole In
the Wall country of Wyoming. Thirty
or forty desperadoes formed a coloniz-
ing party that first moved to the val
ley. They built houses and stocked
their ranches with cattle and horses
acquired after their own distinctive
manner.
"They have been there for nearly two
years now, and their number is con-
stantly growing. The settlement Is
closely watched by officers, but so long
as the desperadoes remain within their
self established limits they are prac-
tically safe.
There are several women in the
valley including the wives of some Of
the outlaws. The existence Of the set
tlement Is a constant evaporation to
the officers, for IL 1t could be success
fully raided and the bandits all cap
tured the sum total Of rewards would
establish sherifrs posse comfortably
for the rest of its natural existence.
But 1t is not the outlaws who have
gone but the outlaws who remain that
afford embarrassing problems. To be
sure the Indian Territory is discreet
and seldom asks questions, and an out
law, married and settled down, soberly
farming or ranching, is as good as the
next man.
But the territory is not the un-
tanned country 1t was in the early days.
The line must be drawn somewhere
and the records of these one time bad
men are not so politely ignored, indeed
defended, as they were in the old days.
Fifteen years ago Jim Younger, re-
leased from his long term in the Min
nesota penitentiary, would not have
found the world so cold and forbid
ding as to drive him to suicide.
"Of all In6ian Territory's famous bad
men the one who has most nearly solv-
ed the question Of what to do with
himself under the new conditions Is
Henry Starr, member of the famous
Starr gang, that at one time terrorized
that country. Starr Is a relative OF
Belle Starr, probably the most motor
Iious woman outlaw Of the west, who
was at one time the wife Of Cole Youn-
ger, and whose bloody record was at
strange variance with the warm heart
ed womanly impulses that occasionally
manifested themselves.
After the death of Belle and her
husband Henry was the leader Of the
gang, and, young as he was, was even
more daring than his predecessors. He
was three times tried for murder, and
twice convicted, with many trials for
robbery thrown in, and innumerable
accusations that were never wholly
proved.
| so great was his daring that 1t was
admired even by the officers who hunt
ed him. His last conviction brought
him sentence for fifteen years for
robbery, but his sentence was COM
muted on account Of his bravery In
quelling a riot in the Fort Smith jail,
where he was confined.
| Starr returned to his old haunts
apparently changed man, and nothing
in his record in the two or three years
| that have since passed has altered his
determination to be on the square. He
himself attributes his change Of heart
to his wife, as pretty an Indian girl as
there Is In the territory and Of one
of the best families of the Cherokee
Nation.
| She had been graduated from the
Cherokee Female seminary, and was
teaching school in the neighborhood
when, from among her many suitors,
she chose the handsome young ex-out-
law and with him settled down on a
farm near Tulsa. There Is strain OF
Cherokee In Starr himself, and the
Dawes commission has allotted to both
him and his wife valuable farming
property, from which the one time fug-
tive will some day be comfortably
rich man.
THE territory Is proud Of Starr and
the manly way in which he Is living
down his past. 1t is proud, too, though
in another way, Of Ben Cravens, the
outlaw who set more officers at def
ance in the most insultingly airy fash
ion than any criminal who ever held
a whole territory in submission.
After making a sensational escape
from the Kansas penitentiary by charg-
ing the guard with a gun that he had
cut out of soft pine and covered with
tin foil, Cravens kept in comparative
seclusion in southwest Oklahoma.
Several affairs in Missouri have been
charged up to him, whether rightfully
or wrongfully no one knows but Cra-
vens. and he won't tell, and there are
number of localities in Oklahoma
where he is wanted by officers.
But every town in the territory Is
veritable nest of his friends, who so
completely surround and safeguard him