Durango semi-weekly herald., 1906-03-05

thereafter the bone gatherers who
were still In the business of picking
up the frames of dead buffalo reaped
the harvest of their lives. Senator
Hemingway OF Indiana was a bone
collector in those days on the Kansas
plains. and made enough money out
Of the business to finish mis- education
80 as to finally struggle into tne Amer
lean house of lords.
The Bad Man of Browns Hole.
During the building of the Union
Pacific railroad across the southern
part of Wyoming in the latter Sos the
country was wild and the times tur
bulent, so much so In fact that de-
cent white man mad about all he
could do to hold his own against the
aggressions of all sorts of despera-
does One of the toughest charac-
ters OF that peculiar environment was
a reprobate called Mexican Joe. He
became a prominent and not at all
desirable citizen in and about the
South Pass, the Wyoming mines and
around Green river and Granger.
eighteen miles west. Granger was
the shipping point 10 South Pass dur
ing Joe's time
Joe owned freight team of oxen or
two and went broke on account of
mixing up with some woman upon
whom he spent his money In foolish
and riotous ways. Back from the
railroad and mines the whole country
was pretty much a wilderness so far
rs people living in II were concerned.
1oe got drunk frequently. gambled
md was eternally mixed up in some
sort of row. He claimed to be
;paniad and not Mexican. White
men resented his pretensions to high
lescent and his efforts to maintain
iocial equalities with them. He was
luick to take offense and just as
eady to resort to knife or gun. He
Iad so many fights and rows at South
Pass that the miners finally put up a
oh to get rid of him.
They arranged with young negro
o shoot Joe and when the opportun-
ty came he took a shot at Joe, miss
II and started to run. Then Joe turn
ID loose. one shot striking the niger
II the heel following up the leg and
'ntering his body, intiicting a mortal
wound. Feeling ran high against Joe
'ntil matters came to sucn a pitch
hat he concluded to leave that sec
on. He then moved to Browns
iole during the summer of 1872, a
ocality at tnat time thought to be
he rendezvous of desperate men. Its
iame and isolation just suited des-
eradoes of Joe's kind, because 1t was
lear the triple corner of Wyoming
itah and Colorado, although the
tate lines were not established until
ears afterwards.
1t was wild place but little known
hen and many stories of desperate
,eeds said TO have been done there
we're in circulation. To, tell the truth
hese tales originated in the minds of
1en but come to trace them they
'nded in nothing. Green river tears
IS way through spur OF mountains
rom the great uintah range, enters
8rown's hole, runs eastward for thir.
miles, then bears to the south and
iouthwest and leaves the Hole
through a canon 1000 feet nigh The
ountry is rocky, cut into deep can
ms and gorges, from Olympian
leights to Tartarus depths. home
or Olympian gods or the imps of
ladies'. That is the way the country
ooked to j. S. Hoy at first sight
when he arrived there In December.
1872.
He shortly afterwards became ac-
lnainted WITH the feared and notori-
)us Mexican Joe who had been run
)ut of Wyoming and was considered
he most desperate man in that coun-
try. He had ten Mexcans with him
Turing the winter of 1923. Two OF
he ten were his nephews, young fell
ows of Is or 20. In the spring of
1873 one of them died from consump-
lion and his was the second grave
II the Hole OF person not an In
liam. The career of Mexican Joe in
Browns Park was full of stirring in
'idents some of which will be relat-
ed by Mr.. Hoy in these columns in
The future.
How Band of Elk Was Caught.
About thirty years ago Montana
hunter named Vic Smith made a trip
east and in the parks and ZOOS saw
many of the animals he had been ac-
custOmed IN see rinninp Wild pa