Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1910-01-06
CHAPTER XVI.
Williams Cache.


Ed Banks had been recalled before
daybreak from the middle pass. Two
OF the men wanted were now known
to have crossed the creek, which
meant they must work out OF the coun-
try through Williams Cache.
IF you will take your best two men,
Ed" said Whispering Smith, sitting
down with Banks at breakfast, and
strike straight for Canadian pass to
help Gene and Bob Johnson, I'll under.
take to ride in and talk to Rebstock
while Kennedy and Bob Scott watch
Deep creek. The boy gives good de-
scription, and the two men that did
the job here are Du Sang and Flat
Nose. Did | tell you how we picked
up the trail yesterday? Magpies. They
shot scrub horse that gave cut on
them and skinned the brand. 1t
FASTENED the banquet. but We got there
before the birds we're all seated. Great
luck, wasn't it? And 1t gave us q
beautiful trail. One Of the party
crossed the Goose river at American
fork, and Brill Young and Reed fol-
lowed him. -Four came through the
Mission mountains; that is a cfnch and
they are In the Cache-and II they get
out 1t is our fault personally, Ed, and
not the Lords"
Williams Cache lies In the form OF
great horn, with a narrow entrance
at the lower end known as the Door.
and a rock assure at the upper end
leading into Canadian pass; but this
assure is so narrow that a man with
rifle could Withstand a regiment. For
100 miles east and west rise the gran
lite walls Of the Mission range, broken
nowhere save by the formation known
as the Cache. Even this does not pen.
crate the range; 1t is pocket, and
runs not over halfway into 1t and out
again. But no man really knows the
Cache; the most that may be said 10
that the main valley is known, and II
is known as the toughest mountain
assure between the Spanish sinks and
the Mantrap country. Williams Cache
lies between walls 1000 feet high, and
within 1t Is small labyrinth OF can
yons. A generation ago. when Medi-
cine Bend for one winter was the
terminus of the overland railroad. yigi.
lantes mercilessly cleaned out the
town, and the few outlaws that es.
capped the shotgun and the moose at
Medicine Bend found refuge In a far
away and unknown mountain gorge
once named by French trappers the
Cache. Years after these outcasts had
come to infest 1t came one desperate
more ferocious than all that had gone
before. He made frontier retreat OF
the Cache, and left to 1t the legacy Of
his evil name, Williams. Since his
day 1t has served, as 1t served before.
for the haunt of outlawed men. No
honest man lives in Williams Cache.
and few men Of any sort live there
long, since their lives are lives of vio-
lence; neither the law nor a woman
crosses Deep creek. But from the day
of Williams to this day the Cache has
had it's ruler, and when Whispering
Smith rode with little party through
the Door into the Cache the morning
after the murder In Mission valley he
sent an envoy to Rebstock, whose sue
cess as cattle thief had brought its
inevitable penalty. 1t had made
Rebstock a man of consequence and
of property and man subject to the
anxieties and annoyances OF such re-
sponsibility.
/T0 DUs r0NyrrAyrrr,v,