The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1923-12-27

many have seen Suc1-Dut Tor
myself I prefer the living present,
and to speculate on what the future
has in store for our world. Look
ing backward requires effort; and
the young, half-grown girl who
heard her elders tell h%air-raising
tales of road agents, and who
watched Henry Plummer, we'll
dressed and eminently respectable
appearing, go back and forth to
town almost daily, does not seem
to be myself at all, but some stran-
ger. Yet it was surely I, who in
that far-away past, looking out of
my window, saw two men cross the
bridge over the Grasshopper to
Yankee Flat.
One of these men was not par
ticularly noticeable, although the
company he kept indicated that he
did not belong to the towns bet
ter element. The other attracted
my attention. Tall and rather slen-
der, he wore a full suit of buckskin,
new and cream colored, and liberal
ly ornamented with fringe of the
same around the bottom of the coat
and its collar. His broad brimmed
SLOUGH felt hat covered partially
the carroty red hair that fell in
long, struggling locks to his shout
ders.
| could not see his face, but his
general makeup was that of the
typical bandit and this he proved
to be. I watched him as long as
he remained on the Flat, where he
had gone to catch some straying
horses, and when he ~recrossed the
Grasshopper on his way to town,
I fastened to inquire who he was.
Those who knew him told me it
was that famous outlaw, Ned Ray,
one of Plummer's band, who kept
the council rooms of the organiza-
ton in Bannack, and was later !
hanged with his chief, on that fate
full night of January 10, 1868. :
Although designated as council /,
room keeper for the robbers, Ray
took his full share in the outrages
they committed. 1t was he, who
with Buck Stinson, attempted to
hold up Leroy Southmayd, of
which a vivid picture is given by
Prof. Dimsdale, in his Vigilantes
of Montana, as expurgated by !
the original version doubt
less being still more vivid.
Ray did not meekly submit to
MS captors, but fought them to the
end, and he was the last to die.
After death his body was given to
he woman who loved him for
\
Near the close of a bleak, sunless
December day, when the leaden- |
lued clouds hiding the sky were +
growing black with the ap- +
,roach of night, a horseman topped 1
he Horse Prairie hill, and rode \
down it. A horseman on +
hat hill did not constitute an I'm \
lsual sight at any time of the day;
nut a horseman riding at a snail's :
ace naturally awakened curiosity.
We stood in our back door, my d'
Lucia Darling, and I, and =
yatched him descending, and noted
hat he carried a gun on his saddle, in
where it was quickly available. F
md this was not all which caused BY
S to wonder whom he could be. di
few feet before him walked a pa
The horseman could easify ev
ave passed the pedestrian, but he er
arefully kept the same distance FL
ehind him. ag
The two came down the hill wi
-ossed the Flat and the Grasshop- TO
er, and passed out of our sight. ne
Je at once told my father Judge
dgerton-what we had seen, tn
linking he might know what it a
cant, and satisfy our curiosity. hi
ut he was as ignorant regarding we
as we. VIZ
A half hour later there was a thu
call for my father to at IN
nd a conference of the Citizens Bu
mmittee; and the messenger in TIN
rmed us that Neil HOWE had cal
ptured one of Plummer's band, caI
Town as Dutch John" but whose
name was John Wagner. on
e had been brought to town, and 10
was his case my father was to Inc
nsider. VIII
"Then it was Neil HOWE we saw to
in his prisoner" we said. to
was the reply, Neil came OF
town ahead of him, to tell the me-
,,Toi++aa opd have them find a mac