The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1924-04-18
THE OUTLAW
A. D. 1896

Dawn was breaking of a summers
day in 1896, when Green-Grass-Grow
ing-in-the-Water, a red Indian scout,
came trotting into Fort Macleod, Cana
da, with dispatch from Standoff for
Superintendent Steele Of the Mounted
Police. He brought news that the body
of Blood warrior, Medicine-Pipe-
Stem, shot through the skull, and three
weeks dead, had been found in an
empty cabin.
The Blood tribe knew how Bad
Young Man, known to the whites as
Charcoal, had three weeks before come
home from hunting trip to his little
cabin where his wife, the Marmot,
lived. He had found his wife in the
arms of Medicine-Pipe-Stem and, by
his warriors right to defend his own
honor, had shot the intruder down.
Charcoal had done justice, and the
tribe was ready TO take his part, what
ever the agent might say or the Mount
ed Police might do for the white mans
law.
A week had passed of close inquiry,
when one Of the scouts rode up to the
ration house, where the people were
drawing their supplies of beef, and
gave warning that Charcoal was be-
trayed to the Mounted Police. Char
coal demanded the name of his be-
trayer, and learned that Mr.. Wilson,
the agent, was his enemy. That eve
ming Charcoal waited outside the
agents house, watching the lighted
windows, where, on the yellow blinds
there were passing shadows cast by
the lamp within, as various members
of the household went about their
business. At last he saw Mr. Wilson's
shadow on the blind, fired and shot the
agent through the thigh. The house
hold covered the lamps, closed the
shutters, sent for help and hid the
wounded man on a couch behind the
front door, well out of range from the
windows. Next morning, in broad day
light, Charcoal went up to the house
with rifle TO finish Wilson, walked
in and looked about him, but failed to
discover his victim behind the open
door. He turned away and rode for
the hills. The Mounted Police, turned
out for the pursuit, were misled by a.
hundred rumors.
d troop at the time numbered one
hundred and seventy men, the pick of
the regiment, including some of the
greatest riders and teamsters in North
America, and led by Col. S. B. Steele,
the most distinguished Of all Canadian
frontiersmen. After he had posted
men to guard all passes through the
Rocky mountains, he had a district
about ninety miles square combed over
necessarily by strong patrols, so that
Charcoafs escape seemed nearly inn
possible. The district, however, was
one of foothills, bush, winding gorges,
tracts of boulders, and to the east
ward prairie, where the whole Blood
and Piegan tribes were using every
subtlety of Indian craft to hide the
fugitive.
Inspector Jervis, with twenty police
and some scouts, had been seventy
hours in the saddle, and camped at Big
Bend exhausted. when rider came
flying in reporting Charcoal as seen at
Kootenai. The white men rallied for
the twenty-eight-mile march, but the
Indians lay, and were kicked, done for,
refusing to move. The white men
scrambled to their saddles, and reeled
off on the trail, uncomfortable.
nbt
news to Mr.. Jervis that while cutting
fence rails, he had seen Charcoal creep
out from the bush and make off with
his coat. So this Mormon led them to
little meadow, where they found and
surrounded a tent. Then Mr.. Jervis
took two men and pulled aside the
door, while they covered the place with
their revolvers. Two Mormons were
brought out, shaking with fright, from
the tent.
Further on in the gray dawn, they
came to another clearing, and second
tent, which they surrounded. Some
noise disturbed the Marmot, who crept
sleepily to the door, looked out, then,
with a scream, warned her husband.
Charcoal slashed with his knife through
the back of the tent, crept into the
bush, and thence fred, his bullet
knocking the cap from the officers
head but volley failed to reach the
Indian.
So far, in many weeks of the great
hunt, Charcoal had his loyal wife to
ride with him, and they used to follow
the police patrols in order to be sure
of rest when the pursuers camped. Two
police horses, left half-dead, were
taken up and ridden by this couple an
extra forty miles. An officer and a
buck were feeding at Boundary Creek
detachment when Mr.. and Mrs. Char
coal stole their chargers out of the sta
BILE. But now Charcoal had to face
the prospect of lone fight, and with
the loss of his family, fell into blind
despair. Then all his kinsfolk, to the
number of thirty-seven, were arrested
and lodged in prison.
Since his raid on the horses at Boun-
dairy Greek, all police stables were
locked, and visited frequently at night.
Corporal Armour. at Lees Creek, came
out swinging his lantern, shifting at the
night. bound for the stable, when he
saw a sudden blaze revealing an Indian