Arizona state miner., 1925-05-23
EARLY DAYS ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER
How Judges Juries and Lawyers Played to the Backegs


the West from the Kingman Miner
will interest every reader of this pa
per and illustrates some of the from
tier usages that the hardy pioneers
had to contend with, not only in Ar-
zona, but in every western state and
territory that was terrorized by out
laws and bandits.
A replica of this story can be found
in all camps of Arizona, as may be at
tested by every pioneer of the state.
"The Spoilers" by Rex Beach, Illus
trates true to life the trials and trOu-
bles of the Alaskan miners who were
robbed and pilfered of their gold by
sO-called legal procedures. The happy
vein Of the author is in the usual
"gambolier" style of the territories
which justified almost any usage or
device to get the money:
Mounted on rangy, tall and knob
by old white mule, link Barnes am
bled into the thriving camp of Phoebe
from Arizona
Although it was a bleak autumnal
day, links multitude of sartorial de-
ficiencies were covered by q long linen
duster, buttoned from the neck down
While poor for the nonce in ma
terial wealth, link carried beneath
the fIoppy old hat that framed his
round candid infantiIe eyes, a clever
brain, whose mechanism was admir-
ably adapted to the separation OF
the unwary from their money.
For, albeit doomed to waste his
shrewdness on the desert air, link
was a genius-pOssesso of an in
verted, topsy-turvy sort of genius
which, rightly directed, might have
made him famous man. Indeed, he
was famous enough locally. His
homely epigrams attained to a wider
currency in the Sagebrush state than
the witticisms and wise sayings of
all the other bright minds drawn
hither by the universal magnet-go1d.
1t was he who, in day when
the federal bench in Nevada was
made up of jurists not only venal,
but undependable in their venality,
defined an honest judge as "a judge
who will stay bought" and who, re-
ferring to an unscrupulous and case
hardened millionaire, said that "the
tears of widders and orphans is wa.
ter on his wheel"
A Quick Change
He won his first fame soon after
his arrival in Nevada. He was one
of party of prOspectors that eu-
countered band of Indians in war
paint. All the prOspectors, except
link, who rode a mule, were on mus
tangs and made fleet getaway But
links lazy, stubborn mount baked,
and as his comrades rode off they
could hear his voice lifted implOring-
1y:
wait a minutet Wait a minute,
boys. There's only a handful of In
juns, jest little handful We can
lick 'em easy if you'll only make a
stand"
But the boys were in hurry and
it looked like a warm finish for link
Barnes when an arrow struck the
mule in the rear, causing him to for
get the habits of a lifetime In a
few minutes he had Overtaken the
fleetest mustang and his master could
be heard vociferating as they breezed
by:
Come on, you sons of guns, come
on! If there's one Injun back there,
they's million!"
Long after link Barnes had be-
NOA4O OuC a III LuS 0dSG-
brush state that anecdote was related
to show how circumstances may alter
the point of view
During most of the decade after its
discovery, the Comstock, where link
came to anchor, was the scene of in
cessant mining litigation, and what
he didn't learn about the tricks of
the game wasn't worth learning. But
the day came when all Comstock IT,
ties had been settled one way or an
other, and link, in search of new
fields, had invaded Phoebe.
Western Stage Robbers
His first care was to look the town
over. AS he might have expected,
an article he had recently read in
the New York Herald proved to be
slightly exaggerated in some res
poets. The Herald correspondent
had said that the Phoebe graveyard
was tenanted by 200 murdered men;
that the merchants did business by
day and robbed coaches by night;
that the great majority of women
were no better than they should be,
and that there were a number of re-
tired stage robbers in Phoebe who new.
er robbed the coaches because thay
We're on the express company's pay
roll. This last observation, by the
way, seemed to annoy Jack Harris,
who had been a highly successful
stage robber in western Nevada but
who, in Phoebe, lived life of my