Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1928-04-06
Clarence Young, Bandit, After Is Years
I'm Prison. Now Am Oklahoma FARMER

engineer has gone crazy. This train Is
going faster than any passenger train
ever vent over the line and 1t is danger
ous.' Then / got worried, too, but there
was no way to shut him down. The en-
gineer, by the way, was later suspended
for 80 days without pay because of that
wild ride.
after I got back to Missoula h
Granite county sheriff got me on the
wire and said the bandit knew me OF
said hi did. l could not believe 1t was
Clarence Young, because he had a good
reputation, never smoked, gambled or
drank. He was a likeable fellow and had
a lot of friends.
HE left home when he was is years
old and his folks had never heard from
him. They did not know he was IN the
penitentiary until a year or so before ne
was paroled. His home was In Dakota,
but his parents later wen to Kansas and
later Oklahoma.
While he was in the penitentiary
there was a break in which a guard, Rob-
inson. was killed. That was back in 1907
or 1903. Two prisoners, Rock and Hayes,
who had fashioned knives from machine
bolts, n who killed Robinson, both
/ were tried, convicted n hung. Young
and another prisoner also were tried.
He pleaded guilty, although he had moth
ing to do with the break, n got a life
sentence. The other man, whose name
/ do not recall, was acquitted when he
stood trial on the charge.
Even after being in the penitentfary
Young never wrote his people, but in
some manner they gained an idea he was
in trouble. A brother, Percy, and his
mother came out here and learned that
Clarence was in the pen for life. CLAIR
ence told him that he had once worked
for Dan Graham. who was in Missoula
and might help him get out.
when the brother came to Missoula
he looked me up. The day he came
around / was on a job Of extending q
water main for the public service COM
pany across the river.
II talked the matter over with Percy,
when he asked about my brother Dan.
Dan, l told him, was in the Clearwater
country in the forest and / did not be-
lieve he could even find him in there. I
told Percy I would give him a job on the
water works job and we would talk
things over and see what could be done
Il got out petitions, which were circu-
lated in Missoula, the Bitter Root and
the Blackfoot. The most prominent bust
ness men, farmers and professional men
Of the district appeared upon the petit
tions.
I'm due time Clarence was paroled. He
came over to Missoula where he spent o
day, then he came down to Arlee where
/ was building q bridge and where his
brother, Percy, was working for me. The
boys were with me a few days on that
job and then went to the home of their
parents In Oklahoma, where Clarence
turned farmer to run the ranch of his
father, who was too old to handle it.
Clarence often told me that he
thought he had everything planned out
in that train holdup. He had made even
better plans than the men before him,
who were caught, but through a slip he
was caught in the act.
He told me there was no such thing
as a perfect crime, that he had seen
many men go into the big gray walls at
Deer Lodge who had figured on perfect
plans to keep them out. There is al
ways a telltale behind, he said, and from
now on I am going to be an honest
farmer"
Mr.. Graham has been in communion
ton with Clarence since he returned TO
Oklahoma and says that he is making
good down there. 81 never will think,
though, that he had anything to do with
the prison break at Deer Lodge two years
after he was put in there Graham said.
Mr.. Wilson, the engineer who was one
of the two men to capture Young, still
lives in Missoula. He retired from the
railroad service some time ago. MIR. Loeb,
the express messenger, continued In serv-
ice for years. He died four or five years
ago.