of the English boys, well known as desperate characters.  I was stunned, perplexed.  The Sheriff asked me to place him under arrest.  But how could I do so, after all he had done for me?  It appeared in my eyes the depth of ingratitude.  In my dilemma I laid the matter before Judge Frank Nichols of Prineville.  I related all the boy had done for me, and asked him what, under like circumstances, he would do.  “By George, Colonel, I would not give him up.  It may be wrong, but I would not do it,” replied the old Judge.  We then went to Mr. Brayman, a merchant of the town, and laid the matter before him.  He fully agreed with us that the boy should be saved.  I then went to the quartermaster, got a voucher for the boy’s services, obtained the money on the voucher from Mr. Brayman, and putting a man on a horse, explained to him that he was to hand the letter and money to Eugene, first having him to sign the voucher, or warrant, over to Mr. Brayman.

The young man found the boy with the volunteers.  He called him to one side, gave him my letter as well as the money.  He signed the voucher, and that night disappeared and I never saw or heard of him again.  But of this I feel certain, if he fell in with the right class of men he made a good man and citizen.  Otherwise, otherwise.  Do you blame me, reader?  I have never felt a regret for what I did.  Put yourself in my place.

Chapter XIX.

Reign of the Vigilantes.

Every newly settled country has had to deal, to a greater or less extent, with lawless characters.  Generally these outlaws have been brought into subjection and destroyed under the operation of law.  Occasionally, however, this, from one cause or another, has been impossible.  It is then that citizens, unable longer to bear the outrages committed by desperate criminals, take the law into their own hands and administer justice according to their own ideas of right, and without the forms of law.  Such occasions are always to be deplored.  They arise from two causes, the maladministration of justice and bloodness of criminals whose long immunity from punishment renders them reckless and defiant of both law and the citizens.

Such conditions existed in the late 70’s and early 80’s in that portion of Eastern Oregon now embraced in the county of Crook.  During several years desperate characters had congregated in that section.  From petty crimes, such as the stealing of cattle and horses, they resorted to bolder acts, embracing brutal and diabolical murder.  For a time the citizens appeared helpless.  Men were arrested for crime and the forms of law gone through with.  Their associates in crime would go into court, swear them out and then boast of the act.  On one occasion I went to one of the best and most substantial citizens of the country, Wayne Claypool, and asked him about an act of larceny of which he had been a witness.  He had seen the crime committed