Early Day Trading with the Nevada Mining Camps

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 26, 1958, No. 4

EARLY DAY TRADING WITH THE NEVADA MINING CAMPS

By William R. Palmer

In 1861, '62, and '66 the United States government took three ribs from die then gigantic territory of Utah and created the state of Nevada. The operation, like an appendectomy, brought relief from the pains and ulcers which constantly afflicted Utah's extreme right side. Something there was always festering and in eruption, and the people were resentful of every restraint or legal poultice that was imposed from the Mormon capital city of Great Salt Lake. They wanted freedom, not government — freedom to do> their own hangings and to decide titles to mining claims with the shotgun.

The government had its hands too full with the Civil War and its adjustments to give much supervision or guidance to the vigorous, selfwilled new state, and the state did little or nothing to regulate its turbulent citizenry. The shotgun was for years the law of the land, and Nevada became at once the capital of the "Wild and Woolly West."

The chief purpose of creating this new state was to save Virginia City, with its fabulous Comstock Lode, for the Union. The move amply justified itself, for the silver of Virginia City went far toward paying the Civil War debt.

Thus, Nevada, through its first three or four decades, could hardly be called a law-abiding state. Through the 1860's and on down to 1900, it was overrun with cattle rustlers, gamblers, thieves, robbers, soldiers of fortune, white slavers, and fugitives from justice from all the odier states. Mormons from Utah were regarded as legitimate prey, and there was, in fact, little law for the protection of any travelers. This was especially true in the southern mining areas where Mormon produce peddlers went to market their surplus farm products.

The last large slice of Utah (1868) added to Nevada brought the joint state line to its present location, and that line became at once the line of cleavage between two violently clashing ideologies — the Mormons in Utah and the law-disdaining wild western inhabitants of Nevada. Between them, frictions were inevitable and clashes frequent. Still, they could not build impenetrable walls between themselves, for they were mutually dependent in a very real and vital way upon each other. The Mormon settlements of southern Utah produced surpluses of farm commodities — grain, flour, hay, meats, dairy supplies, lumber, shingles, mine timbers, molasses, wine, and fruits — and the only available practical market for these commodities was the Nevada mining camps. Utah had almost everything needful but money, and of this there was always a desperate shortage. Nevada, on the odier hand, had plenty of money, but was short of the common necessities such as hay, grain, and other food supplies.

And so, with only an imaginary line between them, Nevada was lacking everything but cash, and Utah, with a surplus of foods and other supplies, always was desperately in need of money.

Yet, with this ideal economic situation of rich cash markets on one side of the line and a surplus of the needed supplies on the other, Mormon peddlers crossed that line at their peril. They could take their loads into Nevada with safety, but coming back with money was always an anxious hazard. Somewhere along the lonely road in the thick cedars, or in some rocky winding canyon, many of them were held up at gunpoint and robbed. Enough peddlers, however, made it through in safety, and the need for money in Utah was so pressing that men were always ready to take the chance.

Pioche was the hungriest camp within the range of southern Utah, and peddlers from Millard, Beaver, Iron, and Washington counties went there. Usually they did well in spite of the risks.

The rich ores of Pioche were discovered as early as 1864, but the camp developed rather slowly at first. About 1870 a Frenchman named F. L. A. Pioche came in and began development in earnest. The camp was named for him. Soon two other men, William Raymond and John Ely, came in and began working the Raymond-Ely section of the camp. Outlaws, gamblers, saloon men, claim jumpers, and bad men and wild women of every kind swarmed in, and Pioche soon became the wildest, bloodiest, most lawless camp in the whole west — rivaling even Tombstone in Arizona. Murders were almost weekly occurrences, and it was a dull week when there were no killings. Most of these were in the saloons and gambling dens, and Pioche still boasts that it had seventytwo killings before there was one natural death. Its "Boot Hill Cemetery" holds nearly a hundred graves (exact number not known), and the names of many of those who fill them were never known.

As stated before, the Nevada mining camps were the market places for about all the surplus commodities produced by the southern Utah farmers. Taking hay, grain, flour, hams, bacon, poultry, young pigs, lumber, shingles, mine timbers, butter, cheese, and many other things to supply Pioche, Bullionville, and other camps, produce peddlers were on the road almost constantly.

For a time the camps welcomed the Utah men, bought their produce, and treated them fairly — the dangers came after they had sold out and started home. Prices in the main were satisfactory, and the Utah producers appreciated having such a good cash market for their commodities. Loads of lumber, shingles, and mine timbers were bought outright by the mine companies and lumber dealers. Most other commodities were peddled from door to door. Peddlers who were honest in their dealings and sold good grade merchandise had little difficulty in selling out their loads.

There were regular established stores in Pioche which handled groceries and foods, and these suffered a loss of business to the produce peddlers. The merchants felt that these transient peddlers were "horning" in on their field, and they tried to do something about it. They thought that they had a right to a commission on all such goods sold by outsiders in their territory. The commission idea was not accepted by the Utah peddlers, but they made a compromise proposal. They proposed to sell their loads entire, on a wholesale basis, to the stores. If they could unload in one place, it would save a day or two of time on each trip and the unpleasant task of house to house canvassing. This proposal was accepted by the dealers, and, for a time, as long as dealer and peddler dealt fairly widi each other, the system worked out for the benefit of both.

But a time came when the Pioche stores began to squeeze the peddlers. The produce, of course, was not of uniform quality nor had it ever been, and this was used to beat down prices. Also, the dealers became "choosey" and instead of buying out the entire load as they had agreed, they would take only what they wanted. The produce man then had to go back to peddling to clean out his load. The store operators knew that when a man arrived in Nevada with his load of produce he was pretty much at their mercy. If he did not like the prices offered, he had the alternative of going back to peddling, which had its dangers, or taking his load back home. Some of the peddlers tried to beat the dealers' "racket" by going door to door peddling, but it proved to be a hazardous venture. The unscrupulous dealers set up a "goon" squad, and somewhere out in the woods on his way home the peddler would turn the point of a hill and find himself looking down the barrel of a gun in the hands of a highway robber. Under such circumstances it was healthier to give up his money than to fight for it. So, the Utah farmers, who had to raise a certain amount of cash for taxes or missionary support, were forced to freight their produce to die mining camps and take the best prices the dealers would pay. Prices dropped to two cents a pound for grain — about one-half or one-third of what they should have been.

A Millard County man, who had been peddling at Pioche trying to break the "racket," was overtaken in Hamblin Valley inside Utah by two holdup men sent out to "work him over." At gunpoint they made him get out of the wagon. Searching him, they found no money or gun, and he refused to tell where his money was hidden. They made him hold up both thumbs about six inches apart, and while one of the robbers held a gun on him the other wrapped the whip around the thumbs, then inserted the whipstock between and began twisting the whip as tight as he could. While the one robber twisted, the other ransacked the wagon where he found die money hidden in the back folds of the wagon cover. Coming out with the money in a sack, he climbed on his horse and held a gun on the freighter while the other robber released the whip and mounted his horse. The two then went back up the road to Nevada as fast as their horses could take them.

The freighter, with great pain and difficulty, drove his wagon to Frisco. Here the thumbs, cut to the bone, and the badly swollen hands were dressed. Friends hurried the suffering man to his home. He was taken at once to Salt Lake City where the doctor said both thumbs were dead, and he amputated them at the second joint. Several other bad robberies occurred about the same time and for the same reason.

Brigham Young spent the winter of 1873-74 in St. George and learned first hand about these conditions. Times here were hard, for the Jim Fiske Panic of the 1870's was at its worst in Utah. There had been heavy crop losses also from frosts and insect pests, and the people were very discouraged. It was during this winter that Brigham Young mapped out the system of Co-operation which he called the United Order.

He was wise enough to see that in the final analysis the mining camps were almost wholly dependent upon the Mormon settlements for a large part of their necessities. There were no other feasible markets to which they could turn. Brigham Young said, "This is a two-edged sword the mining camps are swinging against us. They are as dependent upon us as we are upon them. We will make the sword cut the other way until they recognize that their game can be played by our side too."

He organized the peoples of all the southern settlements into United Orders and told them to stop hauling their produce to the mining camps for awhile and see what happened. Then he appointed an agent in every town to deal with the camps when they came to Utah to buy, as he knew they must do sooner or later. He also suggested the prices they should ask.

When the Mormon peddlers stayed home, conditions soon became desperate in Pioche. There were no hay or grain or dairy or poultry products to be had out there. The dealers were forced to come to Utah and contract at Mormon prices for the produce they must have. They were glad to contract here on a delivered basis at four to six cents a pound for the grain they had extorted from the peddlers at two cents a pound. The grain was paid for here, freight included, in advance. Then Mormon freighters delivered the goods, and, since they carried no money, the holdups stopped. The two-edged sword truly was made to cut the other way until amends were made fully for the extortions of the past.

In two years the United Orders broke up, and every man was once more on his own. The dealers at the mining camps had learned their lessons too, and from that time on relations with the mining camps were on a more legitimate business basis. Occasional holdups occurred, but these seemed to stem from individual initiative rather than from being dealer inspired.

The produce that went to the camps was the product of many small farms and dairies. Few men had enough surplus to justify a trip on their own. In 1870 Iron County had 264 farms. One man owned as much as forty acres. Ten others had twenty-five acres each, and the other 253 farmers had an average of less than ten acres each. Shipping to the mines had to be a highly co-operative effort.

In assembling these goods the Co-op stores and tithing offices became most efficient mediums. Tithing in those days was paid almost wholly in kind, and a great deal of miscellaneous produce accumulated at the tithing office.

Through the 1870's the St. George temple and tabernacle were being built, and all the tithes of southern Utah converged there. Silver Reef, which then was at its best, absorbed most of this tithing produce, but some of it, too, was sold in Pioche to raise money for the temple.

The Co-op store in Cedar City, as did the others, rendered a remarkable service to the people in assembling, grading, and marketing these assorted products. The store's outlet in the main for these commodities was the Nevada peddlers, who upon returning from a trip paid their bills at the store in cash. Very little of this money received by the store ever circulated at home, for the store sent it to Z.C.M.I. in Salt Lake City to pay for goods. Only the peddlers' profit went into the veins of home trade to circulate a few times.

When I was a young man I worked in the Co-op store and learned the system firsthand. This, of course, was long after the lawless period of which I have spoken, but the system at the store was still the same. People brought their little dabs of grain, potatoes, eggs, dried fruit, butter, cheese, hams, bacon, shoulders, and so forth to trade for goods. We handled also buckskin gloves and dried berries from the Indians. I weighed this produce at the granary and gave the person a due bill for it. A notebook was tacked on a grain bin in which I entered the receipts. Then, tearing off the lower half of the sheet, on this I wrote, "Good for 75 cents, or $1.35, or $4.20 (as it might be) payable in merchandise at the Cedar Co-op Store," signed it "William R. Palmer, Clerk," and gave it to the customer. He could go to the store and trade it out or he could trade it somewhere else, for the due bills circulated around. Such bills paid the blacksmith, the cobbler, and they even paid for admits for children in the public schools where, in turn, the trustees paid them to the teachers on their salaries. The store due bills circulated around like cash among the home people, and the Co-op store did a sort of produce banking business.

I took care of all the produce that came in. The eggs were packed in boxes, layer on layer, in wheat or oats. A lid was then nailed on and the number of dozens of eggs and pounds of grain marked plainly on the box. Weight of hams and shoulders was marked on each, and the same with cheese. Everything was packed for easy loading and convenient handling. Wheat was ground into flour at the store's grist mill and sacked into fifty pound bags. We could load a peddler up in short order and bill him clearly.

There had to be many substitutes for money, or business would have frozen tight. Among these mediums that circulated widely were tithing office due bills, called T. O. script, or just T. O., issued generally at St. George but redeemable at any tithing office in the church; city and county scripter warrants; factory pay due bills; Beaver Woolen Mills due bills; and the store due bills of which I have spoken. One of the very best was called K.K.K. — Kane Kounty Kurrency. The Bowman Mercantile Company of Kanab issued handfuls of small "bearer" checks —$1.00, $2.00, $3.00, and $5.00, and paid them out as change. If a man had twenty-five dollars in change coming to him, he got it in these small checks. They circulated all over southern Utah, and some of them had indorsements all over the back. Many people who signed their names had no idea it implied an obligation to make the check good, but the paper was so much like real money that they felt honored to inscribe their names.

These produce mediums of exchange, of course, were not as fluid as the "coin of the realm," but they served to bridge a very stagnant pool of commerce.

It sometimes took a lot of trading around to convert T. O. and factory script into something that would sell in Pioche. As has been stated, there were two factories — the woolen mills in Beaver and the cotton factory in Washington. Sometimes the Nevada peddler could trade a horse or a cow for Washington factory pay. He went to the factory and purchased a bolt of flannelette, some sheets, or yardage of factory, and these sold readily in Nevada. Sheepmen sold their tag wool to the mills in Beaver for merchandise script or for blankets which could be exchanged for money in Pioche. Sheepmen paid their herders as much of this script as they would take. This plaint from one young sheepherder, Rube Walker, shows their reactions to it:

Old Jake (his boss) comes round just once a week, He stays with me all day, And every time before he leaves He talks more factory pay. I sit and listen all the while To what he has to say But I keep thinking to myself Oh damn your factory pay. It was cotton goods in the morning boys And woolen goods at night, A green jeans hat to wear to church You bet they were all right. But when you're all alone at the sheep camp And you cannot get away, It wouldn't be so bad if you had a wife To use your factory pay.

But now I lay me down to sleep May the Lord watch overhead And if I die before I wake Keep the sheep safe on their bed, And if there's anydiing coming to me For all my work and care Give the factory pay to my best girl For I can't use it over there.

The livestock men fared better at the mining camps than the produce peddlers. They could not kill their animals here, haul them out and peddle them there from door to door. There was no such thing as cold storage to facilitate such a move. Their sheep and cattle had to be driven to Pioche and sold on hoof to the butchers there. The troubles of the livestock men came not from the dealers in Pioche, but from thieves and cattle rustlers who stole cattle and horses from Utah ranges and sold them in Nevada.

In the early days of the sheep industry, sheep were raised for wool rather than for meat. Ewes were kept as long as they could live on the range and raise a lamb. Then they were condemned and sold for slaughter. Wethers grew larger and produced more wool than ewes, and they were never killed for meat or sold until their teeth were broken and too worn to winter on the range.

In 1879 contracts were made by the Cedar Sheep Company with W. H. Mathews of Panaca and Mr. Loomis and Gus Adleman of Pioche for the sale of fifty to seventy-five head of mutton per week, the same to be delivered on foot at Pioche once each week. The price was $2.00 per head. The company then contracted to buy back all the pelts at 10 cents each.

Every week during the summer and fall for five or six years a little herd of sheep was trailed out from Cedar to Pioche. A wagon always went along to carry bedding and food for the herder, and to bring back the pelts from the last shipment. In Cedar City the pelts were shorn at 10 1/2 cents each, and the shorn hides were then sold to the Co-op store tannery for 12 1/2 cents each. These were tanned into fine kid leather. The Co-op store also operated a shoe shop in which three or four shoemakers had steady employment. These men took the tanned sheepskins and made them into ladies' fine hightopped button dress shoes. The pelt wool found ready market at the Provo Woolen Mills at 27 1/2 cents a pound, and many of the ladies' shoes were taken to Pioche and sold. Thus the by-products netted the sheep company as much profit as the sheep did themselves. This was home industry followed to its final conclusion.

The Co-op store shoemakers also made into men's boots and shoes the cowhides and calfskins which the tannery turned into leather, and many of these were marketed at the mining camps.

As the years passed a time came when the mining camps could not use all the surplus meats the Co-op Sheep Company produced. The herds were increasing and sheepmen from other sections were bringing meat into the camps. But since ewes and wethers continued to grow old and had to be disposed of, a butcher service was rendered during the summer to the people at home.

A little butcher shop was built on Main Street, and every Friday twenty-five to thirty fat sheep were brought to town and slaughtered in the city slaughter house north of town. Charles Ahlstrom was the company butcher. He gave the "plucks" — the hearts, liver, and lights — to the youngsters who always swarmed there to see die butchering, and die children took them home for the family to use what they wanted and feed the rest to the dogs.

At four o'clock on Saturday morning the shop was opened, and the people rushed down, before the flies became too active, to get a piece of fresh mutton. The meat was cut only into quarters, and die customer bought either a leg, the hind quarter, for 60 cents, or a "wing," the front quarter, for 40 cents. He also brought his own sack to carry it home, for no wrapping was done by the salesman.

These prices, cheap as they were, still brought the company $2.00 a head, the same as at Pioche, and they still had the pelt without purchasing it. They were saved also the expense of trailing the sheep to the mining camps. The only expense entailed by the company was for the butcher, but that was a "salty" bill. They paid Charles Ahlstrom 5 cents a head for butchering the sheep and selling them out. I have one expense account paid Ahlstrom in 1881 of $16.75 for butchering 335 sheep, a few each week during the summer at 5 cents per head.

But bad as die holdups and robberies had been, Utah's heaviest losses were to cattle rustlers and horse thieves. The law in Nevada was pretty much on their side. Once the thieves got their stolen animals across the state line they were safe. It was almost impossible to replevin stolen stock, and when the thief had sold an animal or. transferred it into a third person's hands, the law would not touch the case. The theory was that the present owner had paid good money for the animal, and his right of possession must be respected.

Livestock protective associations were organized in the southern counties, and guards were kept out along the state line most of the time. Iron County, and perhaps the other southern counties likewise, commissioned these guards as deputy county sheriffs, and that did put a little "crimp" in the thieving operations. Thirty-eight men were convicted of grand larceny in the District Court at Beaver, and this was not half of the rascals who were operating the nefarious schemes. One man, Nate Hansen, was killed by a deputy marshal who came upon him pushing a herd of forty or fifty cattle up Stateline Canyon toward the Nevada line. As soon as Nate saw the officer, he put spurs to his horse and tried to escape. The deputy called "halt" several times, but Hansen kept going. He was shot dead less than a mile from the line he hoped to get the stolen herd across.

Another deputy, David Bulloch, came one day upon the fresh tracks of a band of horses headed for the Nevada line. Some of them were shod animals, and Bulloch suspected that these were stolen from freighters on the road. He followed the tracks into Pioche and that evening found some of the horses in a feed yard. He was told that a dark-complexioned man from Utah and a well-known Nevada horse thief had brought them in. Dave guessed who the dark-complexioned Utahn was, and he went to the saloon to look for him. He found his man standing at the bar ordering a drink. Bulloch walked up to him and said, "Come on, Bob, I've come for you. We are going back to Cedar City right now."

Four men were seated at a gambling table nearby and had heard Dave. The men laid their cards face down on the table, picked up their revolvers, stood up, and moved in a half circle around behind Bulloch. With drawn guns one of them said, "You don't have to go, Bob, if you don't want to." Bulloch, a bluff Scotchman, said, "You're doggone right, Bob, you're going to go and I don't want any trouble about it either." Bob hesitated a minute, and the gambler said, "What do you say, Bob?" Bob said, "Fellows, this man is an old friend of my father and mother, and I have worked for him many times. He has always been square with me, and I don't want anything to happen to him." Bob put out his hands to be handcuffed, and the four gamblers sat down to the table to finish their game. Bob went to Cedar without making any trouble, was convicted of grand larceny, and served out his sentence in the penitentiary.

A remarkable thing about that arrest was that a Nevada sheriff was in the saloon and saw and heard the whole affair, but did not lift a finger to help Sheriff Bulloch because Bulloch was a Mormon from Utah. None of the horses were ever recovered.

Now back to the holdup men. Athe Meeks, from Parowan, took a load of mine timbers to Pioche and sold them to one of the mines. On a previous trip he had taken his little eight-year-old daughter Sadie out and left her to visit with an aunt who lived there. This trip he was taking her home. Having loaded only long timbers out, he had no wagon box for the return trip. He fixed their roll of bedding on the back hounds for a comfortable seat for Sadie, and he tied a rope across the top of the bolster for her to hold onto over rough places. For himself, he folded the horse blankets over the front bolster and sat there with his feet on the tongue hounds.

About six or eight miles east of Panaca in the cedar-covered hills, two men with drawn guns rushed out in front and stopped his two span of mules. They ordered Meeks to throw up his hands, but, instead, he dropped down between the wheel mules and drew a pistol out of his boot top. The men were trying to get a shot at Meeks, but the lead mules were trying to turn around and this kept him covered. Meeks got an opening on the man in front, whose name was Al Miller, and shot him dead. He fell off his horse onto the road. Meantime, the other robber, known as Little Frank, was riding down along the side of the wheel mule and was reaching over its back to get a shot at Meeks. As his horse came close beside the mule, Meeks reached up, grabbed the bridle reins, and gave a tremendous jerk. The horse reared up and jumped sideways, and just then Meeks came up from under the mule's belly. Frank took a shot at Meeks, but when the horse jumped sideways it threw him off aim and the shot went wild. Meeks then shot Frank. Frank dropped his gun and grabbed the wound in his chest, spurred his horse and got away as fast as he could. Meeks took a shot at the horse; the animal floundered, but Frank's spurs lifted him straight, and they disappeared into the cedars.

Meantime, the mules had turned around and with dragging lines were running back down the road to town. The little girl was clinging to the bolster rope with all her might. When the outfit reached Panaca, the mules had slowed to a trot. Men on the street saw them coming and stopped them. The little girl told what had happened, and that she thought her father was killed. A posse was quickly formed. One man drove the mules with Sadie still riding, others got in a wagon in the street, and some went on horseback.

Up the road a mile or two they met Meeks hurrying to catch his outfit. Little Sadie was safe, but badly frightened. Soon they were back on the scene of the crime. Al Miller's body was still in the road where he fell. Meeks showed them which way Frank had gone, and a man on horseback, Peter Fife, was sent to follow his trail. It was a bloody trail and easy to follow. About two miles out in the cedars Fife saw the spot where Frank had fallen off his horse. He had floundered around some but managed to mount again. A quarter mile farther on he found Frank dead in a pool of blood, and the horse also lay dead a few yards farther on. After Meeks had told his story he climbed onto his wagon, took up the lines and drove away for home. He had killed the two robbers and a horse and had not lost so much as a broken line. The outlaws of the region swore vengeance against him, but he made many trips after that. Always when he reached the Nevada line and began to pass through Hell's Gate, he carried a rifle across his knees and pistols in his boot tops. But he had acquired the reputation of being a dangerous man to molest, and no one ever tried it again.

In another holdup, Nat Gardner of Cedar City was the elected victim. Fortunately he had had police experience, which served him well on this occasion. He had started for DeLamar with a load of grain, but when he reached Caliente he found a good market there and sold out his load in one place. Two men standing by saw him receive his money and put it in his pocket. They watched him go out and get into his wagon, untie his wagon cover, fold it in quarters, and lay it down in the wagon box. It was a very cold day with a strong wind blowing from the north, and he had taken the cover down to keep it from being torn off. He had a double-bed wagon box, and as protection from the cold wind he raised the front end of the top bed an inch or two. Passing the lines through that crack, he could lie down in the box under the wagon cover and could see to drive his well-broken team.

Three or four miles up the road toward Panaca he heard a car coming from the rear. It turned off to the left to pass him dien circled around in front, stopping the team. The car halted on Nat's right side, and a voice ordered him to stand up and stick up his hands. Nat obeyed. When he stood up he recognized the two men who had watched him receive his money in town. They were driving a very old, dilapidated pickup car with no top on it.

One of the fellows stepped out of the car with a pistol in his hand and ordered Gardner to take off his coat and throw it out on the ground. Nat obeyed. "Now," said the robber, "empty your pockets and throw everything out on the coat." This done, the fellow ordered, "Turn all your pockets inside out," and "now keep your hands up."

The robber then came over nearer the wagon and stooped over to pick up the coat and the things which Nat had purposely scattered as he tossed them out. In a flash Gardner reached down in the wagon and picked up his rifle. He shouted, "Drop that gun and throw up your hands." The startled robber looked up and saw that Nat had him covered. He had both men covered, in fact, for they were in a straight line and could be watched. The robber dropped his pistol and put up his hands, and the fellow in the car, at a motion from Gardner, put his hands up also. "Kick that gun off under the wagon," Nat ordered. "Now take your overcoat off and throw it down; put your coat on top of your overcoat; take that sweater and your hat off and throw them down." "Good hell, man," the fellow almost tearfully pleaded, "have mercy. You wouldn't turn a man out on a cold day like this in his shirt sleeves would you?" "Do what I say and do it quick," Nat commanded. "You didn't think of that when you were stripping me." The fellow threw down his sweater and hat. "Now empty your pockets and drop everything on your overcoat, turn your pockets inside out."

When the outlaw had complied with all these orders and stood shivering with cold and fright, Nat said, "You can pick up all your things at the police station in Panaca tomorrow morning. Now get into that old jalopy and beat it back to Caliente, and don't try to follow me." The fellows got away as fast as they could.

Gardner then gathered up the robber's things, rolled them in the overcoat, and tossed them into the wagon. Then he gathered up his own things, money included, put on his coat and drove on. He camped that night in Panaca. The robber's belongings were turned over to the city marshal with a full description of the men and their old car. No one ever called to claim the stuff, and, so far as Gardner could learn, the law did not bother to hunt up the robbers, both of whom could easily have been picked up. And so these last two holdups ended disastrously for the robbers. They picked the wrong men and came out bad losers in a tough game.

The safest and most lucrative outlaw racket of all was played by one Ben Tasker who claimed the Desert Springs ranch just inside the Utah line. Old Ben lived there with a colored woman called "Nigger Lize," and his place was the hide-out for a bad nest of outlaws who plied back and forth across the line. Tasker had been educated for the ministry and could "quote Bible by the yard."

Ben had two or three narrow cellars dug in the side of a hill, and in these he hung hind quarters of dressed beef. The old rascal knew that cattle with their heads and hides off could not be identified, so every week he boldly took a load of hind quarters and loins into Pioche to sell at only 6 cents a pound. Front quarters, being cheaper than grain, were fed to his pigs. The cattle, of course, were all stolen so the meat cost him nothing.

Tasker kept a butcher, a Dutchman named Engleking, employed for years, but he never would settle up with him. When Engleking asked for a settlement, Ben gave him a few dollars and a promise to settle later. Finally the Dutchman decided to leave, for he concluded that Ben never intended to pay. He set out on foot for Pioche, but he never arrived there. He knew too much of Old Ben and his ways to be allowed to leave the ranch.

A few weeks later a freighter camped at Desert Springs went out one morning to hunt a horse that had wandered during the night. Out in the thick cedars he came upon what appeared to be a recently dug grave. He told one of those cowboy deputy sheriffs about it, and Iron County instituted an investigation. The grave was opened, and there was Engleking with a bullet hole in his head. Ben Tasker was arrested for murder and taken to Beaver, then the seat of the District Court, for trial. He bribed his guards and broke jail. Hurrying back to Desert Springs, he picked up his money, his guns, two good saddle horses, and a pack outfit and escaped to Mexico. President A. W. Ivins had known the old rascal at Desert Springs and knew of his escape. One day in his travels around Mexico he met face to face with a man in priestly garb whom he recognized as Old Ben Tasker. He was serving there as the pastor of the town's Protestant church.

This story may not be of commerce, exactly, between Utah and Nevada, but it was Utah beef that had been feeding the Pioche miners. Old Ben had been a sort of bloodsucking leech on the commerce between the two states.

As time went on, government from Carson City became more articulate in Nevada's remote parts. For a long time the law had shown little concern for what went on in the capital's distant hinterland. She knew, of course, of the killings and murders at Pioche, but she was willing to let the people there settle their quarrels in their own way. She knew, too, of the robberies and holdups. It was the tax-paying potential that finally drew the state's arms around that rambunctious camp. Pioche today is a sedate and orderly city of churches, good schools, and good homes, and its community life is as law-abiding as any city in the state. The lawless element is safe in Boot Hill, or has drifted away to safer climes.

But the aura of the old Wild West still lingers in the air. Southern Nevada has its scenic and storied places that should take many tourists and historians there for their vacations. There is a subtle thrill in standing on the ground where Athe Meeks killed two robbers and escaped widiout a scratch, or in traveling the road where Nat Gardner paid his holdup man off in full and with interest in his own coin. One should visit the old Pioche million dollar courthouse, half or two-thirds the cost of which was paid in interest at 10 per cent by the politicians who borrowed the money to build it. It is an impressive example of political recklessness. Then a walk along the row of nameless mounds that is Boot Hill Cemetery will be a silent but solemn testimony of what Nevada was in the heyday of her youth. Utahns and Nevadans now trade and traffic together in peace and goodwill. The railroads carry produce to market, and there are no peddlers' wagons to tempt the robbers. Livestock men cross and recross that once-fatal state line in warm fraternal friendship. Time has healed the great wrongs of the past, and there has been almost a complete turnover in population on both sides of the line so there are no old scores to settle nor old sores to be healed.

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