Wrong Side of the Law Read Online Free

American bad-men on the lam. They were trailed there by Pinkerton agents and arrested by Dominion Police. The Canadian government turned the Renos over to the Americans on the condition that the outlaws be given a fair trial. Unfortunately, American vigilantes had no regard for the legalities of international treaties. A mob stormed the jail in which the Renos were being held and lynched them from the rafters. This lawless act placed a severe strain on Canadian–American relations and almost resulted in the cancellation of the extradition treaty. Ottawa’s position on the matter was, “We don’t care if you hang the villains; just have the decency to do it legally.”
    The problem was even greater in the West. The sparsely populated Canadian West drew American bad-men like a magnet. Fugitives from American justice drifted north of the forty-ninth parallel not only to escape their own lawmen, but also because some of them believed they could carry on their marauding ways with impunity. Who was there in the Great Lone Land to stop them?
    The Canadian West, during its very brief “wild” period, didn’t have gunslinging lawmen like Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, or Bat Masterson to enforce law and order. After 1874, Canada did have the North-West Mounted Police. Those men weren’t always the knights in scarlet most Canadians like to believe they were. But they were, in general, much more effective as policemen than the pistol-packin’ sheriffs of American cowtowns and mining camps. A Mounted Police constable was trained in police work, whereas the average sheriff was not. Moreover, a Mountie had the authority of the federal government behind him throughout Canada. An American sheriff or marshal worked in a limited jurisdiction. An American desperado who had committed a crime at one location in Canada would be surprised to learn that a Mountie could come after him in a place hundreds of miles away. Not surprisingly, in towns like Fort Benton, Montana, a place so wild and woolly it was dubbed “The Sagebrush Sodom,” criminals who heard of the exploits of the Mounted Police referred to the redcoat constables as agents of British tyranny.
    Dutch Henry
    Dutch Henry was one of those Old West desperadoes whose story is such a mixture of fact and legend that it’s difficult to separate one from the other. Part of the reason for this confusion lies in the fact that more than one American outlaw went by the moniker “Dutch Henry.” At least three bandits used the name. There was a Dutch Henry Yauch, a Dutch Henry Baker, and a Dutch Henry Born (or Borne). Even though these men were real historical figures, not the creations of the dime-novel writers, their criminal careers were nonetheless embellished by those chroniclers of Wild West fantasies. “Dutch Henry” was a name that helped sell pulp magazines, just like Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, and the fictional Deadeye Dick.
    The Dutch Henry who made a nuisance of himself to the North-West Mounted Police was one Henry Yauch (or Yeuch). He was probably born in Holland and immigrated to the United States with his family as a child. He became a cowboy in Texas and moved north during the time of the great cattle drives. He allegedly participated in the Second Battle of Adobe Walls on June 27, 1874. In that clash, a group of about twenty buffalo hunters, including young Bat Masterson, armed with high-powered rifles, stood off about two hundred southern Plains warriors led by the legendary Comanche Chief Quanah Parker.
    When the ranching industry spread to the northern plains with the coming of the railroads, Dutch moved to Montana. However, in the mid-1880s, a decline in beef prices caused many ranchers to go broke. Unemployed cowboys who knew no other trade turned to rustling. Dutch Henry found that a man could make more money driving stolen cattle and horses over the Canadian border than he could ever hope to earn as an honest cowpoke. He soon learned how to use a running