Wrong Side of the Law Read Online Free Page B

later the day of the outlaw had to come to an end. On the Canadian side of the line, the Mounties increased the manpower at their posts and began to crack down on the rustlers. On the American side of the line, the notorious Frank Jones tried to shoot it out with a couple of lawmen, and lost. As had happened in so many other parts of the West, the border country was becoming very uncomfortable for those men who chose to ride the Outlaw Trail.
    Just what eventually became of Dutch Henry is uncertain and that may be due to people confusing the three historical Dutch Henry stories. Dutch Henry Baker’s fate is lost in the mists of time. He is believed to have been shot dead, but no one knows when, where, or by whom. Dutch Henry Born spent a long time in prison and died of natural causes around 1930. As for Dutch Henry Yauch, he seems to have been killed several times over.
    In 1905, it was reported that one of Dutch’s own friends had murdered him in Minnesota. Then in January 1910, a Montana newspaper claimed that Dutch had been killed in a blazing gunfight with a Mountie near Moose Jaw. Dutch allegedly shot the constable’s horse out from under him before the officer drilled him with a bullet in the chest. But there doesn’t seem to be any documentation supporting this story. Another tale has it that, with the Mounties making life difficult for rustlers in Canada, Dutch drifted south to continue his criminal ways in Mexico, where he was finally hanged. Yet another story says Dutch gave up his evil ways, got married, and settled down in Minnesota, only to be shot dead in 1928 or 1929. There is also a claim that he travelled to South America before vanishing from history. Whatever the truth may be, Dutch Henry remains as elusive in death as he was in the years when he was the most feared rustler on both sides of the forty-ninth parallel.
    Frank Spencer
    Frank Spencer left his home in Tennessee at the age of sixteen and drifted west. He worked as a cowboy and knew Dodge City in its wild and woolly heyday when Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp were lawmen there. He followed the stream of fortune hunters drawn by the silver strike at Tombstone in Arizona Territory. By that time, Spencer had discovered that a rustler who was handy with a rope, a running iron, and a six-gun could make a lot more money than an honest cowboy. He allegedly ran with the Clanton-McLaury gang, whose specialty was rustling cattle on both sides of the Mexican border, and selling the beef to the U.S. Army and restaurants and hotels in Tombstone. After the climactic gunfight at the OK Corral between the Clanton-Mclaury bunch and the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday, Spencer made tracks for Colorado and then Montana. He resumed his old practice of working as a cowboy by day and a rustler by night.
    In 1886, Spencer fled across the international line into the Canadian territory that would one day be called Alberta. He was allegedly just a jump ahead of vigilantes who preferred lynch law over putting rustlers on trial in a legitimate court. Once he was safe in Canada, Spencer headed west. That summer, he rode into Kamloops, British Columbia.
    Spencer got a job as a cowhand on Lewis Campbell’s big ranch about ten miles out of town. He seemed to like it there, perhaps because his past wasn’t known. For the first time in years, nobody with a badge was after him. Spencer did his job and kept out of trouble — for a while.
    Frank Spencer liked his whiskey. On his days off he would ride into Kamloops for a binge in a saloon. Sometimes he’d pass a bottle around with the other cowboys in the bunkhouse. Sharing a jug of “popskull” was part of the camaraderie of ranch hands everywhere. But a misunderstanding over the etiquette of sharing liquor would lead to bloody violence at the Campbell ranch.
    On Friday, May 20, 1887, Spencer was saddled up and about to ride into Kamloops. A twenty-two-year-old cowhand named Pete Foster gave him five dollars and asked him to