Tom Horn - Life of Tom Horn, Government Scout and Interpreter, Written by Himself

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title	:	Life of Tom Horn, Government Scout and Interpreter, Written By Himself, Together With His Letters and Statements By His Friends : A Vindication Western Frontier Library, V. 26
author	:	Horn, Tom.
publisher	:	University of Oklahoma Press
isbn10 | asin	:	0806110449
print isbn13	:	9780806110448
ebook isbn13	:	9780585194028
language	:	English
subject	Horn, Tom,--1860-1903, Apache Indians, Apache Indians--Wars, 1883-1886, Frontier and pioneer life--Arizona.
publication date	:	1973
lcc	:	F595.H797 1973eb
ddc	:	923.4173
subject	:	Horn, Tom,--1860-1903, Apache Indians, Apache Indians--Wars, 1883-1886, Frontier and pioneer life--Arizona.

Page i Life of Tom Horn THE WESTERN FRONTIER LIBRARY

Page iii Life of Tom Horn Government Scout and Interpreter Written by Himself TOGETHER WITH HIS LETTERS AND STATEMENTS BY HIS FRIENDS A Vindication With an Introduction by Dean Krakel UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS Norman

Page iv Life of Tom Horn is Volume 26 in the Western Frontier Library. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 64-20758 ISBN: 0-8061-1044-9 New edition copyright 1964 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University of Oklahoma. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the U.S.A. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Page v Introduction By Dean Krakel I was born and grew to young manhood in northern Colorado. East of Ault, where we lived, there is a high grass-covered plain. It had been buffalo range at one timea vast treeless expanse edged with miles and miles of nothing but blue horizon. This country is filled with remnants of days gone by: dried buffalo horns, crumbling homesteads, windmill towers, stretches of barbed wire, parts of wagons strewn about, and a maze of trailsyesterday's symbols of fighting today's elements. Then too, there were Indian campsites with tell-tale tipi rings, fire holes, pieces of flint, and broken stone implements. Poking about as a boy, I could always muster up visions of the Indian and his free way of living. Ault is located in a richly irrigated district, fed by snow water from the towering Front Range of the Rockies. These mountains begin down around Pikes Peak and run north through the country, then west to the Medicine Bows and Laramie Plains. The sweep of this range is one of the most thrilling panoramas in the world: a chain of giants, blue-white and translucent, telescoped by the crispness of high altitude. It was a wonderful country to have lived inrich in history, natural beauty, and strong people. Having been a huge cattle range at one time, this area was well known to Tom Horn, who had a brother, Charles, living in Boulder and a sister in Briggsdale (twenty miles east of Ault). The business of being a stock detective meant trips to Denver and Cheyenne, so he was around quite often. Tom was born in Missouri and grew up in the post-

Page vi Civil War violence of the Middle West. He was impressive in appearance, being well over six feet tall, with sharp, clean facial features. His eyes however, were small and penetrating. In reminiscing about the gunman, one cowboy recalled, "Tom could stare a hole straight through you." He was meticulous about his dress and everything he owned, especially his horse. Tom read widely, but most of all he enjoyed seeing an ornery bronc and a good rider tangle in the sagebrush. He was an admirer of Theodore Roosevelt. T.R.'s philosophy of walking softly and carrying a big stick apparently appealed to him. Physically Horn was lean and muscular; he sat well in the saddle and was an excellent calf roper. I have known old-timers around Ault who said they rode with Horn and shared the same pot of beans with him. One claimed to possess his rifle. Most of them declared emphatically that he hadn't "hung" in Cheyenne, on that dismal November day back in '03; it had all been faked. Since Dad's brother lived in Cheyenne, quite often we drove the forty miles in our model "A." I can still see Cheyenne as it appeared then. Once we had crossed the state line and topped the last hill, "there she was," scattered along bottomland and shrouded in layers of gray smoke. Seeing the place always gave me a pleasant sensation. The name itself was magic. It had personality. The wind was always blowing and a freight train or two was to be heard wailing in the distance, building up steam for the struggle up cantankerous Sherman Hill. The store windows were filled with saddles, horse blankets, boots, and bright Western clothing. A trip to Cheyenne wouldn't have been complete without a tour through the old majestic-looking Union Pacific Depot and a long nostalgic look at the Deadwood Stage Coach encased there. No city was quite like Cheyenne during Frontier Days.

Page vii As a boy, I suspected that during the last week of July all the cowboys, Indians, and cavalrymen in the world were assembled for this annual extravaganza. In those days of the 1930's, the U.S. Cavalry was on its last leg, but you wouldn't have known it from the number of companies there. Each year the parade had a float portraying the hanging of Tom Horn, and generally riding close by was T. Joe Cahill. Joe had been Horn's hangman. The old lawman always wore a big grin and waved his Stetson as he pranced his horse up and down the street, nodding to acquaintances. Years later I got to know T. Joe, and he, more than anyone else, whetted my interest in the life of Tom Horn. While archivist and assistant professor in the Western History Department at the University of Wyoming Library (195256), I would come to Cheyenne and spend hours with Joe at the Elks' Club. He talked, and I listened. One of the most dramatic Western accounts ever told, in my opinion, was his recollection of the hanging. Tom Horn had requested that T. Joe be his executioner. Among Westerners at that time, no tribute could have been higher. A printed version of the story appeared in the

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