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How Butch Cassiday and Joe Walker, Desperately Fighting, were Shot to Death.

At Dawn the Sleeping Bandits were Awakened by a Command to Surrender –Two of Them Refused and Died, the Other Two were Made Prisoners.

It was sharp, quick, deadly—the fight amid the rocks of Book Cliffs at dawn Friday morning. In their eyrie the bandits slumbered peacefully. If they dreamed of pursuers, they must have laughed in their sleep for was not their camp pitched in one of the most inaccessible spots of the lonely mountains? While the robbers slept on in fancied security, the avenging party was toiling up the mountain side guided by one of the fellows of the hunted. 

The story of the killing of Cassiday and Walker has all the thrill of a border romance. It has also all the actuality. For five days the Price band pursued the outlaws. They traversed over 300 miles of mountain roads. They swam rivers—cold with the melted ice of winter, and swift and dangerous. At night the sky was their roof and the mountain breezes lulled them to sleep. With scanty supplies, necessitated by the speed they must maintain, exposed to an almost wintry atmosphere, amid discomforts and discouragements innumerable, the men hastened on and on, fixed in their determination to kill or capture the flying robbers.

JOE BUSH RETURNS.

Joe Bush, who was one of the leaders of the expedition, returned to the city yesterday. He told a graphic narrative of the week’s events that culminated in the Book Cliffs fight. Mr. Bush left here last Monday to join the posse from Price. He left the Rio Grande train at Lower Crossing. From there he started with Jimmy Ingerfield for Ranch valley. On the way they met Billy Maguire, the man whom Walker had beaten up a few days before in Box canyon, and another man named Coleman. The four then traveled together. That night they camped in Ranch valley. On Wednesday they rode up Ranch creek, meeting the main body of the Price posse who, thrown off the scent by a false tip given by sympathizers of the outlaws, had made a long, hard ride in the mountains to the north. In this party were George Whitmore, J.M. Whitmore, Jack Gentry, J.W. Warf, C.W Allred, Pete Anderson and Jack Watson. The party camped that night on the bank of the Green river, which on Thursday morning they swam. Then they rode across to the north prong of Florence creek, up with they rode for a distance. Then they had to go into camp. They knew they were near the outlaws. How near they did not appreciate at the time.

GUIDED BY ONE OF THE ROBBERS

During the day they captured one of the outlaw band. His name is undisclosed. It will probably never be told. Neither is it likely there will be any quick retaliation of the means taken to induce him to do the bidding of the officers. Whatever was the suasion the man yielded. He not only gave the location but he agreed, presumably with much disinclination, to guide them to the spot.

With the first gathering shades of light the men were again equipped for travel. Bush says that if any of them felt any misgiving he did not show it, although they had to trust themselves to the guidance of a man who was the trusted associate of their quarry. Their path lay up in the mountain side. So steep was it that nearly four hours were required to travel three miles. The trail was narrow and winding. Often it was only a bridge of rock, a few inches in width, with precipices thousands of feet deep at either side. A false step meant death. Up this dangerous trail toiled the little band; at their head was the robber guide. Close to his heels was always some man watching his every movement. He proved true to the officers, and at 2 o’clock the posse had reached the man on which the robbers’ camp was situated. The bandits were less than a mile distant. It was decided not to make the attack until daylight, although some of the pursuers were for instant action.

BANDITS WERE IN BED.

When the first streaks of dawn illuminated the east the men were again ahorse. They moved onward until within a hundred yards of the camp. Then they dismounted. They camp was on a shelf of rock, behind a boulder. Before it was an abyss. It was open only at the side. Through near the timber line, there was a few scrubby trees near at hand, still leafless. The robbers, four in number, occupied two beds. In one, close to the boulder were Cassiday and Walker. Thompson and the fourth man occupied the other. Their bed was full eight yards from that of Cassiday and Walker. To this fact they probably owe their lives.

The posse divided into two sections and came around the side of the protecting boulder. Then the sleeping men were awakened. “Hold up your hands.” was shouted at them. Thompson and his bedmate obeyed, crying for mercy the while.

Cassiday and Walker were made of sterner stuff. They began shooting with the opening of their eyes. At first they shot under a canvas that had been spread against the boulder as a windbreak. Soon both were on their feet. Then they made a break for the timber. 

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART.

As they did so Cassiday shot through the heart, pitched forward fifteen feet down a declivity on his face, which was terribly scraped by the sharp rocks. Walker fell about the same time dead. He had received four shots in the right arm, some of them probably before he arose. Another bullet pierced his head and a sixth his heart.

In all Mr. Bush says the posse fired about fifty shots. He fired four himself from his Browning’s Winchester. George Whitmore shot twelve times and the others all several times each. The posse all used rifles while the outlaws had only six shooters, they not having time to grab their rifles.

The accuracy of the shooting was great. Otherwise the other outlaws would have been struck. About the place where Cassiday and Walker were lying when they opened fire the rocks were chipped in a dozen or more places.

Bush says the melee was of very short duration. When he dismounted it was just 5 o’clock. The bandits were surrounded, after a walk of a 100 yards or more, and the battle fought six minutes later.

The two bandits fired eight or ten shots. Some of the posse say the bullets whistled by close to them, but Bush says he wasn’t paying any attention to that detail of the performance. He was only looking after his own rifle and the bullets in its chamber. The shooting was all done at a distance of about twenty-five or thirty yards.

PLACE OF THE SHOOTING.

The scene of the killing is on the north fork of the Florence creek, near its headwaters, and in Grand county not far from the Uncompahgre reservation. Only the Price posse and Bush were there. The posse of six under Sheriff Tuttle were near Thompson’s, forty miles distant.

If the robbers had not been surprised there could have scarcely have been any victory without fatalities among the pursuers. The had an ideal hiding place which came so near being impregnable that they allowed themselves to be caught asleep. With a minute’s warning they could have been hidden among the rocks were a small army could with difficulty have dislodged them. They had plenty of provisions too. Thompson, one of the four, had the day before arrived with a pack load of food.

LAY NOT CAPTURED. 

The man supposed to be Lay of Vernal isn’t Lay after all, Bush says. Men in Price who know Lay are positive in the belief that the man captured is not he who was with Cassiday has performed so many daring hold-ups. He and Thompson both are believed to be members of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang from Wyoming.

Mr. Bush received many congratulations yesterday after his arrival in town. He exhibited a conscious satisfaction in the performance of this part of the task. Members of the gang have written letters about him to the Governor and to the newspapers at different times. Some months ago Walker wrote the Governor offering a reward for Joe Bush. The epistle was intended to be a humorous reply to the reward offered for himself.

GOOD GENERALSHIP.

Although with modesty, Mr. Bush says in an explanation of the successful coup, “we played in good luck,” an excellent quality is shown in the method adopted to run down and take the outlaws.

The difficulty of successfully pursuing these men, Mr. Bush says, is greatly increased by the disposition of certain settlers to aid, not the officer as the ordinary citizen may imagine, but the red-handed outlaw. Some of the settlers are unwilling to tell anything they may know of the haunts or habits of the robbers, being fearful of the revenge that would be visited upon themselves. Others sympathize with the outlaws, either secretly or openly, and give them what comfort and support they can. He says that even some men who are carrying Uncle Sam’s mail assist the bandits by bringing them or sending them news of the approach of officers.

THE CORONER’S INQUEST.

Cassiday Fully Identified—The Posse Completely Exonerated.

Price, Utah May 14—Excitement was intense this morning when the train arrived from Thompson’s, bringing the bodies of the two outlaws, Cassiday and Walker. Up till noon crowds of people viewed the remains, and the rumor grew that the body supposed to be Cassiday was not the notorious desperado but another of the gang, and everyone waited anxiously for the Castle Gate party who arrived on the noon train to identify the body.

E.L. Carpenter, who figured conspicuously in the Castle Gate robbery two years ago, said it was Cassiday beyond a doubt. Others who had seen him said the same, and that the famous outlaw is now numbered with the dead is practically certain.

The Coroner’s inquest was held this afternoon. A Ballinger, E.F. Miller and E.W. McIntyre, jurors, established beyond a doubt the identity of Cassiday, alias Gillis, alias Parker.

The Coroner’s jury rendered a verdict exonerating the posse, and the two prisoners will be sent to Emery county for trial. Considerable relief is experienced among the people now that the Robbers’ Roost gang has received a blow so decisive.

CASSIDAY AS A COWBOY.

Pat Ryan Describes Him as He was Eight Years Ago.

Pay Ryan, the well-known mining man upon whose ranch Butch Cassiday rode about eight years ago, said last night that when a young man the fellow gave no signs of the desperate career he subsequently adopted but that on the contrary he was quiet and inoffensive. He was the elder of a large number of children that had been born to very poor parents and while he was hard on the horse on which he was mounted, that was the only offense for which he was rebuked when he was in Mr. Ryan’s employ. The first real violation of the law on his part of which Mr. Ryan had any knowledge was when he stole a saddle with which he escaped. One taste of lawlessness appeared to completely overcome him, however, and from the saddle he entered into cattle-stealing with a confederate whose real name was Cassiday. The latter disappeared and young Parker after that took the name of Cassiday.

“One of the most cold-blooded and heartless members of the gang by which the country was infested about the time of the Cassiday was beginning his appretenceship,” says Mr. Ryan, “was Tom McCarthy. On one occasion he, with a confederate, was tracked by two officers to Ketchum’s ranch where they were overtaken. Officers and fugitives ate supper at the same table that night and breakfasted together the following morning. The officers were both known to the fugitives and when breakfast was disposed of the latter made it known.

“We don’t propose to make that trip back over the desert,” said McCarthy to the officers, “but will give you a start.”

Thereupon the officers were relived of their animals and of their money and for sixty miles they footed across the desert to Frisco. Cassiday at a later day fell in with McCarthy and they became very close friends.