Butch and Sundance: To Ride The Outlaw Trail

My friends and relations, they live in the Nation,
They know not where their boy has gone,
He first came to Texas and hired to a ranchman
Oh, I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong.

Go gather around you a crowd of young cowboys,
And tell them the story of this my sad fate;
Tell one and the other before they go further
To stop their wild roving before 'tis too late.
-The Cowboy's Lament

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Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas! I'm doing a series on two of America's most famous outlaws, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The didn't start their careers together so I'm charting each of their paths individually until they meet up. Unlike the movie, they weren't best friends who traveled around the country together.

In the last few posts we've been talking about Harry Longabaugh(Sundance) and I've been calling him Harry because at this point in his career he's been acting like good ol Harry and not like the Sundance Kid. He has to earn that nickname. lol.

Harry, Harry, Harry...

When we last saw him he was partying it up in saloons and carousing around chasing girls. He was also drinking up a storm with other cowboys who'd been laid off as they tried to figure out what to do next.

So what do you do if you get laid off and you're 23 years old and have your whole life in front of you? Oh, that's an easy one, you plan on robbing trains for a living!

Harry started scheming with another cowboy by the name of Bill Madden. At this point they were hanging out at a saloon in Malta, Montana which is just 50 miles from the Canadian border.

It wasn't long before they met another laid off cowboy named Harry Bass and that was good because robbing a train was a three man job the way they had it figured, and Bass was sick of being broke.

The Great Northern Railroad ran through Malta so they didn't even have to travel far to learn the times and security features of the train. Plus, which trains might be carrying cash.

The (great?) train heist

The boys chose a passenger train coming through town, it had to stop and fill up with water because those were steam engines back then. One of the boys had ridden a mile outside of town and started a big bonfire beside the tracks.

The other two boarded the baggage car with their faces covered with bandannas. As soon as the train moved away from the station they climbed over the coal car and pulled their six shooters on the fireman and the engineer, ordering the engineer to stop the train when he saw the bonfire.

When the train came to a stop two of the boys jumped off and ran back to the mail car which held the safes. The one who'd started the bonfire held the engineer and fireman at gunpoint. The other two got to the mail car which had an attendant who was ordered to open the larger of two safes.

What money?

The attendant told them he didn't have the combination because it was wired by telegraph upon arrival to it's destination. They ordered him to open the smaller safe which he did but it only contained less than $20 in cash and a package which they took.

They also went through the mail but found no valuables. When they threatened to shoot the attendant if he didn't open the large safe and to "open it or he would die," the attendant replied.."Very well then, I suppose I've got to die!"

The thieves were stumped at this statement but reckoned he was telling the truth and they didn't have plans to murder anyone. They jumped off the train, signaled their partner holding the engineer hostage so he could join them, and rode off on the horses tied up next to the bonfire.

Not the world's smartest thieves

So the grand total of their haul, since the package was valued at under $50, I don't know what it was, plus the $20 in cash amounted to $70! lol. Pitiful.

What's even more pathetic is that they forgot to rob the passengers in the passenger cars. They had all kinds of money, gold watches and jewelry.

In fact, one of them had $2,000 cash on him that he intended to have put in the safe but he got there late and didn't have time. That one $2,000 in cash is the equivalent of $55,000 today.

Another amateur mistake is that their bandannas kept slipping down on their faces during the robbery so the investigators had good enough descriptions and sketches to identify all of them. lol. You can't make this stuff up!

And if all that wasn't bad enough, they chose to do this robbery on a Sunday. Well, with banks closed there were no cash transfers going to them, normally there would be large bags of cash during the business week.

So not only was he running with a bad crowd, he was running with a dumb crowd!

Bass and Madden go down

In addition to that, Bass and Madden showed up at that same saloon two days later and were promptly arrested, they didn't know they'd been indentified.

Of course one of the men, Madden, talked and gave up Harry so a warrant for his arrest was issued and he had his first Wanted Poster. Madden gave Harry's name as Harry Loungbo though, so the wanted poster had the wrong name.

Bass and Madden were sentenced to prison. Madden got 8 years because he gave them information on Harry and Bass got 10 years.

Harry was long gone. He vowed to give up outlawry and go back to being an honest cowboy, prison was no place for him so he rode.

source

Tomorrow we'll catch up with Butch and see if he was able to outrun the posses after the Telluride bank robbery.

Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck

PS- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:

You've ever stolen the clothes off a Scarecrow!