settled country has had to deal, to a greater or less
extent, with lawless characters. Generally these outlaws have been
brought into subjection and destroyed under the operation of law.
Occasionally, however, this, from one cause or another, has been
impossible. It is then that citizens, unable longer to bear the outrages
committed by desperate criminals, take the law into their own hands and
administer justice according to their own ideas of right, and without
the forms of law. Such occasions are always to be deplored. They arise
from two causes, the maladministration of justice and bloodness of
criminals whose long immunity from punishment renders them reckless and
defiant of both law and the citizens.

Such conditions existed in the late 70's and early 80's in that portion
of Eastern Oregon now embraced in the county of Crook. During several
years desperate characters had congregated in that section. From petty
crimes, such as the stealing of cattle and horses, they resorted to
bolder acts, embracing brutal and diabolical murder. For a time the
citizens appeared helpless. Men were arrested for crime and the forms of
law gone through with. Their associates in crime would go into court,
swear them out and then boast of the act. On one occasion I went to one
of the best and most substantial citizens of the country, Wayne
Claypool, and asked him about an act of larceny of which he had been a
witness. He had seen the crime committed from concealment. I asked him
if he was going to have the men arrested. He replied that he was not.
Then, said I, if you do not I will. "Mr. Thompson," he replied, "rather
than appear against them I will abandon all I have and leave the
country. For if they did not kill me they would destroy all I have."
Under these circumstances I was forced to let the matter drop, and
content myself with writing an article for the local paper. No names
were mentioned and nothing at which an honest man could take offense.
Instead of publishing the article as a communication, it was published
as an editorial. But scarcely had the paper appeared on the street, than
three men, all known to be thieves and desperate characters, caught the
editor, knocked him down, pulled out his beard, and would probably have
done him greater bodily harm had not Til Glaze interfered and stopped
them. While the editor was being beaten he hallowed pitifully, "I didn't
do it, Thompson did it." This embittered the whole gang against