e from the
Deadwood trail.

Late in the Autumn of the same year, 1878, and also at or near the
stage-crossing of Old Woman's Fork, Boone and one companion fought
eight bandits led by a man named Tolle, on whose head was a large
reward. This was earned by Boone at a hold-up of a U. P. express train
near Green River.

This band was, in a way, more lucky, for five of the eight escaped; but
of the three otherwise engaged one furnished a head which Boone toted
in a gunny sack to Cheyenne and exchanged for five thousand dollars, if
my memory rightly serves.

This incident was practically the last of the serious hold-ups on the
Cheyenne road. A few pikers followed and "stood up" a coach
occasionally, but the strong organized bands were extinct.

Throughout 1879 Boone's activities were transferred to the
Sidney-Deadwood road, where for several months before Boone's coming,
Curly and Lame Johnny had held sway. Lame Johnny was shortly
thereafter captured, and hanged on the lone tree that gave the Big
Cottonwood Creek its name. A few months later, Curly was captured by
Boone and another, but was never jailed or tried: when nearing
Deadwood, he tried to escape from Boone, and failed.

With the Sioux pushed back within the lines of their new reservation in
southern Dakota and semi-pacified, and with the Sidney road swept clean
of road-agents, life in Boone's old haunts became for him too tame.
Thus it happened that, while trapping was then no better within than
without the Sioux reservation, the Winter of 1879-80 found Boone and
four mates camped on the Cheyenne River below the mouth of Elk Creek,
well within the reserve, trapping the main stream and its tributaries.
For a month they were undisturbed, and a goodly store of fur was fast
accumulating. Then one fine morning, while breakfast was cooking, out
from the cover of an adjacent hill and down upon them charged a Sioux
war party, one hundred and fifty strong.

Boone's four mates barely had time to take cover below the hard-by
river bank--under Boone's orders--before fire opened. Down straight
upon them the Sioux charged in solid mass, heels kicking and quirts
pounding their split-eared ponies, until, having come within a hundred
yards, the mass broke into single file and raced past the camp, each
warrior lying along the off side of his pony and firing beneath its
neck--the usual but utterly stupid and suicidal Sioux tactics, for
accurate fire under such conditions