e Mine
Owners' Association. It was found that many ex-convicts and other
desperate characters were employed by the detective agencies to commit
crimes that could be laid upon the working miners. The story of Orchard
and the recital of his atrocious crimes have occupied columns of every
newspaper, but the fact is rarely mentioned that many of the crimes that
he committed, and which the world to-day attributes to the officials of
the Western Federation of Miners, were paid for by detective agencies.
The special detective of one of the railroads and a detective of the
Mine Owners' Association were known to have employed Orchard and other
criminals. When Orchard first went to Denver to seek work from the
officials of the Western Federation of Miners he was given a railroad
pass by these detectives and the money to pay his expenses.[41] During
the three months preceding the blowing up of the Independence depot
Orchard had been seen at least eighteen or twenty times entering at
night by stealth the rooms of a detective attached to the Mine Owners'
Association, and at least seven meetings were held between him and the
railroad detective already mentioned.

Previous to all this--in September and in November, 1903--attempts were
made to wreck trains. A delinquent member of the Western Federation of
Miners was charged with these crimes. He involved in his confession
several prominent members of the Western Federation of Miners. On
cross-examination he testified that he had formerly been a prize-fighter
and that he had come to Cripple Creek under an assumed name. He further
testified that $250 was his price for wrecking a train carrying two
hundred to three hundred people, but that he had asked $500 for this
job, as another man would have to work with him. Two detectives had
promised him that amount. An associate of this man was discovered to
have been a detective who had later joined the Western Federation of
Miners. He testified that he had kept the detective agencies informed as
to the progress of the plot to derail the train. The detective of the
Mine Owners' Association admitted that he and the other detectives had
endeavored to induce members of the miners' union to enter into the
plot; while the railroad detective testified that he and another
detective were standing only a few feet away when men were at work
pulling the spikes from the rails. An engineer on the Florence and
Cripple Creek Railroad testified that the railroa