TIL TAYLOR— SHERIFF 



ness houses closed down and allowed their employees 

 to join the posses; sheriffs, deputies, government de- 

 tectives and railroad officials joined in the hunt; In- 

 dians of the Umatilla Reservation joined the friends 

 of the dead sheriff as they rode horseback over the 

 hills, while on all possible trails scouts were placed. 



Not until after four days of exhaustive effort did 

 any of the posses get within sight of the outlaws ; then 

 two men were seen at a distance and shots exchanged. 

 Reports of various robberies committed in the nearby 

 cabins indicated that the fugitives were in the vicinity, 

 and after three days of the hardest trailing, sometimes 

 by tracking, sometimes with the aid of bloodhounds, 

 over rocky hills and into deep canyons heavily masked 

 with brush and almost impossible of penetration, a 

 posse of Pendleton and LaGrande men under Sheriff 

 Lee Warnack came to a deserted campfire. 



Reaching a telephone they notified a posse from La- 

 Grande on the other side of the mountain to head the 

 bandits off. In response the LaGrande posse, scouring 

 the hills for isolated sheep camps, working on to the 

 Daxe Johnson ranch, came upon the darkened tent 

 house of a French sheepherder, who lay soundly sleep- 

 ing on a rough couch in the dark and obscure interior. 



"Have you seen any strange men in this section?" 

 they called loudly. 



The man roused himself. "Non, I have not," he re- 

 plied, rubbing his sleepy eyes. 



Meantime, however, he pointed significantly toward 

 a figure asleep on the floor to one side of the door of 

 the tent. Again the Frenchman raised his swarthy 

 arm, this time pointing to a sleeping man on the couch 

 beside him. 



Carbines were quickly unlimbered. Flashlights lit 



51 



