Show the old robbers 9 roost hideout by PEARL biddlecome BAKER the dust had hardly settled in the horse tracks of butch cassidy and his bunch when my father took his cattle into robbers roost in 1909 everyone warned him that it was no cinch the robbers roosters had gone for good but joe biddlecome was a capable cattleman by sun and moon light he wasn gasn t worried robbers roost called that since the is a wild jumble of cedar ridges and long grassy draws lying on the high part of the wedge of country bounded on the south and east by green and colorado river breaks on the 9 4 it vp i ta t 4 D the picture is of the roost spring where the wild bunch had their camp the old cabin was located about half way between this sweet water spring and the larger mineralized one which was used for the cattle west by the dirty devil river on the north by the san rafael desert with horseshoe canyon bisecting it flowing north into the green river robbers roost flats slope to the north and west draining into the roost draw which runs for a couple of miles west into roost canyon just before the canyon boxes up to a narrow sandstone slash on its way to the dirty devil the roost spring gushes out of the gypsum A f 0 14 2 0 pearl biddlecome baker on the job a in regular punching cow garb since the water itself its el f is slightly mineralized eve everyone a ne has always camped about abou two t w 0 in miles jes east up the draw at a lit little ti e sweet spring that oozes out in a deep shady crack of the canyon wall the roost spring has always had a fence around it to protect the head box the first one was of cedar pickets but always in my time net wire grass trees rose bushes and rushes grow lush in this little plot and are as refreshing as the water itself in this sere land before the drouth of the last twenty years denuded its red sand flats and parks the cold springs and good grass made the roost a horse paradise cap brown was the first one who fo aund and it such when he stole horses in the in salina and held hem them at the roost until he got enough to make a caravan then ook took them to colorado to sell at the mines dead man mans s hill south of the roost spring is named for one of his nameless crew who stopped a slug from an irate farmer and made it to there be fore infection set and killed him in the early 90 s what has come to be called the wild bunch drifted through the country find mg ing sanctuary and rendezvous as well as horse pasture there J B buhr had an honest cattle outfit on the range but left in 1900 with a pitiful remnant of a fine horse herd and sold mighty few cattle it s a little hard from this distance to pick the honest cowpunchers hers from the rustlers there being so much good in the worst of them and so much bad in the best of them 4 but jack moore butch cassidy blue john silvertip flat nose george curry elza lay joe walker the mccurties McC arties tom dilly the sundance kid bob ricker and numerous others drifted by now and then the last winter 1896 1897 that butch and lay spent at the roost they set up a very corn com fordable for table camp of tents in the upper pasture of horseshoe everything was homey even to a couple of women in camp one of them lays lay s wife and the boys spent their time training horses to carry them on the last big rob bery in this part of the country the castle gate holdup one april day while more than a hundred men loafed around the wasatch store waiting for their pay checks due in on the noon tram train cassidy and nd lay rode into town the quality of the horses and their evident condition to gether with the fact that thy were outfitted with and hack abores caused comment and lay told one or two curious onlookers that they were on their way to salt lake city to the races butch had dismounted and settled himself on a box at the foot of the stairs where the paymaster would take the money to the offices above the store the train came in and the pay master and assistant suddenly found themselves confronted with a determined man back of a six shooter when he said here ill take that they handed over the valise and two sacks of silver butch ran to his mount with the money and his haste spooked the little mare she jerked loose from aa 1 X k az J N 17 law 4 41 ja 0 this chimney is all that is left of the old cabin used by the wild bunch at robbers roost the present owner of robbers roost ranch arthur ekker is standing beside the chimney aj d ao 20 11 A 74 J 44 xiv 4 II 11 ISI 04 O 0 e 41 rk X r ry aw 4 stout hearted joe biddlecome who moved his herd and family to robbers roost shortly after the wild bunch I 1 had pulled their last job is the man on the right alex reid on the left is th the e father of mrs A J maime may of green river and a halt half brother to joe bidd biddlecome lecome lay and ran toward the railroad bridge someone in the offices above the store had located a rifle and was plunking bullets mighty close clos e and it looked bad until lay headed the mare off and brought her back the two outlaws left post haste but found the silver too heavy to handle easily so tossed it into a farmer s wagon as they ran past he brought it back to the company joe walker was delegated to cut the wire to price but was just a shade slow and the word got through A posse immedi abely formed and started out to cut the men off joe saw that they were about to get into trou brou ble so he met them below desert lake and took the 9 haul across the mountain to browns bri owns park where they picked it up that summer butch and lay changed horses at a ranch and again at tidwell bottoms where they had left relays word went across to hunting ton and castle dale and posses were organized to intercept the robbers As one old timer told it the huntington bunch were supposed to go down cottonwood and didn dian t castle dale got ahead of them and laid for the outlaws at the narrows of buckhorn not knowing that they were just a little late when the outfit from huntington came along pat bur son shot a old joe meeks at 14 steps with a double barrel shot gun and never even hit the horse they whirled and run and in the skirmish a little sorrel race mare call all pigeon and ridden by little joe miller got shot in the fracas the other outfit moved and after a while they came on down and got to comparing notes and found they had been shooting at each other old pete burson said that one of them outlaws was war packing a good load of buckshot because by the flash of the gun he saw that one of them was sandy corn com elected and had about a weeks week s growth of beard when they got to talking it w was as joe meeks with a white beard a foot long after picking up their loot cassidy and lay and a couple more bought a white topped buggy and brought it over the mountain stopping at A P bal lards lard s store in thompson where bud milton let them water their horses and sold them some gro cenes ceries they went on to arizona and bud saw the same white topped buggy when he was run ning horse races around mesa arizona in 1902 during this era pinkertons Pink ertons detective agency was formed and the railroads hired them to track down cassidy and lay butch was totally unaware that he was of any more than local interest but they couldn t seem to con hect with him after lay got into trouble in a robbery with black jack ketchum and went to the arizona state penitentiary pinkertons Pink ertons shipped butch off to south america and wrote him off old timers say that the sundance kid and kid curry went to south america but since butch had settled down and was tired of playing outlaw he never did dispute Pink pinkertons ertons the last flare up at the roost was in 1899 when sheriff tyler followed ed newcomb silver tip and blue john into the little sweet spring above the roost and fought a pitched battle with them just at daylight the only one wounded was indian ed who got a slug above his knee he walked over to the dirty devil river where charl hanks was herding sheep for L george and ed tuttle with hy bjorensen and jim watt helping him ed stayed around a few days and although the wound healed over it kept bothering him one morning chart Charl looked at it as they were getting out of bed and said ed that looks festered bet there is something in there that we can soon see answered ed and out with his knife slashed his leg open and and cut out the slug many have been the specula eions around the campfire whether or not there were any caches left at the roost and I 1 ve done my share of starry eyed treasure hunting andy moore knows that one such cache was retrieved because the man stayed with him some fifteen or twenty years ago and his suspicious ac eions caused andy to follow him back the next day and find where he had dug up something from a cave just below north springs the outlaw dust has long settled by this time and if there are a any ny more e caches there they will probably mor y have to be found by someone other than the men who made 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