El Buscaderos-Cowboy Action Shooting-Feature

Spontaneous justice was administered on all American frontiers as population shifted ahead of organized government. It was not always as spectacular as the vigilante movement in California in 1851 and Montana of the 1860s when the Plummer gang was eliminated. More typical were the isolated instances of trying criminals, sometimes with understanding and sometimes with harshness, by self-constituted courts. The Stuart brothers, James and Granville, recorded such in the new mining regions of Montana in 1862.( Granville Stuart: Forty Years on the Frontier.1925 Arthur H. Clark Co.)

July 24. There is plenty of whiskey in camp now and rows are of frequent occurrence. Today a drunken Salmon river camp chap became insulting to Worden who walked into him with a pick handle. Captain Higgins took a hand at the finish or Worden would have been worsted in the fight.

July 25. Very warm. Whiskey business very dull. Tony Cosgrove and I started to Cottonwood for a horse thief. js

July 26. Clear warm. Stayed all night at Dave Contois’. Started on the road to Benton after our man and overtook him at sundown. Camped all night with him on little Prickly Pear creek. js

July 27. Very warm. Arrested our man at daylight and arrived home with him at sundown. js

July 28. Cloudy and warm. We called a miners’ meeting, tried him and found him guilty. In consideration of his age and contrition, his sentence was only to refund the stolen property that he had and leave the country within twelve hours. As he was utterly destitute, the court, which embraced nearly all in the camp, gave him fifteen dollars and some provisions. He then departed from Hell Gate river toward Walla Walla and was seen no more. js

August 21. Cloudy with a little rain. A number of persons are preparing to go to Big Hole to examine the reported new placer mines there. On the fourteenth inst., three men arrived at Gold creek from the lower country. They had six good horses, but very little in the shape of a traveling outfit. One of them, B.J. Jermagin, had no saddle on the horse he rode, but only some folded blankets strapped on the horse’s back in lieu of a saddle. The other two men showed they were on the gamble and one of them William Arnett, kept his belt and revolver on and rather posed as being a "bad man". The third, C.W. Spillman, was a rather quiet reserved pleasant young man, of about twenty-five years, he being the youngest of the three.

August 22. Woody, Burr and several others started for Big Hole on a prospecting tour.

August 23. I have lost three hundred dollars staking a man to deal monte for me in the past three days. Think I will take Granville’s advice and quit gambling. Js

Our monte sharps are about to take the town. Getting decidedly obstreperous in their conduct.

August 25.Our stranger monte sharps opened a two hundred dollar monte bank and I broke it in about twenty minutes. About four o’clock in the afternoon two men arrived here from Elk City in the Clearwater mountains. They were in pursuit of our monte sharps for stealing the horses they rode from that place. One of the arrivals was armed with a double-barreled shotgun heavily loaded with buckshot and a Colt’s navy revolver. Their names were Fox and Bull. Bull had the gun. They slipped quietly into town in the dusk of the evening and meeting me inquired if the three men above described were there. Upon being informed that they were, they stated that they were in pursuit of them for stealing the horses on which they had come from the vicinity of Elk City. They requested the cooperation of the citizens in arresting them. I assured them that they would have all the assistance necessary and went with them to look for their men. They found Spillman in Worden and Company’s store and bringing their shotgun to bear on him, ordered him to surrender, which he did without word. They left him under guard and went after the other two, who had just opened a monte game in a saloon. Arnett was dealing and Jermagin was "lookout" for him. They stepped inside of the door and ordered them to "throw up their hands". Arnett who kept his Colt’s navy revolver lying in his lap ready for business instantly reached for it, but before he could raise it, Bull shot him through the breast with a heavy load of buckshot, killing him instantly. Jermagin ran into a corner of the room, exclaiming, "Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, I give up" He and Spillman were tied and placed under guard till morning. Js

August 26. Proceedings commenced by burying Arnett who had died with the monte cards clenched so tightly in his left hand and his revolver in his right that they could not be wrenched from his grasp, so were buried with him. Jermagin plead that the other two overtook him on the trail and gave him a horse to ride and that he no knowledge of the horses being stolen, and what saved him, was Spillman saying that he and Arnett had found him on the trail packing blankets and a little food on his back and that they gave him a horse to ride on which he strapped his blankets. On this testimony Jermagin was acquitted and given six hours to leave the country and it is needless to say he left a little ahead of time. Spillman who was a large, fine looking man was found guilty and sentenced to be hung in a half hour. He made no defense and seemed to take little interest in the in the proceedings. When I asked him if he had any request to make he said he "would like to write a letter". He was furnished with writing material and wrote a letter to his father stating that he was to be hung in half an hour; that keeping bad company had brought him to it, begged his father’s forgiveness for bringing disgrace upon his family and concluded by hoping his fate would be a warning to all to avoid evil associates. He wrote and addressed the letter with a hand that never trembled and when asked if there was anything else he wished to do said, "No". Although the time was not up he said he was ready and walked to his death with a step as firm and countenance as unchanged as if he had been the nearest spectator instead of the principal actor in the tragedy. I was evident that he was not a hardened criminal and there was no reckless bravado in his calmness. It was the firmness of a brave man, who saw that death was inevitable, and nerved himself to meet it. He was hung at twenty-two minutes past two o’clock August 26, 1862. He was buried by the side of Arnett in the river bottom just below town. js