A Deputy Shot Dead and a County Up in Arms: The Hunt for the Cattle Rustler Simes
When Deputy Sheriff Conlee was killed by a suspected stock thief, Sprague's stockmen raised a $500 reward, formed posses, and vowed to wipe out the rustlers who had made Rocky Ford their rendezvous.
Sprague, June 26. — All day long stockmen have been arriving in this city, and the excitement over the killing of Deputy Sheriff Conlee by desperado Alfred Simes grows more intense. Small knots of excited individuals gather on the street corners to discuss the matter, and in a few minutes the crowd has swelled to several hundred. Half a dozen posses are now out hunting for the murderer. Stockmen are so wrought up over the affair that there is likely to be a bloody battle if they come across any of the gang who made Rocky Ford their rendezvous.
At a mass meeting of citizens this morning a reward was guaranteed for the capture of Simes. It is expected the county will offer a reward also. Prominent stockmen declare they will band together to exterminate the entire gang of cattle rustlers. The latest intelligence received here this afternoon is that Simes was seen going southeast this morning toward James Murphy's ranch in Whitman county. Two Sprague posses and one from Colfax passed there two hours later, riding hard on the trail.
Conlee's funeral occurred this afternoon and his body was followed to the grave by hundreds of people.
Ritzville, June 26. — This evening the saddle and bridle belonging to Conlee's horse was found covered with sagebrush a mile from the scene of the murder. At 2 o'clock Baldwin last night arrested a red-headed woman and two men for stealing a pair of horses from Rocky Ford on Monday. They are supposed to be a part of the Creek gang.
“Prominent stockmen declare they will band together to exterminate the entire gang of cattle rustlers.”
In 1895, a county could summon a hundred armed volunteers within hours of a deputy's death — a kind of ad hoc law enforcement that blurred the line between posse and vigilante. The Rocky Ford rustlers were pursued as an organized criminal syndicate, and the language of "extermination" shows how thin the line was between justice and frontier vengeance. Today, rural counties still wrestle with the same question of how far citizens will go when the law seems too slow.
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