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Photo: Copyrighted by Fred & Jo Mazzulla .
What Tom as a little boy could hardly understand was the
cruelest part of the enemy campaign: they had taken to smudg-
ing cattle brands and claiming that the homesteaders had rus-
tled their cattle. Accusing them of being ruthless was the worst
threat of all. Whenever a man was shot from behind, the cattle-
men could always say he had been caught rustling and had run
when accosted. No other explanation was necessary, and there
was no defense for the accused.
Jim Averill said, "I'll see that they don't plant any blotched
brands on me. I've got eighty cows and twenty head of horse,
right branded and registered, and everybody knows what I got.
I'll ride fence every day if I have to."
The next news to come was that Jim and Ella Averill had
been reported as outlaws. The claim was that they had made a
deal with a tribe of Indians and had been driving stolen cattle
by the hundreds to the Dakotas. Jim Averill considered this
with a determination to find a way to clear his name- but when
he heard that it was rumored he ·and Ella had never been mar-
ried, then his anger couldn't be controlled.
"They better stay off that tack!" he shouted.
-But he could not name the ''.they" and he could not shoot or
strangle his . vague mysterious accusers.
Next there was a night fire in the store- most accidental, of
course, though Jim Averill found that a kerosene-soaked rag
had started it while he and his wife and son were asleep. He de-
cided not to make any accusation, since he could not name the
arsonist. But he had heard the flames crackling in time to rise
and save the barn, and as soon as possible he rebuilt the store
and the hut in which the family made their living quarters.
When settlers rode over to help, Jim Averill said carefully,
"Must have been a faulty flue."
Emma Watson Averill, first woman_ lynched in Wyoming. One of the ranchers said, "Yeah, I've done a pile o' . traveling
before I hit the Sweetwater. And I heard a lot about them bad
flues all the way."
man in the employ of the cattlemen. The stranger had been told Then he swung into the saddle and added, "There's gonna be
that Ella Averill was Cattle Kate, a rustler and woman of loose a powerful lot o' bad flues from here on. You folks got my
morals. He made advances toward her which ~ight have been sympathy."
calculated to inspire Jim Averill to start shooting. Jim himself The next thing that happened was the loss of Jim Averill's
would then have been shot from behind, the blame left upon eighty cows- through-a broken fence, though that fence had
him for having drawn first. But in this instance Jim beat the been whole the day before. He trailed (Continued on page 42)
stranger with his bare hands and thus got rid of him.
· Another time Black Mike _tried to encourage Jim to sell whis-
key to an Indian. That would have been another excuse to
march Averill off to jail.
Tom saw one family after another come by to explain their
leaving the range, then never saw them again.
"They've burned me flat," was part of the usual farewell.
"Just before dawn the fire started in the barn and the house at
the same time. It started from burning arrows shot into the hay .
and through the house windows. The fields are black now. You
better git, too, Jim. They'll git you next."
"I'm staying," said Jim Averill.
"We're staying," said Ella, standing beside her husband.
Tom wanted to go along with this last family, because with-
out them there would be no children for him to play with. But
he was thrilled at the heroism of his parents. Besides, he had a
hazy idea that he might grow up in time to conquer the organ-
ized cattle barons before they could do much more damage.
As each family stopped at the store to. say goodby, Tom
heard the halfhearted remark: "If any mail comes, save it till
you hear where we're at."
None of the retreating families had any idea where they
would go next or what they would do. Simply, they could no
longer buck the opposition of the iron-willed cattlemen. Each
time Ella Averill went out to the wagons to talk with the women,
they were crying. They had begun to be afraid they would nev-
er again find a place of safety.
Tom watched as his parents bade farewell to all the families
whose land ringed the store in a radius of fifty miles. Before
long the A verills were alone, their only hope of any communi-
cation with human beings lying in the trail by which travelers
would be likely to pass. · Jim Averill-he begged lynchers to free Emma.
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GOLDEN WEST 13