The next morning, November 1, Deputy Smith, at the instigation of Chief Cook, took the east-bound express on the Kansas Pacific in pursuit of Bernheim, or Blume, it being very evident from the dispatch found on Thompson that he was somewhere on that road. At noon of the same day a telegram was received from Deputy Smith to the effect that Bernheim had stolen a ride on the special car carrying Judge Foster to Wallace, and instructing the officers to head the man off by telegraph. The wires were at once clicking, sending word to the agents of the detective association at Junction City, Topeka, Leavenworth and Kansas City, and that night about 9 o'clock word came over the wire from Sheriff D. R. Kiehl, at Junction City:
He was brought back without difficulty, and had to serve out an eight year's sentence in the penitentiary at Cañon City. At last accounts his first wife was still living in Lake City, and the second was still in Denver. Morris was discharged from custody.
HORSE-STEALING IN THE EARLY DAYS--GEORGE BRITT AND WILLIAM HILLIGOSS, AND SOME OF THEIR OPERATIONS--OFF WITH A RANCHMAN'S VALUABLE TEAM--GEN. COOK ON THE TRAIL, WHICH IS FOLLOWED AND LOST--ANOTHER CLUE IS OBTAINED, AND THE SCAMPS ARE TRACKED TO KANSAS.
Back in the early days, two of the most noted desperadoes and horse thieves of the Rocky mountain region were George Britt and William Hilligoss, who, like many others, did not come to grief until Gen. Cook got on their track. They had been guilty of many crimes, but no one ever succeeded in overtaking them until Dave Cook was elected city marshal of Denver, and made it his duty to track them down, which he did, almost unaided, and brought them to town in four days after their crime.
When Cook was elected marshal of Denver for the first time, in 1866, he printed a notice, saying that he would agree to find stolen stock when notified twenty-four hours after its disappearance, and that if he did not find it, he would pay for it himself, after such notification. One day in December, 1867, a well-known ranchman named McIntyre came to the city and put up at McNassar's corral, which then stood on the present site of the American House. The next morning the horses had disappeared, and Mr. McIntyre was quite in despair. The animals were very fine ones, and the loss would have been very severe upon him. He had little hope of recovering them, as up to that time the thief who had been able to once get away with stock had generally made good his escape.