Life and adventures of Harry Tracy, "the modern Dick Turpin,"

Preface

The life and history of Harry Tracy is one of the most remarkable set of incidents known in criminal history. His career is one of the most tragic and startling ever known.

The deeds of the most remarkable characters in history, whose lives have been made up of daring, fortitude and desperation seem to pale into insignificance when reviewed beside those of this desperate, courageous, and, at times gallant out-law. With many rewards offered for his body dead or alive, and thousands of desperate, well armed and brave and, sometimes mercenary men on the hunt, he preserved the most stoical heroism and indifference imaginable, throughout.

• Dick Turpin may have been more gallant; Rob Roy more of a chevalier; the James Brothers more far-seeing and designing; but all the deeds of all men of this desperate category seem to give way in deference to the adroitness of escape, desperation of chance, cleverness and finesse when danger was appalling, accuracy of conception and indifference to life whether that of his own or that of another, exhibited by Harry Tracy.

Knowing him as the author has for several years, and having occasion to defend him on the charge of murder, the only wonder is that his genius never took real form in some laudable enterprise. But there are characters that, when real war does not afford them the chance of venture and prowess, mimic war comes of their own making, which ends their career in infamy or consigns them to some self-earned obloquy; but, after all, the world stands in awe at this strange and startling glint of mighty genius.

While the writer does not desire to hero-worship any who violate law, there ever will prevail that sort of secret adoration of courage, whether it be that of the Christian Martyr burning at the stake in challenged indifference to physical torture, the soldier on the field of carnage prodigal of life, or the desperado who battles with no encomiums from proud admirers to spur his ardour; and simply fights on to preserve a life and liberty that offers no hope of reward.

In the following pages will occur a true story of Harry Tracy, and how his career has been marked throughout with deeds of desperate courage and lavish sacrifice of human life. A great leader in battle is also a great murderer for he views destruction of life with a half pleasure, and pronounces a battle, as Napoleon did, "a great game." The design upon life is the same. Whether soldier or highwayman, the competition, is wherein men are pitted unto death, as the "main chance" of doing to your adversary what he designs doing unto you, but do it quicker than he does. Indeed, business is very much like war, your adversary must be either captured and utilized or rendered hors de combat.

Thus if we reason far enough along the lines of legitimate retributive justice, we inevitably come athwart the problem of whether one pirate, whether in business or war, is any better or worse than another. While we shun the reasoning that converges all enterprise, whether cornering wheat and starving the poor, or shooting men to gain liberty, into a common apex, we nevertheless reverently sift the quality of the man that performs the deed, and, whatever of it seems good we secretly cherish it and consistently rejoice in it.

We will tell the story as it fell from his own lips — as we are now privileged to do so by a sacred pledge between man and man — and not convict and man — giving the impressions, the soliloquies and the speculations of Tracy as he went through the various startling phases of his strange career. It is impossible to imitate his peculiar dialectical speech, so, while using facts, the verbiage is that of the writer.

The story of Harry Tracy is, after all, the history of events not the history of a man. It has transcended one man and become tragic history. Let it be read, not emulated; thought, not acted; seen, and not lived. — It is in a vast field of consequences out of which we may, if we reflect honestly, eliminate original truth and reasons.

L. J.

STATEMENT OP THE AUTHOR; AND CURRENT COM- MENTS OP NEWSPAPERS.

I have purposed to write the true history of Harry Tracy, the alleged desperado and outlaw, in order to tell a true and clear story of law and justice as measured against courage and personal devotion to what a strange and fascinating character deemed to be his inherent rights. His deeds are dark and much to be deplored in a country of law and Christian precepts, but he instinctively believed he was acting a duty.

A man often flees from the emissaries of the law as a matter of precaution; but, in all the annals of heroism nothing stands the test as does the history of the branded outlaw who meets all the resources of the law, backed by unlimited wealth, and, with a full magazine, consisting of a rifle, a revolver, a knife, and unlimited courage, defies the minions of the law with perfect ease. He was like a mighty mountain lion — he would run if he had a chance, or mangle an audacious pursuer if need or pretext offered itself.

I have known this modern Dick Turpin since he was a mere boy. I have, from his own lips, the history of his early career, where the mother exerts an influence, the father authority, the brothers and sisters a restraint, but the associates a trend that makes a destiny. As some one has said:

Sow a thought and you reap an act; Sow an act and you reap a habit; Sow a habit and you reap a destiny.

Men do not reach a desperate deed at a bound. The stages to great crimes are by gradations quite as educational as that of the merchant king or the marshal in the field.

When Harry Tracy killed Deputy Sheriff Valentine Hay, in Colorado, the writer had just concluded the defense of Lee Fortune in the same State and for a like crime. These men were close friends, and, when Fortune fired upon some men who had engendered his hatred, who should be the supporter of his defense but Harry Tracy? They were both strange men, and but little known in a community. Lee Fortune could shoot down four men without compunction of conscience, and without "Malice aforethought." Harry Tracy could do more, and never swerve an inch.

In this book I deal with a romance that shows man and woman at their best and at their worst, when fortitude is a pre-requisite. It shows the course of true and false courage and devotion. The whole book shows woman at her best; man at his worst; and both full of daring, courage, devotion, versatility and rapidity of intelligent action equal to anything in fiction and historical romance; and, so far above the average action, that soldiers, officers and citizens are defeated, outwitted, daunted, laughed at and all made as helpless as ten pins before an expert roller.

If we admire his electric activity and conception, it is because we always admire fortitude, gallantry and courage. If we take him for a sort of hero, it is because we esteem men of fame, whether won on foot or on horseback; and whether with or without law.

While we do not encourage deeds of violence and infringements of law, we still have a secret thrill of animation in the presence of a Master at his peculiar action, calling or destiny.

It is interesting to note the comments of leading newspapers of the period. The author takes the privilege of borrowing from the Literary Digest which commented as follows in the issue of July 19th. A. D. 1902:

"The old adage that 'truth is stranger than fiction' finds a new vindication in the wildly picturesque career of Harry Tracy, the escaped Oregon convict. "For deviltry and genuine bloodthistiness,' remarks the Richmond Dispatch, 'this Western bandit is not surpassed by even 'the heavy villains in the modern melodramas.' ' 'As for the dime-novel heroes,' adds the Detroit Evening News, 'Tracy 'beats all up to date.' ' 'He is a 'real twentieth-century Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard rolled into one.' ' declares the New York World."

"Rewards amounting in the aggregate to nearly $6,000 were set on the convict's head, and as many as a thousand men have been in pursuit of him at one time. 'Of all the desperate criminals the country has ever produced,' observes the Salt Lake Herald, 'Tracy seems entitled to the first rank.' 'That he should have been permitted for days to go and come according to his own will," declares the Tacoma Ledger, 'does not reflect credit on the dignity of this great State.' The Providence Journal says:

" 'Criminal tho he is, he is as picturesque and fascinating a figure in his movements and his desperation as a noble hero of romance foiling the attempts of the wicked. Risking his life in escaping from the iron and masonry of his prison, hunted like a wild beast by whole neighborhoods, now outwitting his pursuers and again fighting his way single-handed through a whole posse, forcing law-abiding citizens to feed him and carry him by water and land at his bidding, strewing his path with the bodies of those who resist him, and steadily nearing the great Northwest wilderness where for him is freedom, he is displaying precisely the same qualities of craft, courage, determination, and resourcefulness that employed in some worthy cause, have secured heroes their place in history. In a way we can not but admire such qualities, even when used against the peace and welfare of society, and take an instinctive pleasure in the narration of the exploits, however wicked, to which they lead, remembering how much circumstances instead of moral conviction have to do with giving direction to the talents that a man possesses.' "

"The New York Evening Journal sees in Tracy's character the evidences of energy and absolute courage that might, under other and healthier conditions, have made him one of the most useful members of society. "Truly," it moralizes, "the penitentiary is a monument to the lack of public schools." Similarly the Minneapolis Tribune says:

"It seems a pity that such nerve and desperate courage should be put to such a bad use, when there are Filipino and Moro ladrones and guerrillas to be hunted. It very often happens that a criminal puts into his lawless vocation an amount of ability or heroism sufficient to make him rich or famous in legitimate pursuits."