1001 Stories From the Old West

Charlie Siringo – A Cowboy Detective, Chapter IX

Podcast Show Notes

Chapter IX of A Cowboy Detective is one of Charlie Siringo's most colorful and wide‑ranging accounts — a whirlwind of undercover work, railroad investigations, hobo adventures, near‑death experiences, and a dramatic manhunt that leads all the way to Alaska. It's a chapter that shows Siringo at his most daring, most resourceful, and occasionally most reckless.

The chapter opens with Siringo infiltrating the Pueblo jail to gain the confidence of two young killers, Dick Manley and Young Anderson. After three weeks behind bars, he extracts a full confession — a triumph that leads to Manley's conviction, and later, Siringo's attempt to help him reform. But Manley's promise doesn't last; within months he's killed again, proving how thin the line is between redemption and ruin in the Old West.

From there, Siringo shifts into undercover work across Colorado and Texas, posing as a wealthy mining investor, a Coxeyite tramp, and a railroad hobo. He tests conductors, rides cabooses, dodges union violence during the Debs strike, and survives a runaway freight train that careens down a mountain at terrifying speed. His hobo travels take him across Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Texas — where he's thrown off trains, locked inside boxcars, threatened by railroad crews, and forced to walk fifteen miles across the Mojave Desert without water.

One of the chapter's most memorable scenes comes when Siringo, dying of thirst, tries to approach a ranch house only to be chased off by a bulldog. He survives by milking a Jersey cow directly into his mouth — a trick he learned as a barefoot Texas boy. Later, he shares food, money, and kindness with fellow tramps, including one who astonishingly repays him by mail, proving that "there is honor even among tramps."

The chapter's final act is a full‑blown adventure story: the robbery of the Treadwell gold mill in Alaska. Siringo is sent north to recover $10,000 in stolen gold. He works undercover inside the mill, nearly dies in the machinery, and eventually identifies two suspects — Charlie Hubbard and Hiram Schell — who have vanished into the wilderness with a small schooner.

Joined by fellow operative W.O. Sayles, Siringo buys a massive Indian canoe, loads it with supplies (including twenty‑five gallons of Canadian rye whisky), and sets off on a 600‑mile chase through the fjords, tide‑rips, storms, and whale‑infested waters of coastal Alaska. They dodge hostile weather, drunken Indians, and even a sleeping whale that Siringo impulsively shoots — nearly killing them both when the wounded creature churns the sea into a deadly whirlpool.

Their journey leads them to remote Indian villages, strange characters, and finally to Hubbard and Schell, living comfortably in Chieke Bay. Siringo's whisky becomes the bait that draws Hubbard close, and the chapter ends with the detectives closing in on the truth behind the gold theft.

It's a chapter packed with danger, humor, grit, and the kind of frontier resourcefulness that made Charlie Siringo one of the most remarkable lawmen of his era.

 

Highlights

• Siringo's undercover confession‑gathering inside the Pueblo jail

• The tragic downfall of Dick Manley

• Railroad investigations during the violent Debs strike

• A runaway freight train and a miraculous escape

• Hobo adventures across five states

• Surviving the Mojave Desert by milking a cow

• Acts of kindness among tramps — including one who repays his debt

• Undercover work inside the Treadwell gold mill

• A 600‑mile canoe chase through Alaska's wild coastal waters

• Encounters with storms, tide‑rips, whales, and hostile villagers

• The discovery of the schooner and the suspected gold thieves