OUTLAWS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

Softcover. Anyone looking over old newspaper files dealing with crime in British Columbia is bound to come to the conclusion that many wanted desperados of the United States paid a visit to B.C. Boone Helm, the wicked cannibalistic murderer, carried on his nefarious trade in the Cariboo and left some $30,000 in gold dust and nuggets buried, so they say, around the Quesnel Forks country. Legend has it that he tried to bribe his way out of a lynching bee at Virginia City by promising to show the vigilantes where this loot was hidden. Then there was Myres, who claimed to be the last of the Jesse James gang. He got shot trying to escape from the old gaol in Victoria. And in Victoria's early days there was a close link with Billy the Kid, who was possibly more sinned against than sinner. Nor was the Butch Cassidy gang from the Hole in the Wall country of Wyoming unknown in British Columbia. Some say Bill Miner was connected with them, but history doesn't bear this out. Possibly the most historic US adventurer in British Columbia was a character known as "old man Sharp", who lived quietly up on Quatsino Sound. Sharp claimed that his real name was Quantrill, the southern guerilla fighter of civil war days, who, in 1863, led a band of 450 raiders in an attack on Lawrence, Kansas, pillaging the town and killing 150 men, women and children. Profusely Illus. 65pp. trade size softcover. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. Vg.