b'Frederick Burnham of the Tonto RimTHE FULL STORY OF THE AMERICAN SCOUTPART 2 By Alan RockmanFor the first time since leaving the scouts, Holmes and Lee, and joining up with the Wells - Gordon family, Burnham felt his moral compass kicking in. Up until then, fleeing from the law and from bounty hunters, he had felt somewhat uneasy in his role as a hired gun and messenger for the Graham faction. This was serious business as he had never involved himself in cattle rustling or horse - stealing save for the one incident where he felt he was helping his friends save their own herd from being unjustly taken. O nce more he met and spoke with Judge Hackney, whoside of the law were just about at an end. Hearing of a new told him to wait for a letter from his uncle Josiah.Apache uprising in early 1882, Burnham rode into Globe When Burnham received it, it felt like a knife cuttingand offered his services as a scout to the local U.S. Army through him, for his uncle was blunt and to the point. Thecommander in town, a Captain S.L. Burbridge. Burbridge letter simply said:signed Burnham up as a Scout leading a detachment of friendly Apache scouts from the nearby San Carlos "Duty before all. Remember you come off the wrong stockReservation, and for the next two years, Burnham scoured to make a villain" (Kemper, "A Splendid Savage", pp. 56-57).the prairie and the mountains around Globe, often in Burnham went back to his friend, telling him he would notthe company of the famed scouts Al Sieber and Archie participate and urged him too not to be involved, but theMcIntosh, often on his own. Sieber ended up being much young Kansas Cowboy was already in too deep and did joinmore successful in tracking down hostiles than the younger in with Curly Bill. Within 2 years his friend had amassedBurnham, though it wasn\'t because of a lack of trying. well over the $2,000 he had originally sought to take in - andBurnham had become a very skillful Apache hunting scout he was shot dead, buried beneath the soil onand was very familiar in their ways but an Arizona Boot Hill (Kemper, Ibid.). unlike the territory further southeast whereIndian raids and massacres had become The judge once more urged Burnham tocommonplace, the area around Globe get clear of the Tonto Basin and Globe andwas much more subdued. The success of strike out for Tombstone before he made athe nearby San Carlos Reservation was a mistake that was likely to be fatal. This timemajor factor keeping things calm in thatPauline Cushman was not only a well -Burnham heeded the advice and headedparticular part of Arizona territory. (Ifknown actress, but she was also south towards the "Town Too Tough toBurnham had chosen to remain in Arizona Die." He lost contact with the Wells-GordonTerritory for three more years, he very wellone of the Union Armys most famous family, and it remains unknown what theirwould have been involved in the pursuitspies, able to infiltrate Confederate ultimate fate was - whether they were able toto track down Geronimo - but as we shall survive the grim cycle of violence that wassee, success in mining and in love, not tolines posing as an outspoken consuming the region or if they were lostmention that African dream became much casualties buried in the rocks and sand. more important to him). Southern sympathizer, then bringingFamed scout Al Sieberback valuable information about Going down to Tombstone in the late summer and earlySo Burnham drifted along, either offering his services to fall of 1881 was akin to jumping from the frying pan intolocal sheriffs including Bucky O\'Neill or traveling intoConfederate troop movements to the the fire. Either Judge Hackney was totally unaware of thethe hills searching for silver. On one such visit, he madeUnion high command.growing animosity between the Cowboy faction and thethe acquaintance of another famous celebrity, this time a faction led by Wyatt Earp, his brothers, Doc Holliday andwoman who with her husband owned a hotel in nearby John Clum, or he may have felt it was a much less dangerousFlorence. That acquaintance was the wife of the sherifftime, untouched. Burnham and his associate mined the situation than being drawn into the open violence of theof Pinal County, Mrs. Jeremiah Fryer - but she was farmine, not finding much at first, however on their second Pleasant Valley feuds. Somehow, quite possibly due to themore famous by her maiden name. Pauline Cushmango-around they broke into the fabled vein of gold in the intervention of one of the judge\'s friends, a decent sort ofwas not only a well-known actress, but she was also oneChristmas Mine and Burnham, barely 23 years old, was gambler who told Burnham that he could make a good lifeof the Union Army\'s most famous spies, able to infiltratepractically a millionaire by today\'s standards.in Tombstone provided he steered clear of the then risingConfederate lines posing as an outspoken Southernwarring factions, Burnham managed to avoid trouble,sympathizer, then bringing back valuable informationIt was now time for the young scout-turned-gunman-initially taking up a job as a night guardsman at one of Edabout Confederate troop movements to the Union highturned entrepreneur to go back home and wed the girl Schlieffen\'s mines. In doing so, he may or may not havecommand. On one final spying exploit, Miss Cushman wasof his dreams, Blanche Blick, who had been waiting made the acquaintance of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, orcaptured by the Confederates, taken to General Bragg\'spatiently for him all these years. For almost the next the Clantons, (written accounts of his life are vague whenheadquarters and sentenced to be hanged. The followingdecade Burnham had tried to settle into what for him it comes to any kind of acquaintanceship with the Earps,morning, just before she was to be taken out to the gallows,must have been considered a mundane life, moving to though he must have at least met them) but he was also ablea Union Cavalry raid rescued her, and for a time she wasthe then-growing San Gabriel Valley town of Pasadena, to avoid, having had enough of being forced to choose sides,the toast of the North. Now she had come out West, still,California (which ultimately became his home much later the greatest and most notorious gunfight in the history ofa quite attractive woman but her thespian days were allon). He tried growing oranges but he wasn\'t an orange the Old West, the shootout at the O.K. Corral. but over, now being involved in what ultimately would begrower and that didn\'t pan out. He and Blanche brieflya very unhappy marriage with Sheriff Fryer of Florence.returned to Arizona where he became involved in trying Burnham may have missed the gunfire, the smoke, theThe Fryers themselves were desperate to strike it rich.to develop a town just south of Phoenix by the name of dead and the notoriety of involvement at the O.K. Corral,They told Burnham and an associate of a nearby mine thatMesa but that town needed water, and that didn\'t pan out but thankfully for him, his days of being on the wrongsupposedly had a deep vein of gold that was, up until thateither. So Burnham returned to California, resuming his 30 January 2020'