The Last of the Bandit Riders

This is the story of Matt Warner, outlaw and rustler, member of the Wild Bunch and close friends with Butch Cassidy, as told in his own words. He followed the outlaw life approximately from 1878, the year he ran away from home, to 1896, the year he was caught and sent to prison. During that time he had for pals such notorious highwaymen as Butch Cassidy, Tom McCarty, Bill McCarty, Elza Lay, and that mysterious killer who hid behind the alias of Bill Rose. These men, during that period, represented the high tide of outlawry in the mountain West.

By 1935 all these widely known outlaws were dead except Warner and Lay, who in all probability were the sole outstanding bandit survivors of that turbulent and picturesque period of American history. Lay died in 1937 and Warner on De¬cember 21, 1938. A mechanized civilization has abolished the horseman outlaw, his horse and six-shooter, and has brought in their place the city gangster with his auto, airplane, machine gun, and bomb. But in 1935 the world of the horseman outlaw still survived in the brain of Matt Warner. It was with the view of preserving some of these valuable historical pictures Matt was persuaded to tell his story.

With humor and a little self-deprecation this is a wonderful insight into the life of the unique brand of cowboy that inhabited the Outlaw Trail...here is Warner's obituary to that life:

Old Cowboy
The great plains are empty; no more do they ring
With the voice of the old cowboy as he yodels and sings.
Old Cowboy, we miss you. Where have you gone?
The old cow range you rode so long
And the old mess wagon where you made your home,
Now stand deserted, forlorn, so alone—Old Cowboy.
Your tarpaulin at the fire you spread Under the stars
To rest your tired head—Old Cowboy.

From the range forever your voice is still,
No more does its echo resound from the hills—
Old Cowboy.

Old Cowboy, we miss you every day,
Miss your cheerful smile and your laughter so gay,
And the pony you rode, and the rope in your hand,
And the iron you used to burn in your brand—Old Cowboy.
Your horses and cattle have gone from the range,
Your saddle is empty and nothing remains
But a shadow of sorrow, and a memory of pain—Old Cowboy.

From the range forever your voice is still,
No more does its echo resound from the hills—
Old Cowboy.

Around the old chuck wagon now so still,
Where once the cowboy ate his fill
Of good old beans and mulligan hot,
And coffee out of an old black pot,
Silence prevails—the old cowboy has gone,
And no more will we hear his cowboy songs.
From the range forever your voice is still,
No more does its echo resound from the hills—
Old Cowboy.
By MATT WARNER October 31, 1938