The Cheyenne Daily Leader

WITH OLD FRIENDS.
It Is Said that McCoy is in Northern Carbon County.
Sheltered and Protected by Other Texas Fugitives.
Probability that Linn Will be Acquitted at Laramie.
Special Dispatch to The Leader.
Rawlins, Wyo., Oct. 24.-The presence of several Laramie county officials and Stock Inspector Frank Canton in the section north of Rawlins, has furnished a subject for all sorts of surmises. It is conceded that they are in search of Messrs. McCoy and LeRoy, recently of Cheyenne. Very well. In this connection three pertinent queries arise in the mind of one well acquainted with topography and people of the section under surveillance and the character of the pursued and pursuers.
Are the men in this vicinity? Have they friends here? Can they be taken if discovered or encountered? To the first two an emphatic affirmative is vouchsafed. The last question is one that presents many phases to a person cognizant of the circumstances of the case.
The fugitives were seen and recognized at Fort Laramie and three ranches west of the post. A vigorous search, lasting two weeks and covering an immense scope of territory, has failed to reveal a single trace of the escaped men north of the river. That the men are traveling westward, with the announced intention of ultimately journeying to the South, is well known. That they have friends of their own stripe in the northern portion of Carbon county can be asserted without fear of contradiction by the former intimates of McCoy, who have openly boasted that they would shelter and defend the fleeing outlaw.
In a cabin constructed in one of the secluded nooks through which the south branch of the Powder river courses, resides the Banks family, or more properly speaking that portion of it which was not shot or hung for crimes committed prior to their emigration from Texas some seven years ago. They are more exclusive than the most clannish. The wives and children of the three male members of this isolated colony have not visited a settlement since their advent in Carbon county. The women and children are excelled in the use of firearms only by their husbands and fathers. When they preempted a claim in this section their earthly possessions comprised two wagon loads of miscellaneous chattels, prominent among which was a brace of branding irons and a costly collection of rifles and revolvers. To-day they own a large herd of cattle and any merchant is willing to tolerate their insolence in order to secure their custom.
Two years ago a mysterious individual, since learned to have been a Pinkerton detective, after making numerous inquiries concerning the family that came here from Hamilton county, Tex., quietly left for the north after conferring with the sheriff. The brave man was never seen again and many asserted that he had been killed by the Banks, who thus became Wyoming murderers as well as cattle thieves. The mysterious affair was investigated by the grand jury, but no further action taken.
Lige Banks, when on a spree here last spring in a fit of bravado asserted that Bill McCoy was his cousin, and that they were neighbors in the Lone Star state. Eight members of the Banks family are capable of giving desperate battle to any equal number of men who ever pulled trigger or mounted horse. Reinforced by two such reckless and desperate characters as McCoy and his companion a large and valorous posse would find it no mean task to conquer the force, the members of which regard friendship as more binding than love and life of less value than liberty, especially where a fugitive from justice is involved.
More than ten days ago a well founded rumor to the effect that the escaped men were making for the Banks stronghold gained currency in this section, and nothing could be more natural than that McCoy should seek his Texas friends.