e of men whom
the Mormons wanted removed, and soon got so bad that he had to leave.
Once more he headed west to California, and once more he started back
north from San Francisco, for reasons satisfactory to himself. While in
California, as was later learned, he undertook to rob and kill a man at
an outlying ranch, who had taken him in and befriended him when he was
in need and in flight from vengeance. He showed no understanding of the
feeling of gratitude, no matter what was done for him or how great was
his own extremity.

In Oregon Helm went back to robbery as his customary means of support,
and he killed several men at this time of his life, how many will never
be known. In 1862, as the mountain placers were now beginning to draw
the crowds of mining men, it was natural that Boone Helm should show up
at Florence. Here he killed a man in cold blood, in treachery, while his
enemy was not armed, and after their quarrel had been compromised. This
victim was Dutch Fred, a man of reputation as a fighter, but he had
never offended Helm, who killed him at the instigation of an enemy of
his victim, and possibly for hire. He shot Fred while the latter stood
looking him in the face, unarmed, and, missing him with the first shot,
took deliberate aim with the second and murdered his man in cold blood.

This was pretty bad even for Florence, and he had to leave. That fall he
turned up far to the north, on the Fraser river, in British Columbia.
Here he was once more reduced to danger on a starving foot march in the
wilderness, and here, once more, he was guilty of eating the body of
his companion, whom he is supposed to have slain. He was sent back by
the British authorities, and for a time was held at Portland, Oregon,
for safe keeping. Later he was tried at Florence for killing Dutch Fred,
but the witnesses had disappeared, and people had long ago lost interest
in the crime by reason of others more recent. Helm escaped justice and
was supposed to have gone to Texas; but he soon appeared in the several
settlements which have been mentioned in the foregoing pages, and moved
from one to the other. He killed many more men, how many in all was
never known.

The courage and hardihood of Boone Helm were in evidence to the close of
his life. Three men of the Vigilantes did the dangerous work of
arresting him, and took him by closing in on him as he stood in the
street talking. "If I'd had a chance," said he, "or if I had guessed
wha