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I
n the summer of 1917 two former
employees of Ora Haley’s Two
Bar ranch in far northwestern
Colorado, Hiram Henry “Hi” Bernard
and Francis Marion “Frank” Willis, were
ranging cattle near the Green River west of
the Bassett ranch in Browns Park. Bernard,
Haley’s onetime foreman, opened up to Willis
about his involvement in not only the hiring
of notorious paid killer Tom Horn but also the
aiding and abetting of Horn during his time in Browns
Park around the turn of the 20th century. Bernard was aware
Willis intended to write a history of the area and spoke freely
to him that summer. He even agreed to answer Willis’ questions
about Horn, the killings in Browns Park and related matters. He
had one condition: Willis was not to say or publish a word until
after Bernard was dead. Willis agreed. The working manuscript,
“Confidentially Told,” was never published.
That said, the manuscript survives, though only a few later
works about Horn have referenced Bernard’s account, including
John Rolfe Burroughs’ Where the Old West Stayed Young (1962) and
Chip Carlson’s Tom Horn: Blood on the Moon (2001). Other publi-
cations, such as Larry D. Ball’s Tom Horn in Life and Legend (2014),
refer tangentially to Burroughs and Carlson in the footnotes.
Yet “Confidentially Told” is more than an interesting
read. It is an invaluable firsthand account of the men
and events surrounding the hiring of Horn. While
Bernard recounts his dealings with the assassin
—who posed as cattle buyer “James Hicks”
during his time in Browns Park—he also ex-
plains why area cattle barons targeted small-
time ranchers and provides details about
the killings of Madison Matthew “Matt” Rash
and Isom Dart.
For a few years following his 1913 divorce
from notorious Browns Park cattle rancher
Ann Bassett, Bernard worked as foreman for
Larry Curtin’s cattle operation farther south
along the Green. During the summer grazing
season Willis worked with Bernard, and the men
passed much of their time in and out of the saddle
in private discussion. The events mentioned in Willis’
manuscript are related below in chronological order, with
Bernard’s own words appearing in quoted material.In 1896 Wyoming cattle baron Ora Haley hired perhaps
the best-known ranch foreman in the southern Wyoming basin,38-year-old Hi Bernard, to run the Two
Bar, his newest acquisition, near Browns
Park, Colo. Bernard had managed other
ranches and enjoyed the freedom that
came with working cattle, as he recounted
to Willis:I was independent, my work suited me. I under-
stood cattle and liked to work with them and wanted
to remain free from financial worries. I lived well,
kept good and comfortable quarters at the ranches, and
put up at the best hotels when I went to the cities. I spent my
money as I saw fit among all classes—some of the best, and some
of the worst—all of which I found were more or less alike in many
respects, just human, with the same human instincts expressed
in different ways.Bernard liked to boast that none of the ranches he managed
went out of business while under his control. “My job was to
handle an investment that happened to be in cattle,” he said.
“The investment paid a big dividend to the investors. They
were satisfied.”
Trusting his new foreman to buy cattle and land as needed,
Haley provided Bernard an expense account as well as a
company checkbook. “The Browns Parkers did not
realize the range was not going to be open forever,
and they foolishly tried to hold it as a private res-
ervation,” Bernard recalled. “They knew the [Ben
C.] Majors and Sainsbury ranches on Little
Snake River were for sale and could be bought
cheap. These ranches were necessary to pro-
tect their eastern range boundaries, and they
failed to buy them. That was poor judgment
on their part.”
Bernard seemed to be referencing in par-
ticular Ann Bassett, the daughter of cattle
rancher Herb Bassett, who was known to asso-
ciate with such area outlaws as Butch Cassidy
and Elza Lay. Bernard elaborated on the Browns
Park clique:A mere handful of people in Browns Park set up a little
kingdom—or queendom—of their own, from the Utah and Wyo-
ming lines to the Little Snake River. Except for their few ranches,
all of it was open public land. A big area covered with grass
and forage, seeding itself and blowing away each year and bene-
fiting nobody....Ora HaleyAnn Bassett