Wild West – June 2019

6 8 WILD WEST JUNE 2019

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On July 10, 1900, acquaintances found Rash, Bassett ranch foreman and

fiancé of Ann Bassett, dead in bed at his Cold Spring Mountain cabin with

two bullet holes in his body. His favorite horse, a gift from Ann’s mother,

Elizabeth, lay dead outside, also shot. Three months later, on the morning

of October 3, Dart, a Bassett ranch hand and family friend for many years,

was shot through the heart just steps from his cabin, also on Cold Spring

Mountain. At the base of a large ponderosa pine near the edge of the corral

two .30–30 cartridge casings were found. Only one man in the area—stranger

James Hicks—was known to carry a .30–30 rifle.

According to Bernard, the committee’s paid killer had slain the wrong man.

“Horn made a further investigation and killed Matt Rash,” Bernard wrote,

“and Isom Dart, mistook by Horn, should have been Jim McKnight.” The

foreman said he and Horn had agreed the targets for assassination were to

be Rash and McKnight, the ex-husband of Josephine “Josie” Bassett, Ann’s

older sister. Horn may have deliberately targeted Dart, however, as the latter

had been harboring suspected rustlers.

Years later Bernard reflected more soberly on the murders:

Horn was not the only one connected with that affair that should have been hanged.

There was several of us that the country could have gotten along without. We acted

too hasty, and for my part, I expect to pay the price in full....

I’m not offering this tale to justify my actions in the Tom Horn case, but it does

puzzle me why Wiff Wilson and Charley Ayers were overanxious to move in on

Browns Park for the kill. Their ranches and range was about 100 miles from the

park, and they never ranged any stock near the place.

Not long after the killings nearly all the remaining small ranchers in Browns

Park, including Ann Bassett, received notices to vacate the area. Days later

someone shot out a window of the Bassett family home and killed the family

dog. Ann thought the attack was the work of Hicks, the man she believed had

murdered Rash and the same individual she became convinced was Horn.

For his part, Bernard believed both the notice to vacate and shooting

at the Bassett ranch were someone else’s handiwork. Years later he confided

in Willis:

I do not believe that Tom Horn ever fired that shot. It is my opinion that someone

from around Baggs got wise to Horn; they did the shooting and left a plain trail

on purpose, so the Browns Park people could pick up a clue that would put them

on Horn’s trail. I have no idea who it was. The Wilson horse that was ridden to

Baggs from the L7 Ranch was not ridden by Horn, as reported. The stableman

at Baggs claims that he was asleep when the horse was left in the barn. The people

in the park think it was Horn, and proof to the contrary would have been useless.

From what I have heard, it did not seem to me that shot was intended to kill, and

it could have been fired by any one of a number of men familiar with the country.

Bernard’s direct involvement with killer for hire Horn is borne out by his

own words. It would haunt him all of his days, thus the promise he extracted

from Willis to not breathe a word of his account of events until after his death.

In 1902 Horn was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder

of Willie Nickell, a Wyoming sheep rancher’s 14-year-old son.

Bernard noted the reaction of Browns Park residents:

After the arrest of Tom Horn, a hush settled over the range country in northwestern

Colorado and along the southern border of Wyoming. The big cattle outfits were

Wrong Rustler?

Dart fell victim to Horn,

but perhaps in error.

Jim McKnight was to

have been his target.

Rash Killing
Horn also murdered
suspected rustler Matt
Rash, the Bassett
ranch foreman.