Wild West – June 2019

JUNE 2019 WILD WEST 69

MU

SEU

M^ O

F^ N
OR
THW

EST

CO

LOR

AD
O^ (^2

)

slowed down and satisfied to stay all in one package, if we could, for

we were skating on thin ice until Horn was put out of commission.

The Browns Parkers were on the watch and wait, to be prepared if

another raid was in the making. Ann Bassett grimly rode herd over

her favorite hunting ground, to be sure that Two Bar cattle did not

eat the grass west of the divide.

Not long after Wyoming authorities hanged Horn, Bernard

seemed to change his thinking regarding Haley and the other

cattlemen’s attempts to dominate Browns Park grazeland:

I was not in the mood to put my neck into another loop [for Haley].

...At that time I was thinking seriously of throwing my Colorado

job overboard to try my luck in Oregon.

Before he could bolt, Ann Bassett, initiating a vendetta against

the Two Bar, offered Haley’s foreman a business partnership.

After meeting with Ann, Hi countered with a different sort of

proposal, and on April 13, 1904, they wed. He may or may not

have been complicit in her plans with regard to Haley. Regard-

less, their marriage remained all business. “It was strictly cattle

to Ann,” Bernard said, “and she did not pretend otherwise.”

The couple divorced sometime in 1913. Hi Bernard died at

age 66 of a heart attack on Jan. 31, 1924.

Willis had kept his word to his old friend, never saying a

word about his Browns Park confessions. After Bernard’s death,

Willis showed the manuscript to Ann Bassett, the foreman’s

ex-wife, whom Willis himself had married a year earlier. It

is not known whether he tried to have it published. Ann died

at age 77 on May 8, 1956. Following Frank Willis’ death at

age 79 on July 16, 1963, survivors happened across “Confi-

dently Told” in a suitcase beneath his bed. Someone had the

foresight to preserve it. The original is housed at the Colorado

History Center in Denver, while a copy resides in the archives

of the Museum of Northwest Colorado in Craig—its secrets

laid bare for curious researchers.

Linda Wommack, a lifelong resident of Littleton, Colo., writes

books about Colorado as well as the Collections department for

Wild West. Wommack’s book Ann Bassett: Colorado’s Cattle

Queen is suggested for further reading, along with Where the

Old West Stayed Young, by John Rolfe Burroughs, and To m

Horn: Blood on the Moon, by Chip Carlson.

Confidential Couple

Willis, here with wife Ann in

later life, shared Bernard’s

secrets only after Hi’s death.

Home on the Ranch

Ann Bassett (at center) poses

with older sister Josie and

second husband Frank Willis.