“His ears are closed”: Mathews, Wah’kon-Tah, 311.
“A RACE FOR LAND”: Daily Oklahoma State Capital, Sept. 18, 1893.
“Men knocked”: Daily Oklahoma State Capital, Sept. 16, 1893.
“Let him, like these whites”: Quoted in Trachtenberg, Incorporation of America, 34.
“great storm”: Wah-sha-she News, June 23, 1894.
“to keep his finger”: Russell, “Chief James Bigheart of the Osages,” 892.
“the most eloquent”: Thoburn, Standard History of Oklahoma, 2048.
“That the oil”: Quoted in Leases for Oil and Gas Purposes, Osage National Council, 154.
“I wrote”: Indians of the United States: Investigation of the Field Service, 398.
Like others on the Osage tribal roll: Many white settlers managed to finagle their way onto
the roll and eventually reaped a fortune in oil proceeds that belonged to the Osage. The
anthropologist Garrick Bailey estimated that the amount of money taken from the
Osage was at least $100 million.
“Bounce, you cats”: Quoted in Franks, Osage Oil Boom, 75.
“ack like tomorrow”: Mathews, Life and Death of an Oilman, 116.
“It was pioneer days”: Gregory, Oil in Oklahoma, 13–14.
“Are they dangerous”: Quoted in Miller, House of Getty, 1881.
5: THE DEVIL’S DISCIPLES
“the foulness”: Probate records of Anna Brown, “Application for Authority to Offer Cash
Reward,” NARA-FW.
“We’ve got to stop”: H. L. Macon, “Mass Murder of the Osages,” West, Dec. 1965.
“failing to enforce”: Ada Weekly News, Feb. 23, 1922.
“turned brutal crimes”: Summerscale, Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, xii.
“to detect”: For more on the origin of the phrase “the devil’s disciples,” see Lukas, Big
Trouble, 76.
“depart from”: Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, General Principles and Rules of
Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, LOC.
“miserable snake”: McWatters, Knots Untied, 664–65.
“I fought in France”: Shepherd, “Lo, the Rich Indian!”
“My name is”: William J. Burns, Masked War, 10.
“perhaps the only”: New York Times, Dec. 4, 1911.
“a thousand times”: Quoted in Hunt, Front-Page Detective, 104.
That summer: Descriptions of the activities of the private eyes derive from their daily logs,
which were included in bureau reports by James Findlay, July 1923, FBI.
“Mathis and myself”: Report by Findlay, July 10, 1923, FBI.
“Everything was”: Grand jury testimony of Anna Sitterly, NARA-FW.
“This call seems”: Report by Findlay, July 10, 1923, FBI.