He commanded immediate respect. Describing Tom Horn’s arrest of the Fred Langhoff gang in November 1893, eyewitness Gus Rosentreter wrote in his memoirs: ‘One man had a big butcher knife and talked big. Tom Horn told him, ‘Drop that knife or I’ll put a bullet through your heart.’ The knife dropped and the show was over.’

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Deciding that the legal system did not work, Horn developed his own means to halt the stealing. Under cross examination in his trial, Horn described his action when he encountered rustlers: ‘I would simply take the calf and such things as that stopped the stealing. I had more faith in getting the calf than in courts. ‘ If he thought a man was guilty of stealing cattle and had been fairly warned, Horn said, he would as soon shoot him as look at him — and would not feel one shred of remorse.

Yet, there was a decent side to Tom Horn’s personality. He was ‘very quiet’ when sober, as many witnesses at his murder trial testified. He was intelligent and highly articulate. He liked kids, and kids liked him. When he stopped occasionally at the Frank Wilkinson ranch north of Cheyenne, he sometimes brought gifts for the children — all six of them. Riding the grub line (a common practice among hungry cowboys, who would stop in at ranches on their travels), Horn was usually short on money, but he always left a little coin next to his plate.

He also had a sense of fair play. In the rustler-killing episodes in which he was involved, the victims always received fair warning. And he was loyal, by his own lights. To the end, Horn never exposed his employers. He never let them down, the way they did him by turning their backs on him in the end. He died bravely- described as the coolest man present at his hanging.

By the time he was implicated in the Willie Nickell shooting, Horn, then more than 40, had begun to experience doubts about his own methods of enforcing the law. Judging by his letters and other writings, he sensed the world was closing in around him and that he was coming to the end of his road. Perhaps that is why he jumped at the prospect of a job offer in Montana — although it may only have been a ruse, as described by the sheriff who tracked Horn down.

The proffered job in Montana was an opportunity to escape from a now stifling environment. Horn had lost his usefulness to his employers and had become a liability and a threat to their anonymity. It was no longer an asset to be associated with gunmen — especially Horn. Horn sensed his own outlaw status and also seemed to believe that ordinary citizens wanted him out of the picture. His behavior during his trial showed, on the one hand, understanding that he was in a fight for his life, and on the other, an apparent resignation — which produced an incredible series of damaging statements that helped produce his conviction. It was almost as if he had a subconscious death wish.

In his testimony, Horn acknowledged having made every one of the remarks in the ‘confession’ that Joe LeFors extracted, including the infamous ‘best shot that I ever made and the dirtiest trick I ever done’ line.

In spite of testimony from an ally, Otto Plaga, that Horn was 20 miles from the scene of the murder an hour after it was committed, prosecuting attorney Walter Stoll, perceiving Horn’s monumental ego, led Horn into stating that he knew the country better than anyone — day or night — and that a good man with a good horse who knew the country could ride from the site of the murder to the point where he was seen in an hour. With that statement, Horn destroyed his own alibi.

Horn’s employer and friend, John Coble, apparently did not realize the difficulty Horn faced in his trial. Other large ranchers may have recognized that Tom Horn’s arrest and trial signaled the end of an era, but they likely were glad to see the end of him and unconcerned when he failed to muster a defense.

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