Hayes initially rejected Crook’s request, citing the lack jurisdiction. A second request from the Governor’s office to the President received a warmer response. Hayes approved a delayed withdrawal in case there was a need ‘to suppress domestic violence.’

Now safely behind Union lines, Gaslin was able to conclude the trial. Closing arguments were made, the jury sequestered. They returned within an hour, their verdict—guilty of second-degree murder. The next morning, with elements of the U.S. Infantry conspicuously present, Olive and his co-defendant Fred Fisher were returned to the state penitentiary where they were to serve life sentences. The two served a year and a half of that sentence when the Nebraska Supreme Court granted them a new trial. Print was returned to Custer County, his side of the Olive line, and was set free by Judge Boblits when no one stepped forward to accuse him of a crime.

That, for all intents and purposes, ends the Nebraska piece of the Print Olive story. He raised cattle near Plum Creek with his brother Ira for a few years, sold his Nebraska interests and moved to western Kansas, a territory still more welcoming to a cattleman’s mentality. This time he paid cash for the land, assembled the hands he needed, and became a successful cattleman once again.

In late summer of 1886, the second-edition cattle baron had been in Trail City, Colorado on business and was waiting, bags and six-gun packed, for the eastbound train to take him back to Dodge City. He entered a saloon he owned there, intent on ‘one for the road.’ He noticed Joe Sparrow standing at the bar. Joe had borrowed money from Print and was due to repay the debt. Instead, Sparrow reached for his gun and fired his Colt .45 point-blank into Olive’s chest. Of the several times he’d been shot, this one accomplished what the others had not. He was dead before the other five slugs from Sparrow’s weapon entered his fallen body.

A thought before we leave Olive. He would have made an excellent economic developer in his time. He assembled the elements of an economy—water, land, investment in infrastructure, access to markets in the form of the Union Pacific Railroad—a winning combination. The formula still works. Ted Turner now runs cattle on 445,000 acres of Nebraska grass, the Mormon Church on 228,000 acres. Turns out the checkbook is mightier than the sword, or six-gun in this case.

Print has now played his part in our story. He was the instigator of the Olive Line, that very real boundary between two competing visions of how to be in the world. He sparked the trial that resolved that conflict. The law-and-order version won out, mostly, although there are still vestiges of Print’s model when you travel west of Buffalo County, Nebraska. Civilization means something a little different out west of that line.

And he delivered a stack of Bill Cody’s promotional posters and brochures, and some very handsome photographs of Sitting Bull, Gall, and a number of other important Lakota chiefs to Mr. F. G. Keens of Kearney, Nebraska.

In the end, the “Do or get done” guy finally got “Done.”

Radical Winds ~ by Steve Buttress, posted by Chuck Peek