The payroll heist of lanky Embar cowboy Tom Walsh was one of those too-good-to-be-true stories told around the campfire in the Owl Creek region and Thermopolis, Wyoming, in the early 1900s.
Harry Webb, himself an Embar cowboy in 1908, had heard the story from the old-timers and shared it decades later in his book “Sheriffs I’ve Come Up Against.”
It was the late 1800s when Walsh, a lanky middle-aged cowhand, barged into the bunkhouse at the Embar Ranch in remote Wyoming. He had been at the Bank of Thermopolis, 30 miles, away picking up cash for the monthly payroll.
Then the large sum of money went missing.
Walsh shouted to the gathering cowboys that he had been robbed by four men who had stepped out of the mulberry thicket with drawn guns.
In a rush of words, he said that he slid off the opposite side of his horse and got off one shot, wounding a robber. Before he could get off another shot, his horse kicked him down and he was overpowered.
It didn’t take long, however, to discover that Walsh’s reported memory of the robbery was not entirely accurate.
A Cowboy Of Many Names
By the time Webb had met Walsh in 1908, the lanky cowboy was the sheriff and ran his own small cattle operation.
Walsh had been a reluctant law officer, according to Webb, and had been drafted into the position when no one else would run for the office.
Now, Walsh would do his civic duty between running his 300 cows.
The tall cowboy with a long mustache was one of the best-known characters in the region and was known by his many nicknames: Irish Tom for his thick brogue, and the uncomplimentary moniker of “Humpy the Boar Ape.”
Hollywood actor and former Embar cowboy Tim McCoy had met Walsh in 1910 when McCoy was a young greenhorn. He recalled in his own biography “Tim McCoy Remembers the West” that Walsh had earned the name Humpy for the way he held himself.
“He was about fifty years of age and of lean build although he walked stooped over, almost hunch-backed,” McCoy wrote.
Webb described him as a 6-footer who would have topped 7 feet except for the humped shoulders that gave him the appearance of a giant mosquito.
Years before, McCoy said that another cowboy was staring at Walsh and asked what that “thing” was. When he was told it was Irish Tom, he roared back that the critter looked to him to be a big boar ape.
“The name stuck,” McCoy said. “From then on, Thomas Walsh was known throughout the Big Horn Basin as Irish Tom, the Boar Ape.”
Payroll Robbery
It was said that on that summer day in the late 1800s, Walsh was humped over his saddle horn humming an Irish tune.
He had just spent the day in Thermopolis, gathering up the payroll for himself and the other Embar cowboys and had not a care in the world.
Suddenly, two holdup men, not four like Walsh later claimed, stepped out from behind the bushes. Bandanas covered their faces.
They pointed their six-shooters at Walsh and ordered him to put his hands up while still astride his horse.
Webb related the dialogue he later heard as told by the old-timers who remembered the story in every vivid detail.
“Up with ’em,” one of the outlaws ordered, “or I’ll blow your brains out! Now unbuckle and drop your gun!”
Walsh started to comply when the other robber yelled, “Keep those damned paws up!”
“How th’ divil c’n I unbuckle without me hands?” Webb wrote Walsh responded in his thick brogue.
“Alright,” Walsh was told, “but one crooked move and your brains will be fertilizing the grass!”
One of the outlaws picked up the dropped belt and .45 and demanded, “Now where’s the money?”
“In me saddle pockets,” Walsh said.
“Git it,” the robber ordered.
“Kin I use me hands?” Walsh was said to have asked.
“Use your feet for all I give a damn,” the outlaw said. “But out with it!”
Walsh was shaking so bad the old-timers said that he had trouble unbuckling the saddle pocket. When the fat envelope of bills was tossed on the ground, he started to ride off.
“Hold on, there!” the outlaw ordered. “Just set.”
The two robbers held a whispered conversation.
“I don’t like the idea of letting him go,” one of the outlaws said loud enough for Walsh to hear. “We’ll get away easier if we shoot him.”
“Oh, Jasus, Mary an’ Joseph!” Walsh yelled. “Plaze don’t kill me!”
“Depends on who the hell you are,” an outlaw said. “You look like the guy that killed my brother.”
“No! I’m Irish Tom, Humpy, The Boar Ape! I niver harmed a soul in me life!”
“All right, then, but don’t you move for half an hour or we’ll hunt you down if it takes a lifetime,” the outlaw warned.
Escape
Walsh galloped back to the Embar Ranch, and in a flurry of words told the story of how he had been ambushed by four outlaws.
Foreman of the ranch, Jake Price, had seen Tom come in on a full run and had rushed over from his residence which the cowhands called the “White House.”
“Naturally, Jake was fit to be tied,” Webb said. “After he had given Humpy a fine bawling out for probably letting half the people in Thermopolis know he had all that money, one of the ‘robbers’ took the bank envelope from a shelf and handed it to Jake.”
The cowboy then calmly produced Walsh’s gun and holster and began grinning.
The outlaws had been Walsh’s fellow cowboys.
They had known that Walsh would be returning from Thermopolis with the huge amount of money about 4 o’clock and decided to have some fun.
The Owl Creek that ran along and below the Embar Ranch, was lined with mulberry bushes 10 feet tall.
They were so thorny and thick that there were few places where a person could get through them. Webb explained that the wagon road Walsh was following ran but a few feet from the bushes which proved a perfect hiding spot for the prankster cowboys.
After robbing Walsh, the two cowboys retrieved their mounts and sneaked back to the ranch. With their horses at the feed rack among the others, they were hidden in open sight, serenely lounging in the bunkhouse when Walsh came dashing in.
“Well, th’ jumped up!” Walsh said in response, plumb flabbergasted. “Sure an’ I thought I rickonized your voice.”
The old-timers said that Irish Tom, otherwise known as Humpy the Boar-Ape, was so embarrassed that he quit the Embar.
From that day on, Jake Price did all the business by check.
Contact Jackie Dorothy at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
