Mrs. Dalton’s Boys, part 3

Life in California for the Dalton boys didn't do much to change them. Now, instead of, or possibly in addition too, horse and cattle stealing, creating general mayhem and committing murder, there was a new trick to be added to the Dalton resume-Train Robbing!

The size of the Dalton gang about this time seems to vary in opinion. Emmett Dalton, the last of the boys to survive their wild and wooly ways, years later said it amounted to ten men and no more. According to Emmett there was himself, then brothers Bob and Grattan, along with George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb, Charley "Blackfaced" Bryant, Bill Powders, Charlie Pierce, Dick Broadwell, William McElhanie and last, but not in times to come considered the least-Bill Doolin.

The Daltons method for robbing trains didn't hold any originality to speak of. Mostly, they first surprised the engine crew, causing them to stop the train. Then the gang marched the crew back to the express car. There, once they'd gotten the safe open, they took what they pleased. That routine worked pretty well so there wasn't much need to change it. Then one night in February of 1891, the Daltons got their customary method rearranged for them. That is, who ever it was that robbed the Southern Pacific Train No. 17 one February night as it moved out of the little station of Alila (present-day Earlimart) in central California. It was bound for Los Angeles down in the southern portion of the state. And as the train began to roll, two masked men worked their way over to the engine tender to make their play. But when the outlaws demanded access to the express car the express messenger, Charles C. Haswell, quickly rewrote the robber's script for them.

Haswell emptied the contents of his shotgun at the four bandits who had come knocking at his express car door. A few more shots were fired and the gang added even further changes to their night plans-they fled with nothing to show for their trouble. It could be argued that the outlaws couldn't be charged for train robbery this time, seeing that the robbery never took place. But if there were ever any doubts about them being guilty of murder, that question was now cleared up. After the botched robbery attempt, the train's fireman, a man named Radcliffe, lay unmoving on the ground. There was a bullet in his neck. He was dead.

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