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"The Columbia River is at high flood. It is more than a mile wide, deep, swift and dark. You can't look at it and believe a horse can carry a man across. I had to choose between the certainty of being shot to death if I stayed on that bank or putting up the white flag and maybe getting hung," Matt Warner wrote in his 1938 memoir, "The Last of the Bandit Riders."

It was 1892. Joining his outlaw relatives, the McCarty boys, Warner robbed a Roslyn, Wash., bank. People were shot. The gang was chased. Warner "chose the river."

Born Willard Erastus Christiansen in 1864 to the fifth wife of a Mormon bishop in Sanpete County, Matt Warner was an experienced buckaroo at age 11 and a runaway at 13 — he believed he had killed (but hadn't) a town bully trying to steal his girlfriend. Working for a Diamond Mountain, Utah, rancher who was "too free with his brand," the 15-year-old became what was called a "half-outlaw."

Frontier law and lawlessness soon trussed the lad. Practicing daily with six-shooters and Winchester rifles, Warner learned to "draw and shoot accurately in a split second." He justified his deeds and by age 20 was an outlaw through and through.

After meeting up with the outfit led by Cherokee Bangs, Warner's exploits went from "cattle rustling to cattle stealing" off the Utah and Wyoming ranges.

Posing as cattle buyers, members of the gang set up an evening campsite that appeared normal, with blazing campfires, men and noise. Nearby, heavily armed men guarded the stolen cattle and horse herds. Scouts looked out for vigilantes. And in the light of waning embers, outlaws bolstered bedrolls against trees or rocks and slept fitfully with loaded guns clutched in their hands.

According to Warner, the outfit sold more than 2,100 head of stolen cattle to an unscrupulous rancher who refused to pay until each one was counted and rebranded with his brand. Tension was high. The branding was record-producing. Cherokee made $63,000. Warner received $800. Everyone hightailed it out of the territory.

Warner built up his own herd. He sold some for horses that he broke for competitive racing and to take his leave when posses, vigilantes or federal men loomed in hot pursuit.

"I hear the bull berry brush crack both up and the down the river from me," he wrote. "Panicking I throw away my Winchesters, six-shooters, cartridge belt and saddlebags "[but] hesitate to [toss] the most dangerous weight of all — my money belt containing ten thousand dollars in gold, silver and greenback. The bank is high, the fall far, and the water terrible deep and cold. I push my horse over."

Warner pulled off his first bank heist in St. Johns, Ariz., with fellow outlaw Joe Brooks. Dodging bullets, the pair then raced toward the rocky upland of Robbers' Roost, 20 miles outside Hanksville, split their $837 booty and burrowed in.

Later, Warner entered his trained mare, Betty, in a race in Telluride, Colo. There he met George LeRoy Parker before he became Butch Cassidy, bet his riding outfit against Cassidy's that Betty would win (she did), and became partners in crime.

Running with the Wild Bunch from 1885 to 1889, Warner robbed the Telluride Bank, held up numerous railroad lines, and plundered from New Mexico to Washington.

Although he craved money, Warner was more "crazy" for adventure and had "more pride" in planning and executing robberies than "making a killing among the ladies." He couldn't stop.

"The river shoots me downstream, my money belt dragging me to the bottom. I fight whirlpools and bullets. I am repentant."

Not really, not then, or after his marriage or the birth of his child.

After getting away with crimes he'd committed, in 1896 Warner was found guilty of one he hadn't. Sentenced to five years for killing two men "in self-defense," he balked but said, "I ain't kicking."

While he was imprisoned, his wife died.

Pardoned in 1900, the 36-year-old turned his life around.

Eileen Hallet Stone, author of "Hidden History of Utah" and "Historic Tales of Utah," a new compilation of her "Living History" columns in The Salt Lake Tribune, may be reached at ehswriter@aol.com. Source: "The Last of the Bandit Riders," by Matt Warner as told to Murray E. King. Special thanks to Clark King.