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Newspaper Page Text
Wssmmmmmmf. TORNOW, "BEAST MAN" AND REMARKABLE OUTLAW, DIED AS HE HAD LIVED A SAVAGE Montesano, Wash., May 1 A tiny brain cell that you could balance on your thumbnail, a little cell gone wrong that "was what caused all the ft strouble to John Tornow, the "BEAST MAN" of Washington. That brain cell murdered eight men, terrorized a territory the size of Ohkrand cost a county thousands of dollars. There was nothing terrible or fear ful in the beast man as he sat, dead, propped up against a tree. Only pitiful. x Yet heMooked the beast man he had been pictured. s To the outlaw's lean body clung tatters, of gunnysacking held in place by rawhide throngs. John Tornow, the "beast jnan of the Olympic mountains," died as he had lived a savage. The madman; who for three years held the wilder ness of Westeln Washington against the forces of law and order, was killed the other day in a battle with three men, two of whom were slain. John Tornow was in many respects the most remarkable outlaw 6f mod ern times. Born on a ranch in the Upper Satsop valley, in the heart of the forest,' Tornow began, at the age of 12 to spend his time in the woods. He hated the routine and. discip line of the farm. His hair and whisk ers were long and matted. Th skin of his neck and cheeks, where they showed, was almost black and crust ed and scaling. His hands were like talons, his finger nails like claws. 1 His rifle lay beside him the rifle fr with which he killed I&throp and Blair, who lay nearby. There was one cartridge left in the magazine Tornow had but few friends, and f shunned society, and of women he said: "They- talk too much." He would disappear from home and be gone for months at a .time. gained a marvelous skill with the rifle. Many stories are told by men; who hunted with him of his prowess He once put five bullets into a run ning deer in an area no larger than, a silver half-dollar. Tornow had one friend 'in the world an old, crickety, rheumatic hound. During one of his long ab sences "his older brother Ed went hunting. .The hound, too old to travel far in the brush, became ex hausted. Ed, a matter-of-fact farmer," j - Deputy Sheriff Giles Quimby. shot the animal rather than carry -it home. Fate played a trick. Ed, returning home, found John, who had come for a visit after an absence of a year in the woods. "John," said Ed1, ''that darn dog of ycrars gave out on me, and, rather than carry him home, I shpl him. He wasn't no good anyhow." - Ed had a hound, too, a young and beautiful thoroughbredwhich, as Ed .He -J spoke, was racing to meet him, yelp- :i $ 2n ' - VKwWmfmM 'v m 'cnjrMuMuwwnc f m3-!l?. kAAAAAllhdAAA V; iMBulfifiaiiS&aMAlttfeAAfliil