the Winnebago Indians. Accompanied by Prohibition agent Walter Gumm and two young Winnebago Indians, Hart went to South Sioux City, Neb., to make the arrest. What began as a routine collar developed into a nightmarish automobile chase with Hart clinging to a running board and Gumm at the wheel, taking off after a car they believed was loaded with illegal hooch. When the driver of the fleeing vehicle refused orders to stop, both agents fired their pistols, trying to shoot out its tires. When it careened to a stop they found the driver, 35-year-old Ed Morvace, dying from a gunshot wound. A bullet had entered the back of his neck and exited his mouth. He expired later that night.

Many citizens expressed outrage at the death of the youngHart bounced among a number of widely separated Indian reservations in Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington. Sometimes wife Kathleen and their growing brood accompanied him; other times his family remained in Homer, Hart’s adopted hometown. The couple ultimately had four sons: William S. (named after his father’s hero, silent screen Western film star William S. Hart), Richard Jr., Sherman and Harry. Many years later one of Hart’s sons would relate to a newspaper reporter how his father, as a demonstration of his shooting ability, once formed his boys in a line, placed cigarettes in their mouths and then blasted the butts in half with bullets from his six-shooter.

By the summer of 1927 Hart had regained sufficient standing among Washington officials to be chosen to join a group of