Elza Lay was another member of Butch Cassidy’s outlaw gang. One of the major aspects of the Outlaw Gang’s activities involved rustling livestock and moving them down the Outlaw Trail. The Outlaw Trail ran roughly from Montana past the Hole in the Wall in Wyoming, through Eastern Utah and into Eastern Arizona. Livestock that was rustled at one end of the Outlaw trail would be driven for sale at the other end or at some point in the middle of the trail.
Scenic Southern Utah, Zion National Park
This was a side business which has gone mostly unreported in the annals of history. Often this livestock needed to be cared for before it could be sold. Elza Lay had found a summer corral that some cattlemen had built near a stream. Elza Lay took some of the sawn lumber to use to shear the sheep that he was taking care of.
Scenic Southern Utah
The cattlemen caught him in the midst of his sheep shearing, and at gunpoint made him use soap (I don’t know who provided the soap) and his shirt to scrub off the sheep smell from the boards in the stream. Elza Lay complied and scrubbed the boards. The cattlemen rode away laughing when he was finished scrubbing the boards.
Scenic Southern Utah
In true outlaw fashion, Elza Lay delivered his sheep to where ever he was planning for them to go, then they (the outlaw gang) proceeded to rustle ever head of cattle that the two cattlemen owned, leaving them financially destitute.
Scenic Southern Utah through a dirty windshield!
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