the day after Christmas day when French was killed. Mystery There are two accounts of hearsay that unfold the greater mystery about the death of Pete French. This is the first. Emanuel Clark was with French on Christmas Day, 1897. Clark was a member of his crew and explained his version of the death of Pete French to a man named John Scharff. The following is what he reported. Pete French and his crew put in a day of work driving cattle on Christmas Day, 1897. His crew was made up of his right hand man, Chino, Emanuel Clark, William Gilliam, Arthur Cooper, Frank Chacarrategue, David Crow, Prim Ortego, Burt French, Pete's brother and a newcomer who went by the name Caldwell. Chino and his horse had suffered a fall and he was pretty beaten up so French traded his buckboard wagon to Chino, took Chino's horse and sent Chino off to P Ranch while French drove the cattle. Before sending Chino off, French pulled out his pistol in its scabbard from the buckboard and buckled it on as he fielded questions from his men. Then he thought different, unbuckled the pistol, put it inside his pack and instructed Chino to take his pack back to P Ranch and leave it in French's room. All that were present witnessed that French would be working unarmed. Later that night Emanuel Clark and French decided to spend the night at the Sod House before returning to drive cattle the next morning. Caldwell, the newcomer, told French he would camp with friends and family down by the lake but would meet up with them at daylight to begin the day's work. The next day, Caldwell never showed. The second bit of hearsay comes from a woman by the name of Clara Springer. She was the granddaughter of Alva Springer, a homesteader embroiled in litigation against French over land at the time of French's killing. French had sought to make an example out of Springer who was well regarded as both tough and fair. In 1994, in research for his book, Life and Death of Oregon "Cattle King" Peter French 1849 - 1897, author Edward Gray, interviewed Clara Springer. During the interview Clara kept repeating herself, "I know something about the death of Pete French that nobody knows." It was as if a secret she had kept for too long had taken a life