True West Magazine
Dale Walker’s
Death Was the Black Horse, is an excellent biography Arizona’s, William O. Buckey O’Neill
. In it is the story of Dennis W. “Gus” Dilda. During the summer of 1885 Gus, his wife Georgia, and two scruffy children, Fern and John, arrived by wagon to the Prescott at Williamson Valley. Gus a brooding loner. He wasn’t a sociable man with his neighbors. He built a one-room shack and they settled in.
Pretty soon the neighboring ranches started missing chickens, turkeys and ducks and sometimes a calf. Dilda was immediately suspect as there hadn’t been any kind of burglarizing in the area until he arrived.