B Cornell University w Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022606465 PS isis-ATlezr""" '"■"'" Roughing it. 3 1924 022 606 465 HE MlNtU'b DREA.M. R U & H I N G IT BT MARK TWAIN. (BAMtJBL h. CUEMENB.) FULLY ILLUSTRATED BY EMINENT ARTISTS. (ISSTTXD BT BTJB8CBIPTI0W OKIT, JLNT) WOT FOR 8AL1E TIT BOOK STOBBS.) (BXBISBirrB OP A2rT 8TATZ DBSIBUTa A. COFT SHOtTLD ADDBB8B THB FTIBL18HBBS AS BBLO^.) HARTFORD, CONN. : AMERICAN PTTBLISHINO COMFANT. F. G. GILMAN & CO., CHICAGO, ILL. l W. E. BLISS, TOLEDO, OHIO. ; ITKTTLKTON & CO., CINCINNATI, OHIO, i D. ASHMEAD, FHILADELFHLA, PENN; J. W. GOODSPBED, NEW ORLEANS, LA. j A. ROMAN & COMPANY, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 1873. Entered according to act of Congress, in year 1873, by AMERICAN PUBLISHING CO., in the office of tlie Librarian of Congress at Washington. TO CALVIN H. HI&BIE, Of Califgrnia, An Eoust Uu, a Sesial Comiale, aid a Steadfast TAai, THIS BOOE IS IITSCBIBES B7 the Author, Is Uenory of the Cniloni liaa When We Two mas iiiuioHAisEs fos rsswis- PEEFATOET. This book is merely a personal narrative. And not a pre- tentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of several years of variegated vaga,bondizing, and its object is rather to help' the resting reader while away an idle hoiir than afiBlict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science. Stjll, there is information in the volume; information con- cerning an interesting episode in the history of the Far "West, about which no books have been written by persons who were on the ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time with their own eyes. I allude to the rise, growth and culmina- tion of the silver-mining fever in Nevada — a curious episode, in some respects ; the only one, of its peculiar kind, that has occurred in the land ; and the only one, indeed, that is likely to occur in it. Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of infor- mation in the book. I regpet this very much ; but really it could not be helped : information appears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could retain my facts ; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the reader, not justification. THE AUTHOR. I. s. 3. 4. 5. 6. T. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14 IS. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 31. «. PAQB TBI MnrEBS' Cbsau (TVi,i. Page,) JUice Page FROKnapiKOH. Envious Contbmplatioks 20 Innoosnt Dbsahs 81 LioHT Tratelinq Obdeb 2g The "Allek" g3 Inducbmbnts to Fubchabb 24 The FACETioira Dbitbb 25 Fleabino News 36 The Sphtsx. 27 Meditatiom' 32 On Bcsinebb ,. : 33 ADTHOB as GllLLITEB 33 A Tough Statement 35 TuiBD Teip op tbe Uhabbidoed . : 38 A PowEBPUL Glass 41 An Hbiblooh 42 OuB Landlobd 42 Dignified Bxile 43 IJBtNKINO SLUMGtriULION ' 44 A Joke without Cbeam , 45 Fni-LHAN Cab DnnNO-SALOoN 47 OuB MoBNiNo Ride 49 Fbaikib Dogs 60 A Catot* 51 Showing Eespect to Belatiteb 62 The ConDuCTOB 65 T*AoarNG A Subobdikate 57 Jack and the Eldeblt Filgbiu 58 Cbossino the Platte 61 I Began to Fbat 63 A New Depasture 63 Suspended Operations 65 A WoNDEBPUL Lie 68 Tail-fieoe fia vi Illustrations. 35. Hebe He Comes • "H 86. CHAlTGISra HOBSES • "^ 37. Biding The Avalaitche 73 88. Indian Country W 33. A Peoposed Fist Fight 81 40. Fbom Behind the Door 82 41. Slade as an Executioner 84 42. An Unpleasant View 85 43. Unappreciated Politeness 88 44. Slade in Court 92 45. A Wife's Lamentations 95 46. The Concentrated Inhabitant 99 47. The South Pass (Full Page,) J^ixce Page >. 100 ' 48, The Parted Streams lOl 49. It Spoiled the Melon 102 50. GiTEN Over to the Catote and the Raten 103 51. "Don't Coue Herb" 104 52. "Think I'm a Fool" 105 53. The " Destbotinq Angel" 106 54. Effects of "Valley Tan" 109 55. One Crest UO 56. Thb Other 110 57. The Vagrant , Ill 58. Portrait of Hebeb Kihball * 112 59. Portrait oe Bbioham Toung 113 60. The Contbactoes befobe the King 116 61. I WAS Touched 117 63. The Endowment, tail-piece 118 63. Favorite Wife and D. 4 130 64. Needed Marking , 121 65. A Rbmarkablb Besemblance 124 66. The Family Bedstead 126 67. The Miraculous Compass „ 131 68. Three Sides to a Question 137 69. Result of High Freights 138 70. A Shriveled Quarter 139 71. An Objbct op Pity 140 72. Tail-Piece 141 73. Tail-Piece 145 74.GOSHOTT Indians hanging around Stations , 147 75. The Drive fob Life - , 143 76. Gbeeley's Bidb , ' ISq 77. Bottling an Anecdote 154 78. Tail-Piece ^ , 155 79 ■ Contemplation 168 80. The Washoe Zephyr , 159 81. The Governor's House , Id 82. Dabs Disclosubbs , 162 83. Tub Irish Bbigadb ics S4. Becbeation 164 85, The Tarantula 1^ 86. Light thbown on the Subject IdC &?. I Steebed 1^ 88. Thb Invalid j.^ 89. ThbBebtored 171 Illustrations. vii 90. OrBHorsB '. TO 91. AtBttsiitsss 174 93. Fight atLaksTahoe (Ftjll Page,) IHcaPage 176 93. " TOtj MIGHT THHTK BIM AK A:USB1CAX HOBSE ' t 179 94. Ukbxpeoted Eletatioit .-..v ISO 95. Unitebsallt Unsettled 181 96. BmisG the Flug 182 97. 'Waitted Exercise 183 98. BOBBOWprO MADE EAST 186 99. Fbee Rides ; 188 100. SATISFACTOET VOTJOHEBS 190 101. Needs Pbaying FOB 191 108. Map OF Toll BoADS 193 103. UXLOADIKG SlLTEB BBIOES 194 104. View in Humboldt Mountains *.... 196 105. Going to Humboldt ^ 199 106. Ballou's Bedfellow 301 107. Fleasubssof Camping Out 203 108. The Sbcbbt Sbabch 205 109. " Cast TOUB Eye ON that " 207 110. "We've got IT" '. 210 111. Incipient Millionaires 212 112. KOCKS— Tail-Piece.; 214 113. "DoTousEBIT?" 216 114. Fabewell Sweet Kivbb '... 21S 115. The Rescue... ' 219 116. "Mb. Abkansas" .' 222 117. An AbmedAllt 225 118. Cbossing THE Flood ^ 227 119. Advance IN A CiBCLB 229 120. TheSongstee 230 121. The Foxes HAVE Holes— Tail-Piecb 231 122. AFlatFailuee 233 123. The Last Match 234 1*4 DiBCABDED Vices 236 125. Flames— Tail-Pieob 237 126. Camping IN the Snow (FullPage,) J^hce /tajre 238 127. It was thus we met , 240 128. .Taking Possession 243 139. A GbeaT-Effobt - ■ 244 130. Keaebanqing AND Shifting t ; 246 131. "We iEFT Lamented 249 132. PicTUEBOF Tow;nsend's Tunnel 250 133. QUABTZ Mill 253 134. Anothee Process OF Amalgamation 254 135. FiifeT Quabtz Mill IN Nevada 256 136. A Slice OF Rich Oeb 257 137. The Saved Beothbb 260 138. On A Secbet Expedition „.. 263 189. Lake Mono (FullPaob,) liKePage 265 140. Batheb Soapy 266 141. A Baek UNDBE Full Sail 266 142. A Model BoABDiNG House 268 143. Life AMID Death ^1 144. A Jump FOB Life • 373 viii Illustrations. 145. "StovkHbapgojte" -»».. 279 146; iNTERViEwiNQ THE " WiDB West " 279 147. WoKTH A Million 280 148. Millionaires LAYtN& Plaks 282 149* Dangebously Siok ^ 287 160. "Worth Nothing - 288 151. The Compromise 290 152. One of my Failures 298 153. Target Shooting 294 154. As City Editor 595 155. The Entire Market 296 156. A Friend Indeed 397 157. Union— Tail-Piece 298 158. An Educational Report 301 159. No Paeticulab Hurry 303 160. Birds Eye View of Virginia City AND Mt. Datidsok 804 161. ANEW Mine « ...' 807 162. TeyaFew 309 163. Portrait op Mr. Stewart 310 164. Selling A Mine , 311 165. Couldn't "Wait 315 166. The Great "Flouk Sack "Procession (Full ^jl^r^) Face Page 317 167. Tail-Piece 319 168. A Nabob 321 169. Magnificence AND Misery 323 ITO. A Friendly Driver 326 171. Astonishes THE Natives 327 172. Col. Jack Weakens 328 173. Scotty Beiggs AND THE Minister Kl 174. Regulating Matters 335 I 175. Didn't Shook HIS Mother 337 176. Scotty A3 S.S- Teacher 338 ,177. The Man WHO HAD Killed HIS Dozen 340 178. The Unprejudiced JuKY 342 179. A Desperado giving Refbrbnce 544 180. Satisfying A Foe 346 181. Tail-Piece ffil 182. Giving Information ^3 183. A Walking Battery S55 184. Overhauling his Manifest 358 185. Ship— Tail-Piece ., 359 186. The Heroes and Heroines of the Stoey 361 187. DiSBOLUTia Author 863 188. There sat the Lawyer WS 189. Jonah Outdone 367 190. dollingsb - 370 191. Low Bridge :.^ 371 laj. Shortening Sail 372 193. Lightening Ship 3*73 194, The Marvellous Rescue STO IffiS. Silver Bricks , 377 196. Timber SuppoBts 879 197. From Gallery TO Gallbry , 389 198. Jim Blaine 384 199. Hvbbah FOB Nixon S85 Illustrations;. 13^ 200. MissTVaotteb .' 838 SOI. Waiting for a Custohbb 887 202. "Was to bk Thsbb 33S 208. THB MONtTMEXT 389 204. WnKRK IS THE Ram ?— Tail-Pibgb 890 205. Chinbse Wass Bill 392 306. Imitatiok 393 .207. Ghinbsr Lottbrt .* 396 208. Ghtxbsb Mebchant at Homh— Tail Pieob 397 209. An Old Fbiend 399 210. Fakbwhll and Accident , 408 211. "GllfME A CiGAE" 404 212. The Herald of Glad News 406 213. Flag— Tajl-Pibcb 407 214. A New England Scene , .' .409 215. A Variable Cliuate 418 816. Sacramento and Three Hours Aw at .' 413 217. " Fetch Her Out " 416 218. "Well if it aint a Child" 417 219. A Genuine Live "Woman 418 220. The Grace op a Kangaroo 420 221. Dreaus Dissipated. 421 222. The *' One Hobse Shat " Outdone 422 223. Hard on the Innocents 428 224. Dry Bones Shaken 428 225. "Oh! What shall I do!" 424 226. "Get out tour Towel mt Dear" 425 227. "We Will Omit the Benediction" 426 228. Slinking 429 329. A Prize 431 230. A Look in at the Window ^ 438 231. "Do It Strangeb ' 4S8 252. The Old Collegiatk 436 «33. Steikino a Pocket 488 284. Tom Quartz 449 235. An Advantage Taken '. 441 236. After an Excursion 442 237. The Three Captains 445 238. The Old Admiral 448 239. The Deserted Field 449 2*0. Williams 453 241. Scene on the Sandwich Islands 455 242. Fashionable Attire 456 243. A Btte 45t 244. KECONNOITERING ; 451 345. Bating Tamarinds 458 246. Looking for Mischief 461 247. A Familt Likeness 462 248. Sit Down to Listen 467 249. "Mt Brotheb, Wb Twins" 46J 250. Extraordinabt Capers 470 251. A Load of Hat i'a 2^. Marchtno Theough Georgia— Tail-Piece ^ 473 253. Sandwich Island Cook's Monument 5U 273. The Ghostly Buildees 51* 274. On Guard 619 275. Breaking the Tabu 521 276. SuRP Bathing 625 277. Surf Bathing a Failure 526 278. City op Refuge 527 279. The Queen's Kook 529 280. Tail-Piece 531 281. The Pil^ab op Fiee '. 533 282. The Ceatee ..: 5^ 283. ^EOEE Through 639 284. FiEB Fountains 540 285. Lata Stream 542 286. A Tidal Watk 543 287. Teip on the Milky Wat ^ 545 288. A View in the Iao Valley (Full Page,) FaccPagQ -. 547 289. Magnificent Spoet 549 290. Eleven Miles to See 553 291. Chased by a Stoem 554 392. Leaving "Woek .' 555 293. Tail-Piece 55j 294. OuB Amusements 5.>i9 295. Seveee Case of Stage Feight 561 296. My Theeb Paequette Allies 5gj 297. SAWYEE in the CIBCLE 553 298. A Predicament gg7 299. The Best op the Jokb ggg too. The End 570 CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. My Brother appointed Secretary of Nevada — I Envy His Prospective Adventures — Am Appointed Private Secretary Under Him — My Contentment Complpte — ^Packed in One Hour — Dreams and Visions — On the Missouri Biver — A Bully Boat 19 CHAPTER II. Arrive at St. Joseph — Only Twenty-five Pounds Baggage Allowed^ Farewell to Kid Gloves and Dress Coats — Armed to the Teeth — The "Allen" — A Cheerful Weapon — Persuaded to Buy a Mule — Schedule of Luxuries — We Leave the " States " — " Our Coach " — Mails for the Indians — Between a Wink and an Earthquake — A Modem Sphynx and How She Entertained tJs — A Sociable Heifer. 23 CHAPTER III. " The Thoroughhrace is Broke " — Mails Delivered Properly — Sleeping Under Difficulties — A Jackass Rabbit Meditating, and on Business — A Modern Gulliver — Sage-brush — Overcoats as an Article of Diet — Sad Fate of a Camel — Warning to Experimenters 30 CHAPTER IV. Making Our Bed — Assaults by the Unabridged — At a Station — Our Driver a Great and Shining Dignitary — Strange Place for a Front- yard — Accommodations — Double Portraits — An Heirloom — Our Worthy Landlord — " Fixings and Things " — An Exile — Slumgul- lion — A Well Furnished Table — The Landlord Astonished — Table Etiquette — Wild Mexican Mules — Stage-coaching and Railroading. 37 CHAPTER V. New Acquaintances — The Cayote — A Dog's Experiences-j-A Disgusted Dog — The Relatives of the Cayote — Meals Taken Away from Home 48 CHAPTER VL The Division Superintendent — The Conductor — The Driver — One Hun- dred and Fifty Miles' Drive Without Sleep — Teaching a Subor- dinate — Our Old Friend Jack and a Pilgrim — Ben Hofliday Com- pared to Moses S4 CHAPTER VII. Overland City — Crossing the Platte — Bemis's Buffalo Hunt — Assault by a Buffalo — ^Bemis's Horse Goes Crazy— An Impromptu Circus — A New Departure — Bemis Finds Refuge in a Tree— Escapes Finally by a Wonderful Method 60 CHAPTER VIII. The Pony Express — Fifty Miles Without Stopping — " Here he Comes " — Alkali Water — Riding an Avalanche — Indian Massacre 70 xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAOB Among the Indians — An Unfair Advantage — Laying on our Anns — A Midnight Murder— Wrath of Outlaws — A Dangerous, yet Valuable Citizen {■■■■■ "^^ CHAPTEE X. History of Slade — A Proposed Fist-fight — Encounter with Jules — Paradise of Outlaws— Slade as Superintendent — As Executioner — A Doomed Whisky Seller— A Prisoner— A Wife's Bravery— An Ancient Enemy Captured — Enjoying a Luxury — Hob-noblring with Slade— Too Polite— A Happy Escape 80 CHAPTEE XI. Slade in Montana — "On n Spree"— In Court — Attack on a Judge — Arrest by the Vigilantes — Turn out of the Miners — Execution of Slade— Lajmentations of His Wife — Was Slade a Coward ? 90 CHAPTEE XII. A Mormon EjUigrant Train— The Heart of the Eocky Mountains — Pure Saleratus — A Natural Ice-House — An Entire Inhabitant — In Sight of " Eternal Snow " — The South Pass — ^The Parting Streams —An Unreliable Letter Carrier — ^Meeting of Old Friends — A Spoiled Watermelon — Down the Mountain — A Scene of" Desolation — Lost in the Dark— Unnecessary Advice — U. S. Troops- and Indians — Sub- lime Spectacle — Another Delusion Dispelled — Among the Angels. . 97 CHAPTER XIII. Hormons and Gentiles — Exhilarating Drink, and its Effect on Bemis — Salt Lak'e City — A Great Contrast — A Mormon Vagrant — Talk with a Saint — A Visit to the " King " — ^A Happy Simile 108 CHAPTEE XIV. Mormon Contractors — How Mr. Street Astonished Them — The Case Before Brigham Young, and How he Disposed of it — Polygamy Viewed from a New Position : 114 CHAPTER XV. A Gentile Den — Polygamy Discussed — Favorite Wife and D. 4 — Hennery for Retired Wives — Children Need Marking — Cost of a Gift to No. 6— A Penny-whistle Gift and its Effects — Fathering the Foundlings — It Resembled Him — The Family Bedstead 119 CHAPTER XVI. The Mormon Bible — Proofs of its Divinity — Plagiarism of its Authors — Story of Nephi — Wonderful Battle — Kilkenny Cats Outdone. . . . 127 CHAPTEE XVII. Three Sides to all Questions — ^Everything " A Quarter " — Shriveled Up — Emigrants and White Shirts at a Discount — " Forty-Niners " — AJ)ove Par — Real Happiness 138 CHAPTER XVIII. Alkali Desert — ^Romance of Crossing Dispelled — Alkali Dust— Effect on the Mules— Universal Thanksgiving , 14S CONTENTS. XUl CHAPTER XIX. PAflB The Digger Indians Compared with the Bushmen of Africa — Food, liife and Characteristics — Cowardly Attack on a Stage Coach — A Bra\ltDriver— The Noble Red Man 146 CHAPTER XX. The Great American Desert — Forty Miles on Bones — Lakes Without Outlets — CJreely's Remarkable Ride — ^Hank Monk, the Renowned Driver — Fatal Effects of "Corking" a Story — Bald-Headed Anec- j dote IS* CHAPTER XXI. Alkali Dust — Desolation and Contemplation — Carson City — Our Journey Ended — We are Introduced to Several Citizens — A Strange Rebuke — A Washoe Zephyr at Play— Its Office Hours— Governor's Palace- Government Offices— Our French Landlady Bridget O'Flannigan-^ Shadow Secrets— Cause for a Disturbance at Once — The Irish Bri- fade — ^Mrs. O'Flannigan's Boarders — The Surveying Expedition — Iscape of the Tarantulas.. 16? CHAPTER XXIL The Son of a Nabob— Start for Lake Tahoe — Splendor of the Views — Trip on the Lake — Camping Out — Reinvigorating Climate — Clear- ing a Tract of Land — Securing a Title — Outhouse and Fences 168 CHAPTER XXIII. A Happy Life — Lake Tahoe and.its Moods^Transparency of the Waters — A Catastrophe — Fire ! Fire ! — A Magnificent Spectacle — Homeless Again — We take to the Lake — A Storm — Return to Carson. . .^ . . . . 173 I CHAPTER XXIV. Besolve to Buy a, Horse — ^Horsemanship in Carson — A Temptation — Advice Given Me Freely — I Buy the Mexican Plug — My JHrst Ride — A Good Bucker — I Loan the Ping — Experience of Borrowers — At' tempts to Sell — Expense of the Experiment — A Stranger Taken In. 178 CHAPTER XXV. The Mormons in Nevada — 'How to Persuade a Loan from Them — Early History of the Territory — Silver Mines Discovered — The New Terri- torial Government — A Foreign One and a Poor One — Its Funny Struggles for Existence — No Credit, no Cash — Old Abe Currey Sus- tains it and its Officers — InstJuctions and Vouchers — An Indian's Endorsement — Toil-Gates. 186 CHAPTER XXVI. The Silver Fever— State of the Market— Silver Bricks— Tales Told— Offforthe Humboldt Mines 193 CHAPTER XXVII. Our manner of going— Incidents of the Trip — A Warm but Too Familiar a Bedfellow^lr. Ballon Objects— Sunshine amid Clouds— Skfely Arrived 198 xiv Contents. CHAPTER XXVni. Arrive at the Mountains— Building Our Cabin— My First Prospecting Tour— My First Gold Mine— Pockets Filled With Treasures— Filtering the New» to My Companions— The Bubble Pricked— All Not Gold That Glitt»s . ^. 203 CHAPTER XXIX. * Out Prospecting — A Silver Mine At Last — Making a Fortune With Sledge and Drill — ^A Hard Road to Travel — We Own inClaims-^A Rocky Country. '211 CHAPTER XXX. Disinterested Friends— How "Feet" Were Sold— We Quit Tunnelling— A Trip to Esmeralda — My Companions — An Indian Prophesy — ^A Flood; — Our Quarters During It ' 216 CHAPTER XXXL The Guests at "Honey Lake Smith's "—" Bully Old Arkansas "—" Our Land- lord "—Determined to Fight — The Landlord's Wife — The Bully Con- quered by Her — Another Start— Crossing the Carson — ^A Narrow Escape — ^Following Our Own Track — A New Guide — Lost in the Snow 221 CHAPTER XXXn. Desperate Situation — Attempts to Make a Fire — Our Horses leave us — ^We Find Matches — One, Two, Three and the Last — No Fire — Death Seems Inevitable — We Mourn Over Our Evil Lives — Discarded Vices — We For- give Each Other — ^An Affectionate Farewell — The Sleep of Oblivion. . . 232 CHAPTER XXXin. Return of Consciousness — Ridiculous Developments — ^A Station House — Bit- ter Feelings — ^Fruits of Repentance — ^Resurrected Vices , 238 CHAPTER XXXIV. About Carson — General Buncombe — Hyde vs. Morgan — ^How Hyde Lost His Ranch — The Great Landslide Case — The Trial — General Buncombe in Court — A Wonderful Decision — ^A Serious Afterthought 241 CHAPTER XXXV. A New Travelling Companion — All Full and No Accommodations — ^How Cap- tain Nye found Room — and Caused Our Leaving to be Lamented — The Uses of Tunnelling — A Notable Example — We Go into the " Claim " Bus- iness and Fail — At the Bottom 24S CHAPTER XXXVL " A Quartz Mill — ^Amalgamation — " Screening Tailings " — First Quartz Mill in Nevada — ^Fire Assay — ^A Smart Assayer — I stake for an advance 252 CHAPTER XXXVn. The Whiteman Cement Mine — Story of its Discovery — ^A Secret Expedition — A Nocturnal Adventure — A Distressing Position — ^A Failure and a Week's Holiday 259 CHAPTER XXXVIII. Mono Lake — Shampooing Made Easy — ^Thoughtless Act of Our Dog and the Results — Lye Water— Curiosities of the Lake — ^Free Hotel — Some Funny Incidents a Little Overdrawn. ., 265 Contents. xv chapter xxxix. visit to the Islands in Lake Mono — ^Ashes and Desolation — Life Amid Death Our Boat Adrift — A Jump For Life — A Storm On the Lake — A Mass of Soap ^ds — Geological Curiosities — A Week On the Sierras — ^A farrow EscapeWrom a Funny Explosion — " Stove Heap Gone " 2Y0 CHAPTER XL. The "Wide West" Mine— It is "Interviewed" by Higbie— A Blind Lead- Worth a Million — We are Rich At Last — Plans for the Future 211 CHAPTER XLI. A Rheumatic Patient — Day Dreams — An Unfortunate Stumble — I Leave Sud- denly — Another Patient — Higbie in the Cabin — Our Balloon Bursted — Worth Nothing — Regrets and Explanations — Our Third Partner 286 CHAPTER XLH. What to .do Next ?— Obstacles I Had Met With— "Jack of All" Trades"- Mining Again — Target Shooting — I Turn City Editor — I Succeed Finely 292 CHAPTER XLin. My Friend Boggs — The School Report— Boggs Pays Me An Old Debt — Virgin- ia City .' 299 CHAPTER XLIV. Flush Times — ^Plenty of Stock — ^Editorial Puffing — Stocks Given Me — Salting Mines — ^A Tragedian In a New Role 806 CHAPTER XLV. Flush Times Continue — Sanitary Commission Fund — Wild Enthusiasm of the People — ^Would not wait to Contribute — ^The Sanitary Flour Sack— It is Carried to Gold Hill and Dayton — ^Final Reception in Virginia — Results of the Sale— A Grand Total." 313 CHAPTER XLVL The Nabobs of Those Days — John Smith as a Traveler — Sudden Wealth — A Sixty-Thousand-Dollar Horse — ^A Smart Telegraph Operator — ^A Nabob in New York City — Charters an Omnibus — "Walk in, It's All Free" — "You Can't Pay a Cent "—"Hold On, Driver, I Weaken "—Sociability of New Yorkers" 320 CHAPTER XLVn. Buck Fanshaw's Death — ^The Cause Thereof— Preparations for His Burial — Seotty Briggs the Committee Man— He Visits the Minister— Scotty Can't Play His Hand— The Minister Gets Mixed— Both Begin to See— "All Down Again But Nine"— Buck Fanshaw as a Citizen— How To "Shook Your Mother "—The Funeral— Scotty Brigga as a Sunday School Teacher 329 CHAPTER XLVm. The First Twenty-Six Graves in Nevada — The Prominent Men of the County — The Man Who Had Killed His Dozen — Trial by Jury — Specimen Jurors — A Private Grave Yard — The Desperadoes — Who They Killed — Waking up the Weary Passenger — Satisfaction Without Fighting 339 xvi Contents, CHAPTER XLIX. Fatal Shooting Affray— Robbery and Desperate Affray— A Specimen City Offi- cial—A Marked Man— A Street Fight— Punishment of Crime 847 CHAPTER L. Captain Ned Blakely— Bill Nookes Receives Desired Information— Killing of Blakely's Mate— A Walking Battery— Blakely Secures Nookes— Hang First and Be Tried Afterwards— Captain Blakely as a Chaplain— The I First Chapter of Genesis Bead at a Hanging— Nookes Hung— Blakely's Regrets 36a CHAPTER LI. The Weekly Occidental— A Ready Editoi^— A Novel— A Concentration of Tal- ent— The Heroes and the Heroines— The Dissolute Author Engaged— Ex- traordinary Havoc With the Novel— A Highly Romantic Chapter— The Lovers Separated— Jonah Out-done— A Lost Poem— The Aged Filot Man —Storm On the Erie Canal— DoUinger the Pilot Man— Terrific Gale- Danger Increases — A Crisis A'.'rived--Saved as if by a Miracle 360 CHAPTER LH Freights to California — Silver Bricks — ^Under Ground Mines — ^Timber Supports —A Visit to the Mines— The Caved Mines— Total of Shipments in 18&3 . 876 CHAPTER LIU. Jim Blaine and his Grandfather's Bam— Filkin's Mistake — Old Miss Wagner and her GJags Eye — Jacobs, the Coffin Dealer — Waiting for a Customer — His Bargain With Old Robbins — ^Robbins Sues for Damage and Collects — ^A New Use for Missionaries — The Effect — His Uncle Lem. and the Use Providence Made of Him— Sad Fate of Wheeler — Devotion of His Wife — A Model Monument-^What About the Ram? 388 CHAPTER LIV. (Siinese in Virginia City— Washing Bills— Habit of Imitation— Chinese Immi- gration—A Visit to Chinatown- Messrs. Ah Sing, Hong Wo, See Yup, &c. 891 CHAPTER LV. Tired of Virginia City — ^An Old Schoolmate — ^A Two Tears' Loan — Acting as an Editor — ^Almost Receive an Offer — ^An Accident — Three Drunkea Anecdotes — Last Look at Mt. Di^vidson — ^A Beautiful Incident 398 CHAPTER LVL Off for San Francisco — Western and Eastern Landscapes — ^The Hottest place on Earth — Summer and Winter _ _ 40g CHAPTER LVn. California — Novelty of Seeing a Woman—" Well if it am't a Child !"— Onb Hundred and Fifty Dollars for a Kiss— Waiting for a turn 414 CHAPTER LVni. Life in San Francisco— Worthless Stocks — My First Earthquake — ^Beporto- rial Instincts— Effects of the Shocks — Incidents and Cariosities — Sabbath Breakers — The Lodger and the Chambermaid — ^A Sensible Fashion to Follow — ^Effects of the Earthquake on the Mmisters 419 Contents. xvii CHAPTER LIX. Poor Again — Slinking as a Business — A Model Collector — Misery lores Com- pany — Comparing Notes for Comfort — A Streak of Luck — ^Finding a Dime — Wealthy by Comparison — Two Sumptuous Dinners 428 CHAPTER LX. An Old Friend — ^Au Educated Miner — ^Pocket Mining — Freaks of Fortune ... 43S CHAPTER LXI. Dick Baker and his Cat — ^Tom Quartz's Peculiarities — On an Excursion — Ap- pearance On His Return — A Prejudiced Cat — Empty Pockets and a Ro- ving Life 439 CHAPTER LXn. Bound for the Sandwich Islands — ^The Three Captains — The Old Admiral — His Daily Habits — His Well Foug'ht Fields — An Unexpected Opponent — The Admiral Overpowered — The Victor Declared a Hero 443 CHAPTER LXIIL Arrival at the Islands — ^Honolulu — What I Saw There — Dress and Habits of the Inhabitants — The Animal Kingdom — Fruits and Delightful Effects. . 464 CHAPTER LXrV. An Excursion — Captain Phillips and his Tum-Out — A Horseback Ride — A Vicious Animal — ^Nature and Art — Interesting Ruins — All Praise to the Missionaries 489 CHAPTER LXV. Interesting Mementoes and Relics — An Old Legend of a Frightful Leap — ^An Appreciative Horse — Horse Jockeys and Their Brothers — A New Trick — A Hay Merchant — Good Country for Horse Lovers 46fi CHAPTER LXVL A Saturday Afternoon — Sandwich Island Girls on a Frolic — The Poi Merchant — Grand Gala Day — A Native Dance — Church Membership — Cats and Officials — An Overwhelming Discovery 4T3 CHAPTER LXVn. The Legislature of the Island — ^What Its President Has Seen — ^Praying for an Enemy — Women's Rights — Romantic Fashions — Worship of the Shark — Desire for Dress — Full Dress — Not Paris Style — Playing Empire — Officials and Foreign Ambassadors — Overwhelming Magnificence 480 CHAPTER LXVIIL A Royal Funeral— Order of Procession— Pomp and Ceremony— A Striking Contrast— A Sick Monarch— Human Sacrifices at His Death— Burial Orgies 400 CHAPTER LXIX. *' Once more upon the Waters."- A Noisy Passenger— Several Silent Ones— A Moonlight Scene — Fruits and Plantations 498 2t xviii Contents. CHAPTER LXX A Droll Character — Mrs. Beazely and Her Son — Meditations on Turnips — A Letter from Horace Greeley — ^Au Indignant Rejoinder — The Letter Translated but too Late 502 CHAPTER LXXL Kealakebua Bay — Death of Captain Cook — His Monument — Its Construction — On Board the Schooner 512 CHAPTER LXXn. Young Kanakas in New England — A Temple Built by Ghosts — Female Bath- era — I Stood Guard — Women and Whiskey — ^A Fight for Religion — ^Arri- Talof Missionaries 517 CHAPTER LXXm. Native Canoes — Surf Bathing — ^A Sanctuary — ^How Built — The Queen's Rock — Curiosities — ^Petrified Lava 524 CHAPTER LXXIV. Visit to the Volcano — The Crater — Pillar of Fire — Magnificent Spectacle — A Lake of Fire 532 CHAPTER LXXV. The North Lake — Fountains of Fire — Streams of Burning Lava — ^Tidal Waves 538 CHAPTER LXXVL A Reminiscence— Another Horse Story — ^My Ride with the Retired Milk Horse — A Picnicing Excursion — Dead Volcano of Holeakala — Compar- ison with Vesuvius — ^An Inside View 544 CHAPTER LXXVn. A Curious Character— ^A Series of Stories — Sad Fate of a Liar — Evidence of Insanity 661 CHAPTER LXXVHL Return to San Francisco — Ship Amusements — ^Preparing for Lecturing — ^Val- uable Assistance Secured — My First Attempt — The Audience Carried — "All's Well that Ends Well." 558 CHAPTER LXSrS. Highwaymen — ^A Predicament — A Huge Joke — Farewell to California — ^At Home Again — Great Changes. Moral 664 APPENDIX A. — Brief Sketch of Mormon History 872 B, — The Mountain Meadows Massacre 676 C, — Concerning a Frightful Assassination that was never Consummated .... 680 OHAPTEE I. MT brother had just been appointed Secretary of IN'evada Territory — an office of such majesty that it con- centrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Grovernor in the Governor's absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of " Mr. Secretary," gave to the great posi- tion an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly and especially the long, strange journey he was going to make, and the curious new world he was going to explore. He was going to travel ! I never had been away from home, and that word " travel " had a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffa- loes and Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have all kinds of adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and have ever such a fine time, and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero. And he would see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on the hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and return home by sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and the ocean, and " the isthmus " as if it was nothing of any conse- quence to have seen those marvels face to face. What I Buffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe. And so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime posi- tion of private secretary under him, it appeared to me that so GETTING READY. the heavens and the earth passed away, and the firmament ■was rolled together as a scroll ! I had nothing more to desire. My contentment was complete. At the end of an hour or ENVIOUS CONTEMPLATIONS. two Iwas ready for the journey. ISTot much packing up was necessary, because we were going in the overland stage from the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and passengers were only allowed a small quantity of baggage apiece. There was no Pacific railroad in those fine times of ten or twelve years ago — not a single rail of it. I only proposed to stay in Nevada three months — I had no thought of staying longer than that. I meant to see all I could that was new and strange, and then hurry home to business. 1 little thought that I would not see the end of that three-month pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long years ! I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars, and in due time, next day, we took shipping at the St. Louis wharf on board a steamboat boimd up the Missouri Eiver. HERMAPHEODITE STEAMER. 21 "We were six days going from St. Louis to " St. Jo." — a trip that was so dull, and sleepy, and eventless that it has left no more impression on my memory than if its duration had been six minutes instead of that many days. No record is left in my mind, now, concerning it, but a confused jumble of savage-looking snags, which we deliberately walked over with one wheel or the other ; and of reefs which we butted and butted, and then retired from and climbed over in some softer place ; and of sand-bars which we roosted on occasion- ally, and rested, and then got out our crutches and sparred over. In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Jo. by land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow — climbing over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously - r^ ■^^,-^ if hit circumstances and surroundings had been difi'erent. But they were snappy, able men, those division-agents, and when they tried to teach a subordinate anything, that subordinate gener- ally " got it through his head." A great portion of this vast machinery — ^these hundreds of men and coaches, and thousands of mules and horses — was in the hands of Mr. Ben HoUiday. All the western half of the business was in his hands. This reminds me of an incident of Palestine travel which is pertinent here, and so I will transfer it just in the language in which I find it set down in my Holy Land note-book : No doubt everybody has heard of Ben Holliday — a man of prodigious energy, vrho used to send mails and passengers flying across the continent 58 YOUNG AMERICA AT JERICHO. in his overland stage-coaclies like a very whirlwind — ^two thousand long miles in fifteen days and a half, by the watch ! But this fragment of his- tory is not about Ben Holliday, but about a young New- York boy by the name of jack, who traveled with opr small party of pilgrims in the Holy^ Land (and who had traveled to California in Mr. Holliday's overland coaches three years before, and had by no means forgotten it or lost his gushing ad- miration of Mr. H.) Aged nineteen. Jack was a good boy — a good-hearted and always well-meaning boy, who had been reared in the city of iXew York, and although he was bright and knew a great many useful things, his Scriptural education had been a gooa deal neglected — ^to such a degree, indeed, that all Holy Land history was fresh and new to him, and all Bible JACK AND THE ILDEELT PILGRIM. names mysteries that had never disturbed his virgin ear. Also in our party was an elderly pilgrim who was the reverse of Jack, in that he was learned in the Scriptures and an enthusiast concerning them. He was our encyclo- pedia, and we were never tired of Jistening to his speeches, nor he of making them. He never passed a celebrated locality, from Bashan to Bethlehem, without illuminating it with an oration. One day, when camped near the' ruins of Jericho, he burst forth with something like this : " Jack, do you see that range of mountains over yonder that bounds the Jordan valley ? The mountains of Moab, Jack I Think of it, my boy— the THOUGHTLESS COMPARISONS OF JACK. {fg actual mountains of Moab — renowned in Scripture history 1 We are actually standing face to face with those illustrious crags and peaks — and for all we know " [dropping his voice impressively], " our eyes may be resting at this wry moment upon the fipot where lies the mysterious GRAVE OF Moses I Think of it. Jack 1 " " Moses who ? " (falling inflection). " Moses who! Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself — you ought to be ashamed of such criminal ignorance. Why, Moses, the great guide, sol- dier, poet, lawgiver, of ancient I^el ! Jack, from this spot where we stand, to Egypt, stretches a fearful desert three hundred miles in extent — and across that desert that wonderful man brought the ohildren of Israel ! — guiding them with unfailing Sagacity for forty years over the sandy desola- tion and among the obstructing rocks and hills, and landed them at last, safe and sound, with insight of this very spot ; and where we now stand they entered the Promised Land with anthems of rejoicing 1 It was a wonderful, wonderful thing to do. Jack ! Think of it 1 " "Forty years f Only three hund/red miles? Humph 1 Ben Holliday would have fetched them through in thirty-six hours 1 " The boy meant no harm. He did not know that he had said anything that was wrong or irreverent. And so no one scolded him or felt offended with him — and nobody covld but some ungenerous spirit incapable of excusing the heedless blunders of a boy. At noon on the fifth day out, we arrived at the " Crossing of the South Platte," alias " Julesburg," alias " Overland City," four hundred and seventy miles from St. Joseph — the strangest, quaintest, funniest frontier town that our uhtraveled eyes had ever stared at and been astonished with. OHAPTEE YII. rdid seem, strange enougli to see a town again after what appeared to ns such a long acquaintance with deep, still, almost lifeless and houseless solitude ! "We tumbled out into the busy street feeling like meteoric people crumbled off the corner of some other world, and wakened up suddenly in this. For an hour we took as much interest in Overland City as if we had never seen a town before. The reason we had an hour to spare was because we had to change our stage (for a less sumptuous affair, called a " mud-wagon ") and transfer our fi'eight of mails. Presently we got under way again. We came to the shallow, yellow, muddy South Platte, with its low banks and its scattering flat sand-bars and pigmy islands — ^a melancholy stream straggling through the centre of the enonnous flat plain, and only saved from being impossible to find with the naked eye by its sentinel rank of scattering trees standing on either bank. The Platte was " up," they said — ^which made me wish I could see it when it was down, if it could look any sicker and sorrier. They said it was a dangerous stream to cross, now, because its quicksands were liable to swallow np horses, coach and passengers if an attempt was made to ford it. But the mails had to go, and we made the attempt. Once or twice in midstream the wheels sunk into the yielding sands 80 threateningly that we half believed we had dreaded and avoided the sea all our lives to be shipwrecked in a " mud- wagon " in the middle of a desert at last. But we dragged through and sped away toward the setting sun. A WONDERFUL BUFFALO HUNT. 61 * Next morning, just before dawn, when about five hundred and fifty miles from St. Joseph, our mud-wagon broke down. We were to be delayed five or six hours, and therefore we took horses, by invitation, and joined a party who were just starting on a buffalo hunt. It was noble sport galloping over the plain in the dewy fresh- ness of the morning, but ,our part of the hunt ended in disaster and disgrace, for a wounded buffalo bull chased the passenger Bemis nearly two miles, and then he forsook his horse and took! to a lone tree. He was very sullen about the matter for some twenty-four hours, Tsut at last he began to soften little by lit- tle, and finally he said : ""Well, it was not funny, and there was no sense in those gawks making themselves so facetious over it. I tell you I was angry in earnest for awhile. I should have shot that long gangly lubber they called Hank, if I could have done it without crippling six or seven other people — but of course I couldn't, the old ' Al- len's' so confounded comprfr hensive. I wish those loafers had been up in the tree ; they laugh so. If ^ I had had a horse wouldn't have wanted to BEMIS'S VERSION OT IT. worth a cent — but no, the minute lie saw that buifalo buJI wheel on him and give a bellow, he raised straight up in the_ air and stood on his heels. The saddle began to slip, and I took him round the neck and laid close to him, and hegsmi to pray. Then he came down and stood up on the othei^ end awhile, and the bull actually stopped pawing sand and bellowing to contemplate the inhuman spectacle. Then the AU INHtTMAS SPECTACLE. bull made a pass at him and uttered" a bellow that sounded perfectly frightful, it was so close to me, and that seemed to literally prostrate my horse's reason, and make a -raving distracted maniac of him, and I wish I may die if he didn't stand on his head for a quarter of a minute and shed tears. He was absolutely out of his mind — ^he was, as sure as truth itself, and he really didn't know what he was -doing. Then the bull came charging at us, and my horse dropped down 0-1 all fours and took a fresh start— and then for the next AN IMPROMTU CIRCUS. 63 tm minutes he would actually throw one hand-spring after pother so fast' that the bull began to get unsettled, too, and didn't know where to start in — and so he stood there sneezing, d shovelling dust oyer his back, and bellowing every now hd then, and thinldng he had got a fifteen-hundred dollar circus horse for breakfast, cert^n. Well, I was first out on his neck — the horse's, not the bull's — and then underneath, and next on his rump, and sometimes head up, and sometimes heels — but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful to be rip- ping and tearing and carrying on so in the presence of death, as you might say. Pretty soon the bull made a snatch for us and brought away some of my horse's tail (I suppose, but do not know, being pretty busy at the time), but something made.' him hungry for solitude and suggested to hiin t6 get up and hunt for it. And then you ought to have seen that spider- legged old skeleton go ! and you ought to have seen the bull Jl nbw depabtuke. rat out after him, too — ^head down, tongue out,' tail up, bellow- ing like everything, and actually mowing down the weeds, and tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like a whirl- wind ! By George, it was a hot race ! I and the saddle were back on the rump, and I had the bridle in my teeth and hold- 64 HAIRBEEADTH ESCAPE. ing on to the pommel with both hands. First we left the dogs behimd ; then we passed a jackass rabbit ; then we over- took a cayote, and were gaining on an antelope when the rotten girth let go and threw me about thirty yards off to thd left, and as the saddle went down over the horse's rump h' gave it a lift with his heels that sent it more than four hun- dred yards up in the air, I wish I may die in a minute if he didn't. I feU at the foot of the only solitary tree there was in nine counties adjacent (as any creature could see with the naked eye); and the next second I had hold of the bark with four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next second after that I was astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck in a way that made my breath smell of brimstone. I had the bull, now, if he did not think of one thing. But that one thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very seriously. There was a possibility that the bull might not think of it, but there were greater chances that he would. I made up my mind what I would do in case he did. It was a little over forty feet to the ground from where I sat. I cautiously unwound the lariat from the pommel of my saddle — " " Tour saddle ? Did you take your saddle up in the tree with you ? " " Take it up in the tree with me ? Why, how you talk. Of course I didn't. No man could do that. It feU in the tree when it came down." " Oh— exactly." " Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened one end of it tb the limb. It was the very best green raw-hide, and capable of sustaining tons. I made a slip-noose in the other end, and then hung it down to see the length. It reached down twenty4wo feet — ^half way to the ground. I then loaded every barrel of the AUen with a double charge. I felt satisfied, I said to myself, if he never thinks of that one tiling that I dread, all right — but if he does, all right any- how — I am fixed for him. But don't you know that the very thing a man dreads is the thing that always happens ? Indeed it is so. I watched the bull, now, with anxiety — anxiety A PLAUSIBLE -STORY. 65 •whicli no one can conceive of who has not been in such a situation and felt that at any moment death might come. Presently a thought came into the bull's eye. I knew it ! said J — ^if my nerve fails now, I am lost. Sure enough, it was 'just as I had dreaded, he started in to climb the tree — " "What, the bull?" " Of course — who else ? " "But a bull can't climb a tree." "He can't, can't he? Since you know so much about it, did you ever see a bull try?" " No ! I never dreamt of such a thing.'' "Well, then, what is the use of your talking that way, then ? Because you never saw a thing done, is thati^r reason why it can't be done?" "Well, all right — go on. What did you dp?" "The bull started up, and got along well for abotit ten feet, then slipped and slid back. I breathed easier. He trieffl it again — ^go^ 5t . ■ SUBPENDEB OPEBATIOSS. QQ UNDOUBTED PROOFS. up a little higher — slipped again. But he came at it once more, and this time he was careful. He got gradually higher and higher, and my spirits went down more and more. Up he came — an inch at a time — ^with his eyes^ hot, and his tongue hanging out. Higher and higher — ' hitched his foot over the stump of a limb, and looked up, as much as to say, 'You are my meat, friend.' Up again — higher and higher, and getting more excited the closer he got. He was within ten feet of me ! I took a long breath, — and then said I, 'It is now or never.' I had the coil of the lariat all ready ; I paid it out slowly, till it hung right over his head,; all of a sudden I let go of the slack, and the slip- noose fell fairly round his neck! Quicker than lightning I out with the Allen and let him have it in the face. It was an awful foar, and must have scared the bull out of his senses. Wllen the smoke cleared away, there he was, dangling in the air, twenty foot from the ground, and going out of one con- vulsion into another faster than you could count! I didn't stop to count, anyhow — ^I shinned down the tree and shot for ' home." " Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated it ? " " I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death of a dog if it isn't." " "Well, we can't refuse to believe it, and we don't. But if there were some proofs — " " Proofs ! Did I bring back my lariat ? " " Did I bring back my horse ? ". "No." " Did you ever see the bull again ? " "No."' " Well, then, what more do you want ? I never saw any- body as particular as you are about a little thing like that." I made up my mind that if this man was not a liar he only missed it by the skin of his teeth. This episode reminds me of an incident of my brief sojourn in Siam, years afterward, The European citizens of a town in the neighborhood of Bang- HOW WE "DKAWED HIM OUT." 67 kok had a prodigy among them by the name of Eckert^ an Englishman — a person famous for the number, ingenuity and imposing magnitude of his lies. They were always repeating his most celebrated falsehoods, and always trying to "draw him, out " before strangers ; but they seldom succeeded. Twice he was invited to the house where I was visiting, but nothing could seduce him into a specimen lie. One day a planter named Bascom, an influential man, and a proud and sometimes irascible one, invited me to ride over with him and call on Eckert. As yye jogged along, said he : " IS'ow, do you know where the fault lies ? It lies in putting Eckert on his guard. The minute the boys go to pumping at Eckert he knows perfectly well what they are after, and of course he shuts up his shell. Anybody might know he would. But when we get there, we must play him finer than that. Let him shape the conversation to suit himself — let him drop it or change it whenever he wants to. Let him see that no- body is trying to draw him out. Just let him have his own way. He will soon forget himself and begin to grind out lies like a, mill. Don't get impatient — ^Just keep quiet, and let me play him. I will make him lie. It does seem to me that the boys must be blind to overlook such an obvious and simple trick as that." Eckert received us heartily — a pleasant-spoken, gentle- mannered creature. "We sat in the veranda an hour, sippihg English ale, and talking about the king, and the sacred white elephant, the Sleeping Idol, and all manner of things ; and ■ I noticed that my comrade never led the conversation himself or shaped it, but simply followed Eckert's lead, and betrayed no solicitude and no anxiety about anything. The effect was shortly perceptible. Eckert began to grow communicative; he grew more and more at his ease, and more and more talka- tive and sociable. Another hour passed in the same way, and then all of a sudden Eckert said : " Oh, by the way ! I came near forgetting. I have got a thing here to astonish you. Such a thing as neither you nor any other man ever heard of—I've got a cat that will eat cocoa- 68 THE CAT THAT EAT COCOANFT. nut ! Common green cocoanut — and not only eat the meat, but drink the milk. It is bo— I'll swear to it." A quick glance from Bascom — a glance that I under- stood — then : i "Why, bless my soul, I never heard of such a thing. Man, it is impossible." " I knew you would say it. I'll fetch the cat." He went in the house. Bascom said : " There — what did I tell you ? I^'ow, that is the way to handle Eckert. You see, I have petted him along patiently, and put his suspicions to sleep. I am glad we came. Ton teU the boys about it when you go back. Cat eat a cocoanut — oh, my ! Now, that is just his way, exactly — he will tell the absurdest lie, and trust to luck to get out of it again. Cat eat a cocoanut — the innocent fool ! " A WONDERFUL LIE. Eekert approached with his cat, sure enough. / Bascom smiled. Said he : " I'll hold the cat — you bring a cocoanut." TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION. 69 Eckert split one open, and chopped up some pieces. Bas- com smuggled a wink to me, and proffered a slice of the frmit to puss. She snatched it, swallowed it ravenously, and asked jfor more ! We rode our two miles in silence, and wide apart. At least I was silent, though Bascom cuffed his horse and cursed him a good deal, notwithstanding the horse was behaving well enough. When I branched off homeward, Bascom said : " Keep the horse till morning. And — ^you need not speak of this ■ foolishness to the boys." - «■ OHAPTEE VIII. TK a little while all interest was taken up in stretching ovr -*- necks and watching for the " pony-rider " — ^the fleet mes- Benger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacra- mento, carrying letters nineteen hundred miles in eight dayft! Think of that for perishable horse and human flesh and blood to do ! The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a man, brim- ful of spirit and endurance. IS'o matter what time of the day or night his watch came on, and no matter whether it was winter or summer, raiqing, snowing, hailing, or sleeting, or whether his " beat " was a level straight road or a crazy trail over mountain crags and precipices, or whether it led through peaceful regions or regions that swarmed with hostile Indians, he must be always ready to leap into the saddle and be off like the wind ! There was no idling-time for a pony-rider on duty. He rode fifty miles without stopping, by. daylight, moonlight, starlight, or through the blackness of darkness — just as it happened. He rode a splendid horse that was bom for a racer and fed and lodged like a gentleman ; kept him at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then, as he came crash- ing up to the station where stood two men holding fast a fresh, impatient steed, the transfer of rider and mail-bag was made in the twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair and were out of sight before the spectator could get hardly the ghost of a look. Both rider and horse went " flying light." The rider's dress was thin, and fitted close ; he wore a " round- about," and a skuU-cap, and tacked his pantaloons into his THE PONT EXPRESS. 11 'HEKE HE COMES. boot-tops like a race-jider. He carried no arms — he carried nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even the post- age on his literary freight was wfirthjlve dollars a letter. He ,got but little frivo- lous correspondence to carry — his bag had business letters in it, mostly. His horse was stripped of all unnecessary weight, too. He wore a little wafer of a racmg-i die, and no visible blanket. He wore light shoes, or none at all. The little flat mail-pockets strap- ped under the rider's thighs would each hold about the bulk of a child's primer. They held many and many an important business chapter and newspaper letter, but these were written on paper as airy and thin as gold-leaf, nearly, and thus bulk and weight were economized. The stage-coach traveled about a himdred to a hundred and twenty-five miles a day (twenty- four hours), the pony-rider about two hundred and fifty. There were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, stretching in a long, scattering procession from Mis- souri to California, forty flying eastward, and forty toward the west, and among them making four hundred gallant horses earn a stimng livelihood and see a deal of scenery every single day in the year. We had had a consuming desire, from the beginning, to see a ;^ony-rider, but somehow or other all that passed us and all that met us managed to streak by in the night, and so we heard only a whiz and a hail, and the swift phantom of the desert was gone before we could get our heads out of the win- dows. But now we were expecting one along every moment, and would see him in broad daylight. Presently the driver exclaims : " Here he comes ! " Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained 72 GENUINE ALKALI WATER. CHANQINQ HOBSES. wider. Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think so ! In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising i it ■* and falling, ris- ing and falling — sweeping toward lis nearer and near- er — growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply defined — ■ nearer and stiU nearer, and the flutter of the hoofe comes faintlyto the ear — another instant a whoop and a hur- rah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider's hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past jour excited faces, and go winging away like a belated fragment of a storm ! So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that but for the H^k^ of white foam left quivering and perishing on a mail-sack after the vision had flashed by and disappeared, we „might have doubted whether we had seen any actual horse and man at aU, maybe. We rattled through Scott's Bluffs Pass, by and by. It was along here somewhere that we flrst came across genuine and unmistakable alkali water in the road, and we cordially hailed it as a first-class curiosity, and a thing to be mentioned with eclat in letters to the ignorant at home. This water gave the road a soapy appearance, and in many places the ground looked as if it had been whitewashed. I think the strange alkali water excited us as much as any wonder we had come upon yet, and I know we felt very complacent and conceited, and better satisfied with life after we had added it to our list of things which we had seen and some other people had not. In a small way we were the same sort of simpletons as those who climb unnecessarily the perilous peaks of Mont Blanc and A MAGNIFICENT RIDE. 73 tlie Matterhorn, and derive no pleasure from it e^ept the re- flection that it isn't a conunon experience. But once in a while one of those parties trips and comes darting down the Jong moimtain-crags in a sitting posture, making the crusted snow smoke behind him, flitting from bench to bench, and from terrace to terrace, jarring the earth where he strikes, and still glancing and flitting on again, sticking an iceberg into himself every now and then, and tearing his clothes, snatching ' at things to save himself, taking hold of trees and fetching them along with him, roots and all, starling little rocks now and then, then big boulders, then acres of ice and snow and patches of forest, gath- ering and still gath- ering as he goes, adding and still add- ing to his massed and sweeping grandeur as he nears a three thou- feand-foot precipice, till at last he waves his hat magnificently and rides into eter- nity on the back of a raging and tossing avalanche ! This is all very fine, but let us not be , HIDING THE AYALAKOHE. carried away by excitement, but ask calmly, how does this per- son feel about it in his cooler moments next day, with six or seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on top of him? ' "We crossed the sand hills near the scene of the Indian mail robbery and massacre of 1856, wherein the driver and conductor perished, and also all the passengers but one, it was supposed ; but this must have been a mistake, for at difierent times afterward on the Pacific coast I was personally ac- quainted with a hundred and thirty-three or four people who were wounded during that massacre, and barely escaped with 74 AN INDIAN MASSACRE. their lives. There was no doubt of the truth of it — I had it from their own lips. One of these parties told me that he kept coming across arrow-heads in his system for nearly seven years after the massacre ; and another of them told me that he^ was stuck so literally full of arrows that after the Indians were gone and he could raise up and examine himself, he could not restrain his tears, for his clothes were completely iMiined. The most trustworthy tradition avers, however, that only one man, a person named Babbitt, survived the massacre, and he was desperately wounded. He dragged himself on his hands and knee (for one leg was broken) to a station several miles away. He did it during portions of two nights, lying concealed one day and part of another, and for inore than forty hours suffering unimaginable anguish from hunger, thirst and bodily pain. The Indians robbed the coach of everything it contained, including quite an amount of treasure. OHAPTEE IX. TTT'E passed Fort Laramie in tlie niglit, and on the seventh ' ' morning out we found ourselves in the Black Hills, with Laramie Peak at our elbow (apparently) looming vast and solitary — a deep, dark, rich indigo blue in hue, so por- tentously did the old colossus frown under his beetling brows of storm-cloud. He was thirty or forty miles away, in reality, but he only seemed removed a little beyond the low ridge at our right. "We breakfasted at Horse-Shoe Station, six hundred and seventy-six miles out from St. Joseph. We had now reached a hostile Indian country, and during the afternoon we passed Laparelle Station, and enjoyed great dis- comfort all the time we were in the neighborhood, being aware that many of the trees we dashed by at arm's length concealed a lurking Indian or two. During the preceding night an ambushed savage had sent a bullet through the pony- rider's jacket, but he had ridden on, just the same, because pony-riders were not allowed to stop and inquire into such things except when killed. Ag long as they had life enough left in them they had to stick to the horse and ride, even if the Indians had been waiting for them a week, and were en- tirely out of patience. About two hours and a half before we arrived at Laparelle Station, the keeper in charge of it had fired four times at an Indian, but he said with an injured air that the Indian had " skipped around so's to spile everything '—and ammunition's blamed skuffee, too." The most natural 76 AMONG THE INDIANS. inference conveyed by his manner of speaking was, that in " skipping around," the Indian had taken an unfair advantaga The coach we were in had a neat hole through its front — a reminiscence of its last trip through this region. The bullet that made it wounded the driver slightly, but he did not mind it much. He said the place ±0 keep a man "huffy" was down on the Southern Overland, among the Apaches, be- fore the company moved the stage- line up on the northern route. He said the Apaches usedTto annoy him all the time down there, and that he came as near as anything to starving to death in the midst of abundance because they kept him so leaky with bullet holes that he "eouldn^t hold his vittles." This person's statement were not generally believed. We shut the blinds down very tightly that first night in the hostile Indian country, and lay on our arms. "We slept on them some, but most of the time we only lay on them. We did not talk much, but kept quiet and listened. It was an inky-black night, and occasionally rainy. We were among woods and rocks, hills and gorges — so shut in, in fact, that when we peeped through a chink in a curtain, we could dis- cern nothing. The driver and conductor on top were still, too, or only spoke at long intervals, in low tones, as is the way of men in the midst of invisible dangers. We listened to rain-drops pattering on the roof; and the grinding of the INDIAS COUNTBT. A DARK DEED. 77 wheels through the muddy gravel ; and the low wailina of the wind ; and all the time we had that absurd sense upon us, in- separable from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle, the sense of remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstand- ing the jolting and swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the' horses, and the grinding of the wheels.: We listened a long time, with intent faculties and bated breath ; every time one of us would relax, and draw a long sigh of relief and start to say something, a comrade would be sure to utter a sudden "Hark!" and instantly the experimenter was rigid and listening again. So the tiresome minutes and decades of minutes dragged away, until at last our tense forms filmed over with a dulled consciousness, and we slept, if one might call such a condition by so strong a name — for it was a sleep set with a hair-trigger. It was a sleep seething and teeming with a weird and distressful confusion of shreds and fag-ends of dreams — a, sleep that was a chaos. Presently, dreams and sleep and the sullen hush of the night were startled by a ring- ing report, and cloven by such a long, wild, agonizing shriek ! Then we heard — ten steps from the stage — " Help ! help ! help ! " [It was our driver's voice.] « Kill him ! Kill him like a dog ! " " I'm being murdered ! Will no man lend me a pistol 2 " " Look out ! head him off! head him off ! " [Two pistol shots ; a confusion of voicfes and the trampling of many feet, as if a crowd were closing and surging together around some object ; several heavy, dull blows, as with a club ; a voice that said appealingly, " Don't, gentlemen, please don't — I'm a dead man ! " Then a fainter groan, and another blow, and away ^ed the stage into the darkness, and left the grisly mystery behind us.J What a startle it was ! Eight seconds would amply cover the time it occupied — maybe even five would do it. We only had time to plunge at a curtain and unbuckle and unbut- ton part of it in an awkward and hindering flurry, when our whip cracked sharply overhead, and we went rumbling and thundering away, down a mountain " grade. " 78 POOE DISCRETION AND FATAL RESULTS. We fed on that mystery the rest of the night— what was left of it, for it was waning fast. It had to remain a present mystery, for all we could get from the conductor in answer to our hails was something that sounded, through the clatter of the wheels, like " Tell you in the morning ! " So we lit our pipes and opened the comer of a curtain for a chimney, and lay there in the dark, listening to each other's story of how he first felt and how many thousand Indians he first thought had hurled themselves upon us, and what his remembrance of the subsequent sounds was, and the order of their occurrence. And we theorized, too, but there was never a theory that would account for our driver's voice being out there, nor yet account for his Indian murderers talking such good English, if they were Indians. So we chatted and smoked the rest of the night comfort- ably away, our boding anxiety being somehow marvelously dissipated by the real presence of something to be anxious about. We never did get much satisfaction about that dark occut^ rence. All that we could make out of the odds and ends of the information we gathered in the morning, was that the distm-bance occurred at a station; that we changed drivers there, and that the driver that got off there had been talking roughly about some of the outlaws that infested the region (" for there wasn't a man around there but had a price on his head and didn't dare show himself in the settlements," the conductor said) ; he had talked roughly about these characters, and ought to have " drove up there vnth his pistol cocked and ready on the seat alongside of him, and begun business him- self, becamse any softy would know they would be laying for him." That was all we could gather, and we could see that nei- ther the conductor nor the new driver were much concerned about the matter. They plainly had little respect for a man who would deliver offensive opinions of people and then be so sim- ple as to come into their presence unprepared to " back his judg- ment," as they pleasantly phrased the killing of any fellow-being BLOODT, DANGEEOUS, YET VALUABLE CITIZSj|f. 79 who did not like said opinions. And likewise they plainly had a contempt for the man's poor discretion in venturing to rouse the wrath of such utterly reckless wild beasts as those outlaws — and the conductor added : " I tell you it's as much as Slade himself wants to do ! " ^ This remark created an entire revolution in my curiosity. I cared nothing now about the Indians, and even lost interest in the murdered driver. There was such magic in that name, Slade ! Day or night, now, I stood always ready to drop any subject in hand, to listen to something new about Slade and his ghastly exploits. Even before we got to Overland City, we had begun to hear about Slade and his " division " (for he was a " division-agent ") on the Overland ; and from the hour we had left Overland City we had heard drivers and conduc- tors talk about only three things — " Califomy," the Nevada silver mines, and this desperado Slade. And a deal the most of the talk was about Slade. We had gradually come to have a realizing sense of the fact that Slade was a man whose heart and hands and soul were steeped in the blood of offenders against his dignity ; a man who awfully avenged all injuries, aifronts, insults or slights, of whatever kind — on the spot if he could, years afterward if lack of earlier opportunity compelled it ; a man whose hate tortured him day and night till ven- geance appeased it — and not an ordinary vengeance either, but his enemy's absolute death— ^nothing less ; a man whose face would light up with a terrible joy when he surprised a foe and had him at a disadvantage. A high and efficient servant of the Overland, an outlaw among outlaws and yet their relentless scourge, Slade was at once the most bloody, the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that inhab- ited the savage fastnesses of the mountains. OHAPTEE X. EEALLT and truly, two tMrds of the talk of drivers and eonductors had been about this man Slade, ever since tHe day before we reached Julesburg. In order that the east- ern reader may have a clear cpnception of what a Eocky Moun^ tain desperado is, in his highest state of development, I will reduce all this mass of overland gossip to one straightforward narrative, and present it in the following shape : Slade was bom in Illinois, of good parentage. At about twenty-six years of age he killed a man in a quarrel and fled the country. At St. Joseph, Missouri, he joined one of the early Cahfomia-bound emigrant trains, and was given the post of train-master. One day on the plains he had an angry dis- pute with one of his wagon-drivers, and both drew their revolvers. But the driver was the quicker artist, and had his weapon cocked first. So Slade said it was a pity to waste life on so small a matter, and proposed that the pistols be thrown on the ground and the quarrel settled by a fist-fight. The unsuspecting driver agreed, and threw down his pistol — where- upon Slade laughed at his simplicity, and shot him dead ! He made his escape, and lived a wild life for awhile, divid- ing his time between fighting Indians and avoiding an Illinois eherifi', who had been sent to arrest him for his first murder. It is said that in one Indian battle he killed three savages with his own hand, and afterward cut their ears ofi' and sent themj with his compliments, to tjie chief of the tribe. Slade soon gained a name for fearless resolution, and this 8LADE AS DIVISION-AGENT. 81 was suflacient merit to procure for him the important post of ov^erland division-agent at Julesburg, in place of Mr. Jules, removed. For some time previously, the company's horses had been frequent- ly stolen, and the coaches delayed, by gangs of outlaws, who were wont to laugh at the idea of any man's having the temerity to re- sent such outrages. Slade resented them promptly. The out- laws soon found that the new agent was a man who did not fear anything that breathed the breath of life. He made short work of all offenders. The re- sult was that delays ceased, the compa- ny's property was let alone, and no matter what happened or who suffered, Slade's coaches went through, e^ery time! True, in order to bring about this wholesome change, Slade had to kill several men — some say three, others say four, and others six — but the world was the richer for their loss. The first prominent difficulty he had was with the ex-agent Jules, who bore the reputation of being a reckless and desperate man himself. Jules hated Slade for supplanting him, and a good fair occasion for a fight was all he was waiting for. By and by Slade dared to employ a man whom Jules had once discharged. Next, Slade seized a team of stage-horses which 6t A. FB0F08ED FIST-PIOHT. 82 SLADE AND JULES EXCHANGING COUKTESIES. he accused Jules of having driven oflF and hidden somewhere for his own use. War was declared, and for a day or two the two men walked warily about the streets, seeking each other, Jules armed with a double-barreled shot gun, and Slade with his history-creating revolver. Finally, as Slade stepped into a store, Jules poured the contents of his gun into him from be- hind the door. Slade was pluck, and Jules got sev- eral bad pistol wounds in return. Then both men fell, and were car- ried to their re spective lodgings, both swearing that better aim deadlier work Both were bed- ridden a long time, but Jules got on his feet first, and gathering his possessions to- gether, packed them on a couple of mules, and fled to the Kocky Mountains to gather strength in safety against the day of reckoning. For many months he was not seen or heard of, and was grad- ually dropped out of the remembrance of all save Slade. him- self. But Slade was not the man to forget him. On the con- trary, common report said that Slade kept a reward standing for his capture, dead or alive ! After awhile, seeing that Slade's energetic administration had restored peace and order to one of the worst divisions of FBOM BEHIND THE DOOK. SUMMARY JUSTICE EXECUTED. 83 the road, the overland stage company transferred him to the Kocky Eidge division in the Rocky Mountains, to see if he could perform a like miracle there. It was the very paradise of outlaws and desperadoes. There was absolutely no sem- blance of law there. Violence was the rule. Force was the only recognized authority. The commonest misunderstandings were settled on the spot with the revolver or the knife. Mur- ders were done in open day, and with sparkling frequency, and nobody thought of inquiring into them. It was considered that the parties who did the killing had their private reasons for it ; for other people to meddle would haVe been looked upon as indelicate. After a murder, all that Eoeky Mountain etiquette required of a spectator was, that Tie should help the gentleman bury his game — otherwise his churhshness would surely be remembered against him the first time he killed a man himself and needed a neighborly turn in interring him. Slade took up his residence sweetly and peacefully in the midst of this hive of horse-thieves and assassins, and the very first time one of them aired his insolent swaggeTings in his presence he shot him dead ! He began a raid on the outlaws, and in a singularly short space of time he had completely stopped their depredations on the stage stock, recovered a large number of stolen horses, killed several of the worst despera- does of the district, and gained such a dread ascendancy over the rest that they respected him, admired him, feared him, obeyed him ! He wrought the same marvelous change in the ways of the community that had marked his administration at Overland City. He captured two men who had stolen over- land stock", and with his own hands he hanged them. He was supreme judge in his district, and he was jury and executioner likewise — and not only in the case of offences agaiinst his em- ployers, but against passing emigrants as well. On one occa- sion some emigrants had their stock lost or stolen, and told Slade, who chanced to visit their camp. "With a single com- panion he rode to a ranch, the owners of which he suspected, u ACTS OF CRUELTY PEKPETKATED. and opening the door, commenced firing, killing three, and wounding the fourth. From a bloodthirstily interesting little Montana book* I take this paragraph : While on the road, Slade held absolute sway. He would ride down to a station, get into a quarrel, turn the "house out of windows^ and maltreat the occupants most cruelly. The unfortunates had no means of redress, and SLADE AS EXECUTIONER. were compelled to recuperate as best they couid. On one of these occasions, it is said he killed- the father of the fine little half-breed boy Jemmy, whom he adopted, and who lived with his widow after his execution. Stories of Slade's hanging men, and of innumerable assaults, shootings, stabbings and beatings, in which he was a principal actor, form part of the legends of the stage line. As for minor quarrels and shootings, it is absolutely ce^ tain that a minute history of Slade's life- would be one long reconl of such practices. ' The Vigilantes of Montana," by Prof. Tlios. J. Dimsdale. A DOOMED WHISKY SELLER. 85 Slade was a matchless marksman with a navy revolYer. The legends say that one morning at Eocky Ridge, when he waa feeling comfortable, he saw a man approaching who had of- fended him some days before — observe the fine memory he had for matters like that — and, "Gentlemen," skid Slade, drawing, " it is a good twenty-yard shot — I'll clip the third button on his coat ! " Which he did. The bystanders all admired it. And they all attended the funeral, too. On one occasion a man who kept a little whisky-shelf ait the station did something which angered Slade — and went and made his wiU. A day or two afterward Slade came in AM UNPLEASANT VIEW. and called for some brandy. The man reached under the counter (ostensibly to get a bottle — pofisibly to get somethiilg else), but Slade smiled upon him that peculiarly bland and satisfied smile of his which the neighbors had long ago learned to recognize as a death-warrant in disguise, and told him to 86 BLADE RKLEASED BY HI8 WIFE. "none of that! — pass out the high-priced article." So the poor bar-keeper had to turn his back and get the high-priced brandy from the shelf; and when he faced around again he was looking into the muzzle of Slade's pistol. " And the next instant," added my informant, impressively, " he was one of the deadest men that ever lived." The stage-drivers and conductors t(fld us that sometimes Slade would leave a hated enemy wholly unmolested, un- noticed and unmentioned, for weeks together — had done it once or twice at any rate. And some said they believed he did it in order to lull the victims into unwatchfulness, so that he could get the advantage of them, and others said they be- lieved he saved up an enemy that way, just as a schoolboy saves up a cake, and made the pleasure go as far as it would by gloating over the anticipation. One of these cases was that of a Frenchman who had offended Slade. To the sur- prise of everybody Slade did not kill him on the spot, but let him alone for a considerable time. Finally, however, he went to the Frenchman's house very late one night, knocked, and when his enemy opened the door, shot him dead — ^pushed the^ corpse inside the door with his foot, set the house on fire and burned up the dead man, his widow and three children ! I heard this story from several different people, and they evi- dently believed what they were saying. It may be true, and it may not. " Give a dog a bad name," etc. Slade was captured, once, by a party of men who intended to lynch him. They disarmed him, and shut him up in a strong log-house, and placed a guard over him. He prevailed on his captors to send for his wife, so that he might have a last interview with her. She was a brave, loving, spirited woman. She jumped on a horse and rode for life and death. When she arrived they let her in without searching her, and before the door could be closed she whipped out a couple of revolvers, and she and her lord marched forth defying the party. And then, under a brisk fire, they mounted double and galloped away unharmed ! In the fulness of time Slade's myrmidops captured his SLADE CAPTURES AN OLD ENEMY. 87 ancient enemy Jules, wliom they found in a well-chosen hiding-place in the remote fastnesses of the mountains, gaining a precarious livelihood with his rifle. They brought him to Eocky Kidge, bound hand and foot, and deposited him in the middle of the cattle-yard with his back against a post. It is said that the pleasure that lit Slade's face when he heard of it ^wa,^ something fearful to contemplate. He examined his ene- my to see that he was securely tied, and then went to bed, content to wait till morning before enjoying the luxury of killing him. Jules spent the night in the cattle-yard, and it is a region where warm nights are never known. In the morn- ing Slade practised on him with his revolver, nipping the flesh here and there, and occasionally clipping off a finger, while Jules begged him to kill him outright and put him out of his misery. Finally Slade reloaded, and walking up close to his victim, made some characteristic remarks and then dispatched him. The body lay there half a day, nobody venturing to touch it without orders, and then Slade detailed a party and assisted at the burial himself. But he first cut off the dead man's ears and put them in his vest pocket, where he carried them for some time with great satisfaction. That is the story as I have frequently heard, it told and seen it in print in Cali- fornia newspapers. It is doubtless correct in all essential par- ticulars. In due time we rattled up to a stage-station, and sat down to breakfast with a half-savage, half-civilized company of armed and bearded mountaineers, ranchmen and station em- ployees. The most gentlemanly-appearing, quiet and affable officer we had yet found along the road in the Overland Com- pany's service was the person who sat at the head of the table, at my elbow. Never youth stared and shivered as I did when I heard them call him Slade ! Here was romance, and I sitting face to face with it ! — looking upon it — touching it — hobnobbing with it, as it were ! Here, right by my side, was the actual ogre who, in fights and brawls and various ways, had taken the lives of twenty-^x huma/n ieing8,.or all men lied about him ! I suppose I was 88 SLADE AT THE BBEAKFAST TABLE. the proudest stripling that ever traveled to see strange lands and wonderful people. He was so friendly and so gentle-spoken that I warmed to him in spite of his awful history. It was hardly possible to re- alize that this pleasant person was the pitiless scourge of the outlaws, the raw-head-and-bloody-bones the nursing mothers of the mountains terrified their children with. And to this day I can remember nothing remarkable about Slade except that his face was rather broad across the cheek bones, and that the cheek bones were low and the lips pecuUarly thin and straight. But that was enough to leave something of an effect upon me, for since then I seldom see a face possessing those characteristics without fancying that the owner of it is a dangerous man. The coffee ran out. At least it was reduced to one tin- cup ful, and Slade was about to take it when he saw that my cup was empty. He politely of- fered to fill it, but although I wanted it, I politely de- clined. I was afraid he had not killed any-^ body that morning, and might be need- ing diversion. But still with fiiTii politeness he insisted on filling my cup, and said I had traveled all night and better deserved it than he — and while he talked lie placidly poured the fluid, to the last drop. I thanked liim and drank it, but it gave me no comfort, for I UNAPPRECIATED POLITENESS. A SATISFACTORY LEAVE-TAKING. 89 could not feel sure that he would not be sorry, presently, that he had given it away, and proceed to kill me to distract hia thoughts from the loss. But nothing of the kind occurred. We left him with only twenty-six dead people to accoimt for, and I felt a tranquil satisfaction in the thought that in so judiciously taking care of No. 1 at that breakfast-table I had pleasantly escaped being No. 27. Slade came out to the coach and saw us oflF, first ordering certain rearrangements of the mail-bags for our comfort, and then we took lea\'e of him, satisfied that we should hear of him again, some day, and wondering in what connection. CHAPTER XI. AND sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did hear of him again. News came to the Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Montana (whither Slade had removed from Rocky Kidge) had hanged him. I find an account of the aflt'air in the thrilling little book I quoted a paragraph from in the last chapter — " The Vigilantes of Mon- tana; being a Reliable Account of the Capture, Trial and Execution of Henry Plummer's Notorious Road Agent Band : By Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, Virginia City, M. T." Mr. Dimsdale's chapter is well worth reading, as a specimen of how the people of the frontier deal with criminals when the courts of law prove inefficient. Mr. Dimsdale makes two re- marks about Slade, both of which are accurately descriptive,, and one of which is exceedingly picturesque : " Those who saw him in his natural state only, would pronounce him to be a kind husband, a most hospitable host and a courteous gentle- man ; on the contrary, those who met him when maddened with liquor and surrounded by a gang of armed roughs, would pronounce him a fiend. incarnate." And this: "From Fort Kearney, west, he was feared a great deal more than the Al- mighty" For compactness, simplicity and vigor of expres- sion, I will " back " that sentence against anything in literature. Mr. Dimsdale's narrative is as follows. In all places where italics occur, they are mine : After the execution of the five men on the 14th of January, the Vigi- lantes considered that their work was nearly ended. They had freed the SLADE IN MONTANA. 91 country of highwaymen and murderers to a great extent, and they deter- mined that in the absence of the regular civil authority they would estab- lish a People's Court where all offenders should be tried by judge and jury. This was the nearest approach to social order that the circumstances per- mitted, and, though strict legal authority was wanting, yet the people were firmly determined to maintain its eflSciency, and to enforce its decrees. It may here be mentioned that the overt act which was the last round on the fatal ladder leading to the scaffold on which Slade perished, was the tearing in pieces and stamping upon a writ of this court, followed by his arrest of the Judge, Alex. Dams, ly authority of a presented Derringer, and with his own hands. 3. A. Slade was himself, we have been informed, a Vigilante ; he openly boasted of it, and said he knew all that they knew. He was never accused, or^even suspected, of either murder or robbery, committed in this Territory (the latter crime was never laid to his charge, in any place) ; but that he had killed several men in other localities was notorious, and his bad repu- tation in this respect was a most powerful argument in determining his fate, when he was finally arrested for the offence above mentioned. On returning from Milk River he became more and more addicted to drinking, until at last it was a common feat for him and his friends to " take the town." He and a couple of his dependents might often be seen on one horse, galloping through the streets, shouting and yelUng, firing revolvers, etc. On many occasions he would ride his horse into stores, break up bars, toss the scales out of doors and use most insulting language to par- ties present. Just previous to the day of his arrest, he had given a fearful beating to one of his followers ; but such was his influence over them that the man wept bitterly at the gallows, and begged for his life with all his power. It had become quite com/mon, when Slade was on a spree, for the shop-keepers and citizens to close the stores and put out aU the lights ; being fearful of some outrage at his hands. For his wanton destruction of goods and furniture, he was always ready to pay, when sober, if he had money ; but there were not a few who regarded payment as small satisfaction for the outrage, and these men were his personal enemies. From time to time Slade received warnings from men that he well knew would not deceive him, of the certain end of his conduct. There was not a moment, for weeks previous to his arrest, in which the public did not expect to hear of some bloody outrage. The dread of his very name, and the presence of the armed band of hangers-on who followed him alone prevented a resistance which must certainly have ended in the instant murder or mutilation of the opposing party. Slade was frequently arrested by order of the court whose organization we have described, and had treated it with respect by paying one or two fines and promising to pay the rest when he had money ; but in the transac- tion that occurred at this crisis, he forgot even this caution, and goaded by passion and the hatred of restraint, he sprang into the embrace of death. Slade had been drunk and " cutting up " all night. He and his companions 92 IN CUSTODY OF THE "VIGILANTES." liad made the town a perfect hell. In the morning, J. M. Fox, the sheriff, met him, arrested him, took him into court and commenced reading a war- rant that he had for his arrest, by way of arraignment. He became uncon- trollably furious, and seizing the writ, he tore it wp, threw it on the ground SLADB IN COUBT. and stamped upon it. The clicking of the locks of his companions' revolv- ers was instantly heard, and u crisis was expected. The sheriff did not attempt his retention ; but being at least as prudent as he was valiant, he succumbed, leaving Slade the master of the sititation and the conqueror and ruler of the courts, law and law-makers. This was a declaration of war, and was so accepted. The Vigilance Committee now felt that the question of social order and the preponderance of the law-abiding citizens had then and there to be decided. They knew the character of Slade, and they were well aware that they must submit to his rule without murmur, or else that he must be dealt with in such fashion as would prevent hia being able to wreak his vengeance on the committee, who could never have hoped to live in the Territory secure from outrage or death, and who could THE MINERS "ON BUSINESS." 93 never leave it without encountering Ijis friends, whom hiq victory would have emboldened and stimulated to a pitch that would have rendered tiiem reckless of consequences. The day previous he had ridden into Dorris's store, and on being requested to leave, he drew his revolver and threatened to kill the gentleman who spoke to him. Another saloon he had led his horse into, and buying a bottle of wine, he tried to make the animal drink it. This was not considered an uncommon performance, as he had often entered saloons and commenced firing at the lamps, caus- ing a wild stampede. A leading member of the committee met Slade, and informed him in the quiet, earnest manner of one who feels the importance of what he is saying : " Slade, get your horse at once, and go home, or there will bo to pay." Slade started and took a long look, with his dark and piercing eyes, at the gentleman. "What do you mean?" said he. "You have no right to ask me what I mean," was the quiet reply, " get your horse at once, and remem- ber what I tell you." After a short pause he promised to do so, and actually got into the saddle ; but, being still intoxicated, he began calling aloud to one after another of his friends, and at last seemed to have forgotten the warning he had received and became again uproarious, shouting the name of a well-known courtezan in company with those of two men whom he considered heads of the committee, as a sort of challenge; perhaps, Iwn- ever, as a simple act of bravado. It seems probable that the intimation of personal danger he had received had not been forgotten entirely ; though fatally for him, he took a foolish way of showing his remembrance of it. He sought out Alexander Davis, the Judge of the Court, and drawing a cocked Derringer, he presented it at his head, and told him that he should hold him as a hostage for his own safety. As the judge stood, perfectly quiet, and offered no resistance to his captor, no further outrage followed on this score. Previous to this, on account of the critical t-tato of affairs, the committee had met, and at last resolved to arrest him. His execution had not been agreed upon, and, at that time, would have been negatived, most assuredly. A messenger rode down to Nevada to inform the loadi()g men of what was on hand, as it was desirable to show that there was a feeling of unanimity on the subject, all along the gulch. The miners turned out almost en masse, leaving their work and forming in solid column, about six hundred strong, armed to the teeth, they marched up to Virginia. The leader of the body well knew the temper of his men on the subject. He spurred on ahead of them, and hastily calling a meet- ing of the executive, he told them plainly that the miners meant " busi- ness," and that, if they came up, they would not stand in tlxe street to bo shot down by Blade's friends ; but that they would take him and hang him. The meeting was small, as the Virginia men were loath to act at all. This momentous announcement of the feeling of the I,ower Town was made to a cluster of men, who were deliberating behind a wagon, at the rear of a store on Main street. The committee were most unwilling to proceed to extremities. All the y* TRIAL AND SENTENCE OF BLADE. duty they had ever performed seemed as nothing to the task befdre them ; but they had to decide, aud that quickly. It was finally agreed that if the whole body of the miners were of the opinion that he should be hanged, that the committee left it in their hands to deal with him. Off, at hot speed, rode the leader of the Nevada men to join his command. Slade had found out what was intended, and the news sobered him in- stantly. He went into P. S. Pfouts' store, where Davis was, and apologized for his conduct, saying that he would take it all back. The head of the column now wheeled into Wallace street and marched up at quick time. Halting in front of the store, the executive officer of the com- mittee stepped forward and arrested Slade, who was at once informed of Ma doom, and inquiry was made as to whether he had any business to settle. Several parties spoke to him on the subject ; but to all such inquiries he turned a deaf ear, being entirely absorbed in the terrifying reflections on his own awful position. He never ceased his entreaties for life, and to see his dear wife. The unfortunate lady referred to, between whom and Slade there existed a warm affection, was at this time living at their ranch on the Madison. She was possessed of considerable personal attractions ; tall, well-formed, of graceful carriage, pleasing manners, and was, withal, an accomplished horsewoman. A messenger from Slade rode at full speed to inform her of her hus- band's arrest. In an instant she was in the saddle, and with all the energy that love and despair could lend to an ardent temperament and a strong physique, she urged her fleet charger over the twelve miles of rough and rocky, ground that intervened between her and the obJBct of her passionate devotion. Meanwhile a party of volunteers had made the necessary preparations for the execution, in the valley traversed by the branch. Beneath the site of Pfouts and Russell's stone building there was a corral, the gate-posts of which were strong and high. Across the top was laid » beam, to which the rope was fastened, and a dry-goods box served for the platform. To this pl^ce Slade was marched, surrounded by a guard, composing the best armed and most numerous force that has ever appeared in Montana Terri- tory. The doomed man had so exhausted himself by tears, prayers and lamen- tations, that he had scarcely strength left to stand under the fatal beam. He repeatedly exclaimed, " My God ! my God ! must I die ? Oh, my dear wife ! " On the return of the fatigue party, they encountered some friends of Slade, staunch and reliable citizens aud members of the committee, but who were personally attached to the condemned. On hearing of his sentence, one of tliom, a stout-hearted man, pulled out his handkerchief and walked away, weeping like a child. Slade still begged to see his wife, most piteously, and it seemed hard to deny his request ; but the bloody conse- quences that were sure to follow the inevitable attempt at a rescue, that her presence and entreaties would have certainly incited, forbade the granting EXECUTION OF SLADE. 95 at his request. Several gentlemen were sent for to see him, in his last mo- ments, one of whom (Judge Davis) made a short address to the people ; but in such low tones as to be inaudible, save to a few in his immediate vicinity. One of his friends, after exhausting his powers of entreaty, threw off his , coat and declared that the prisoner could not be hanged until he himself was killed. A hundred guns were instantly leveled at him ; whereupon he A WIFE'S LAMENTATION. turned and fled ; but, being brought back, he was compelled to resume his •coat, and to give a promise of future peaceable demeanor. Scarcely a leading man in Virginia could be found, though numbers of the citizens joined the ranks of the guard when the arrest was made. All lamented the stem necessity which dictated the execution. Everything being ready, the command was given, " Men, do your duty," and the box being instantly slipped from beneath his feet, he died almost instantaneously. . The body was cut down and carried to the Virginia Hotel, where, in a darkened room, it was scarcely laid out, when the unfortunate and bereaved companion of the deceased arrived, at headlong speed, to find that all was over, and that she was a widow. Her grief and heart-piercing cries were terrible evi