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<h2> CHAPTER X. </h2>
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<p>Really and truly, two thirds of the talk of drivers and conductors had
been about this man Slade, ever since the day before we reached Julesburg.
In order that the eastern reader may have a clear conception of what a
Rocky Mountain 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:</p>
<p>Slade was born 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 California-bound emigrant trains, and
was given the post of train-master. One day on the plains he had an angry
dispute 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—whereupon
Slade laughed at his simplicity, and shot him dead!</p>
<p>He made his escape, and lived a wild life for awhile, dividing his time
between fighting Indians and avoiding an Illinois sheriff, 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 off and sent them, with his compliments, to the chief of the tribe.</p>
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<p>Slade soon gained a name for fearless resolution, and this was sufficient
merit to procure for him the important post of overland division-agent at
Julesburg, in place of Mr. Jules, removed. For some time previously, the
company's horses had been frequently 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 resent such outrages. Slade resented them promptly.</p>
<p>The outlaws 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 result was that delays ceased, the company's property was
let alone, and no matter what happened or who suffered, Slade's coaches
went through, every 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 he
accused Jules of having driven off 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 behind the
door. Slade was plucky, and Jules got several bad pistol wounds in return.</p>
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<p>Then both men fell, and were carried to their respective lodgings, both
swearing that better aim should do deadlier work next time. Both were
bedridden a long time, but Jules got to his feet first, and gathering his
possessions together, packed them on a couple of mules, and fled to the
Rocky Mountains to gather strength in safety against the day of reckoning.
For many months he was not seen or heard of, and was gradually dropped out
of the remembrance of all save Slade himself. But Slade was not the man to
forget him. On the contrary, common report said that Slade kept a reward
standing for his capture, dead or alive!</p>
<p>After awhile, seeing that Slade's energetic administration had restored
peace and order to one of the worst divisions of the road, the overland
stage company transferred him to the Rocky Ridge 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
semblance 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. Murders 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 Rocky Mountain etiquette required of
a spectator was, that he should help the gentleman bury his game—otherwise
his churlishness would surely be remembered against him the first time he
killed a man himself and needed a neighborly turn in interring him.</p>
<p>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 swaggerings 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 desperadoes 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
overland 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 against his employers, but against
passing emigrants as well. On one occasion some emigrants had their stock
lost or stolen, and told Slade, who chanced to visit their camp. With a
single companion he rode to a ranch, the owners of which he suspected, and
opening the door, commenced firing, killing three, and wounding the
fourth.</p>
<p>From a bloodthirstily interesting little Montana book.—["The
Vigilantes of Montana," by Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale.]—I take this
paragraph:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"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 were compelled to recuperate as best they could."</p>
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<p>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 certain that a minute
history of Slade's life would be one long record of such practices.</p>
<p>"The Vigilantes of Montana" by Prof. Thomas J. Dimsdale</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Slade was a matchless marksman with a navy revolver. The legends say that
one morning at Rocky Ridge, when he was feeling comfortable, he saw a man
approaching who had offended him some days before—observe the fine
memory he had for matters like that—and, "Gentlemen," said 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.</p>
<p>On one occasion a man who kept a little whisky-shelf at the station did
something which angered Slade—and went and made his will. A day or
two afterward Slade came in and called for some brandy. The man reached
under the counter (ostensibly to get a bottle—possibly to get
something 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 "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."</p>
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<p>The stage-drivers and conductors told us that sometimes Slade would leave
a hated enemy wholly unmolested, unnoticed 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 believed 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
surprise 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
evidently believed what they were saying. It may be true, and it may not.
"Give a dog a bad name," etc.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>In the fulness of time Slade's myrmidons captured his ancient enemy Jules,
whom 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 Rocky Ridge, 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 was something
fearful to contemplate. He examined his enemy 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 morning 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 California newspapers. It is doubtless correct in all
essential particulars.</p>
<p>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 employees. The most gentlemanly-
appearing, quiet and affable officer we had yet found along the road in
the Overland Company'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!</p>
<p>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-six human beings, or all men lied about him!
I suppose I was the proudest stripling that ever traveled to see strange
lands and wonderful people.</p>
<p>He was so friendly and so gentle-spoken that I warmed to him in spite of
his awful history. It was hardly possible to realize 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 peculiarly 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.</p>
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<p>The coffee ran out. At least it was reduced to one tin-cupful, and Slade
was about to take it when he saw that my cup was empty.</p>
<p>He politely offered to fill it, but although I wanted it, I politely
declined. I was afraid he had not killed anybody that morning, and might
be needing diversion. But still with firm politeness he insisted on
filling my cup, and said I had traveled all night and better deserved it
than he—and while he talked he placidly poured the fluid, to the
last drop. I thanked him and drank it, but it gave me no comfort, for I
could not feel sure that he would not be sorry, presently, that he had
given it away, and proceed to kill me to distract his thoughts from the
loss. But nothing of the kind occurred. We left him with only twenty-six
dead people to account 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 off, first ordering certain rearrangements of the
mail-bags for our comfort, and then we took leave of him, satisfied that
we should hear of him again, some day, and wondering in what connection.</p>
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