University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.
BRADLEY AND HIRST

BRADLEY the officer recovered so far, after
nearly a year, as to be able to get about, and
when the mines of the north were discovered,
pushed out into that country.

I was there before him. I was engaged in transporting
gold and letters for the miners in the
mountains to and from the settlements, and doing a
large and prosperous business.

I was in my express office in Wallawalla one
day, when one of my friends entered with some
agitation to tell me that Bradley was in town.

I reflected a moment, and then sent word that I
should like to see him at my office. He soon came
limping through the door and looking about for the
man whom he had last met face to face in such
bloody combat.

I stood behind the counter and he came forward.
I gave him my hand, while with the left I held my
little bulldog Derringer at full-cock in my pocket.

He took my hand hastily, spoke kindly, and when
I looked fairly in his face and saw the goodnature
and pure manhood of the man, I let go my pistol,
ashamed of my suspicion, and we went out through
the town together.

He had my ugly bullet, which had been cut from
his thigh, in his pocket, showed me the wound at his
room, and we became sworn friends.

He opened business in Florence and flourished.
Once he did me an infinite service. The country
was full of robbers, and, strange to tell, many of
these men were my acquaintances, and, in some
cases, friends.

I always rode alone with as much gold as my
horse could well carry, and that at the time was
required, in the fierce opposition we were then running
to Wells, Fargo and Co.'s Express, for I could not
afford to employ men and horses to constitute a
guard, even if I could have found men who could
endure the long, hard rides I was compelled to make.

“Dave English and his party,” said Bradley, “is
going to rob you; one of his pigeons has told me
this, and there is no doubt of its truth.”

I knew English well. I wrote him a letter at
once; told him I knew his plan in detail, that it was
known to my friends, and that he would be held
responsible. This singular man came boldly into
my office, shook hands with me, and said I should
not be touched.

English had five well-known followers: Scott,
Peoples, Romain, and two others whose names I
withhold because of their relatives, who are of most
aristocratic and respectable standing in the Atlantic
States.

I was not disturbed; but shortly after this,
English, Scott, and Peoples robbed some packers of a
large amount of gold-dust on the highway, and were
arrested.

At Lewiston the vigilantes broke into the temporary
prison, improvised from a big log saloon
then but partly built, overpowered the guard, and
told the prisoners to prepare to die.

They were given ten minutes to invoke their
Maker. At the end of that time, the only rope the
vigilantes had was thrown over a beam, and they
approached Scott, who was on his knees.

“No, no,” cried English, “hang me first, and let
him pray.”

They left Scott, fastened the rope round the neck
of English, and mounted him on a keg.

Then English turned to Scott, and said, “Scottie,
pray for me a little, can't you? Damned if I can
pray!” Then he laughed a low, strange chuckle, and
they kicked away the keg.

He hung till dead, and then the noose reached for
another victim. Peoples died without a word, but
when they came to Scott, he pleaded with all his

might for his life, and offered large sums of gold,
which he said he had buried, but finding them
inexorable, he took off his necktie, strung his finger
rings on it, and saying, “Send these to my wife,” died
as the others.

The other three of the band were arrested soon
after for the murder of McGruder, and died by the
civil law in the same reckless manner as their leader.
All six lie together on the hill overlooking Lewiston
and the earthworks thrown up by Lewis and Clark
in their expedition of 1802-3.

Bradley more than once winged his man; made
and lost several fortunes in the mountains, and is
now in Arizona, one of my truest and best friends.

Hirst was a singular man. He used to say that if
he got through a week without a fight it ruined his
digestion.

I think his digestion did not suffer.

No one cared, so long as he fought with men who
“came from the shoulder,” or were on the “cut and
shoot;” but he once fell upon an inoffensive man,
nearly took his life, and so left camp at the suggestion
of his friends(?) and drifted north.

It is but justice to this man to state that he really
had lost a horse, taken by the Indians under my
order for them to procure horses. Yet I had not
even suspected this at the time of our encounter, or
I could not have borne myself as I did.

Fate, to my dismay, threw us together at Canon
City, Oregon. I led the settlers and miners in a long
and disastrous campaign against the Indians there,
and Hirst was as brave and reckless there as elsewhere.
Afterwards I began the practice of law,
and my first client was a boy of fifteen, on trial for
shooting with attempt to murder.

The court-house here was a saloon, and crowded
to the utmost. A vigilance committee had been
organized, and strange as it seems, Hirst was one
of the leaders.

When my case had fairly opened, Hirst entered
with a brace of pistols sticking loosely in his belt in
front, and striding through the yielding crowd, came
up and took position only a few feet from me, overlooking
me, and looking straight into the face of
the timid magistrate. Of course I remonstrated in
vain. I faltered through the case, but managed
somehow to get the boy off with a nominal bail.

The energetic little rascal went into a neighbouring
camp and with another boy stole some horses.
They were followed by the sheriff, Maddock, and his
deputy, Hart, and a desperate fight took place, in
which the deputy and my client's companion were
killed and Maddock left for dead.

My client was tried for life, but his youth saved
his neck, for he was not yet sixteen. He was sentenced
to imprisonment for life. After five years in

the Oregon state prison he was pardoned out by the
kind-hearted Governor, now Governor of Utah.

I last year saw my first client, a fine-looking
young man, working gaily away at a country blacksmith's
shop, on a roadside of the Willamette. May
good angels keep my first client to his work.

Afterwards, Hirst appeared in the criminal court
as defendant, and I was employed as counsel. His
crime was the trifling offence of snatching a curly-headed
Jew from behind his counter by his curly
hair, and then dragging him by his curly hair into
the street.

My bold client was convicted, but the judgment
was entered so awkwardly, that I had it set aside on
review, and he escaped punishment.

Soon after this he married an amiable immigrant
girl, and settled down as the most docile of men.
But this was not to last.

One day he came to town in a perfect fury,
in search of the deputy sheriff Berry, who he claimed
had offended his wife.

Berry was on the alert. About dusk the two men
suddenly met face to face on turning a corner and
the ball opened. Hirst was a very tall man, and
always did things with a sort of flourish. Although
quick as a trap whenever he drew his pistol, or raised
it to fire, he always raised it in the air and fired as
the muzzle descended.

There are two ways of firing a pistol in hand-to-hand
combat, and only two. One is to fire as you
raise, and the other is to raise and then fire as you
fall. Every advantage, it seems to me, is with the
former mode, particularly when time means everything.
You can cock a pistol easier, it is true, by
raising the muzzle and at the same time raising the
hammer, but if strong in the thumb you should by
all means cock as you draw, and fire the moment the
muzzle is in range. Some men in the moment of
danger go about with the pistol on cock. This is
madness. At the critical instant you find yourself
fumbling and feeling for the hammer which is already
raised; besides, you are about as liable to shoot
yourself as your enemy. There is still a worse
practice than this, and that is in carrying the pistol
in the belt on half-cock, where it is neither one thing
nor the other. On half-cock, however, is the correct
way to carry a little Derringer loose in your pocket,
but never a Colt's.

Hirst raised his pistol, flourished it, let fall and
fired, blowing Berry's hat to atoms, filling his face and
eyes with powder, and carrying away a part of his
scalp.

But he was too late. Berry cocked his revolver as
he drew it, and fired the instant he got the muzzle in
range.

Hirst was reaching across his breast with his left

hand for his bowie knife, which hung at his right
side, as Berry fired. The ball tore through the bones
of the wrist that reached across his breast and
entered the body squarely just below the breast
bone.

Both men fell, but Berry was soon able to stand on
his feet.

“Ah, boys, this is the last of old Hirst,” the
wounded man said, as they bore him to the surgeon's
close at hand. He sent for his wife, gently and
kindly bade his friends good-bye, and became insensible.
I saw him just before midnight, and he
scarcely breathed. They said he was dying, and
preparations began to be made for the burial. I
took the right hand in mine—that terrible right hand
—so helpless now, so pale and thin and pulseless,
kissed it gently—the kiss of forgiveness—in the dimly-lighted
room, when no one observed me, and went
home.

The next morning, however, Hirst was not dead.
He lay as he lay through the night, and the surgeons
said dissolution was only a question of time.
The camp was in suspense. Was it possible that
this man, who for ten years had been the terror of
Oregon and northern California, could still live with
a navy bullet through his body fired at two feet
distance!

Another day, and the man opened his eyes and

began to talk to his poor, patient little wife, who
never left his side.

Hard as it may seem on the camp, I am bound
to say it did not like this at all. The camp had
thoroughly, and very cheerfully too, made up its
mind that Hirst was a dead man, and it did not like
to be disappointed.

Three days more and the surgeons announced the
possibility of recovery. The camp was disgusted.

In less than forty days Hirst was walking about
the claim with his arm in a sling, quietly giving
directions to his labourers.

One day a man came rushing to town for the
surgeons. A little battle had been fought across the
street of a little town down the creek, and half a
dozen men were in need of help.

Women in the case again, and Hirst had led the
fight.

His antagonists were men who claimed to be on
the side of law and order. They were led by a man
named Hank Rice, one of the County Commissioners,
who afterwards testified that he fired at least fifty
shots that day in his attempt to keep the peace.

Only able to use one arm, Hirst had, with his followers,
converted the little town into a sort of miniature
Paris, with barricades, fire-brands, and all the
modern improvements. At last, when attempting to
cross the street and drive his enemy from shelter, he

received the contents of a double-barrelled shot-gun
full in the breast and fell. This ended the fight.

Hirst still refused to die. He was therefore
arrested on five different and very grave charges, and
lodged in prison.

After he was able to be taken from prison to the
court room, an examination was had. I was his
advocate. Bail was allowed after some delay, but it
was fixed so high as to be almost beyond our reach.
We tried “straw” bail, but the prosecuting attorney
was too rigorous, and it was only by getting that
officer out into the country to attend a case we had
arranged for the occasion that we got our bail
accepted.

Hirst left the country that night, his brave, faithful
little wife soon followed, and I never met him
again. After many and similar fortunes we find
him at Winemuca, on the line of the Pacific Railroad.
Here some one killed him, though only for a time,
by shooting him in the head with a Derringer. He
recovered, but with the loss of one his eyes and all
his ferocity, says report.

I have written of him in the past tense, because he
is said to now be a new man. He was a year or so
ago—though the shifting fortunes of the country may
have left him by this time on other ground—a man of
wealth.

In all the experience of my life spent mostly

among the most lawless and reckless, I know of
no history so remarkable as his. How he so continually
escaped death will never cease to be a marvel
among the men of that country. It must be remembered,
however, that while he survived, perhaps a
thousand of his class perished.

Through all his stirring and bloody career, let this
be said, he was generous and open-hearted, kind to
most men, industrious, and certainly as brave as
Cæsar.