10. CHAPTER X.
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:
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 first-fight. The unsuspecting driver agreed, and threw
down his pistol—whereupon Slade laughed at his simplicity, and
shot him dead!
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.
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.
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 pluck, and Jules got several bad pistol wounds in
return.
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!
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.
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
occassion 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.
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 were compelled to
recuperate as best they could.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
reärrangements 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.
[*]
"The Vigilantes of Montana," by Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale.