University of Virginia Library

Mr. Slade

At the Rocky Ridge station in the Rocky Mountains, in the old days of overland stages and pony expresses, I had the gorgeous honor of breakfasting with Mr. Slade, the Prince of all the desperadoes; who killed twenty-six men in his time; who used to cut off his victims' ears and send them as keepsakes to their relatives; and who bound one of his victims hand and foot and practiced on him with his revolver for hours together — a proceeding which seems almost inexcusable until we reflect that Rocky Ridge is away off in the dull solitudes of the mountains, and the poor desperadoes have hardly any amusements. Mr. Slade afterward went to Montana and began to thin out the population as usual — for he took a great interest in trimming the census and regulating the vote — but finally the Vigilance Committee captured him and hanged him, giving him just fifteen minutes to prepare himself in. The papers said he cried on the scaffold.

The Vigilance Committee is a wholesome regulator in the new countries, and bad characters have a lively dread of it. In Montana one of these gentlemen was placed on his mule and informed that he had precisely fifteen minutes to leave the country in. He said, "Gents, if this mule don't balk, five'll answer."

But that is sufficient about the desperadoes. I merely wished to make passing mention of them as a Californian production.