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