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.
CHAPTER XI.
And sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did hear him again.
News came to the Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Montana
(whither Slade had removed from Rocky Ridge) had hanged him. I find an
account of the affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a paragraph
from in the last chapter–“The Vigilantes of Montana; being a Reliable
Account of the Capture, Trial and Execution of Henry Plummer’s Notorious
Road Agent Band: By Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, Virginia City, M.T.”
Mr. Dimsdale’s chapter is well worth reading, as a specimen of how the
people of the frontier deal with criminals when the courts of law prove
inefficient. Mr. Dimsdale makes two remarks about Slade, both of which
are accurately descriptive, and one of which is exceedingly picturesque:
“Those who saw him in his natural state only, would pronounce him to be a
kind husband, a most hospitable host and a courteous gentleman; on the
contrary, those who met him when maddened with liquor and surrounded by a
gang of armed roughs, would pronounce him a fiend incarnate.” And this:
“From Fort Kearney, west, he was feared a great deal more than the
almighty.” For compactness, simplicity and vigor of expression, I will
“back” that sentence against anything in literature. Mr. Dimsdale’s
narrative is as follows. In all places where italics occur, they are
mine:
After the execution of the five men on the 14th of January, the
Vigilantes considered that their work was nearly ended. They had
freed the country of highwaymen and murderers to a great extent, and
they determined that in the absence of the regular civil authority
they would establish a People’s Court where all offenders should be
tried by judge and jury. This was the nearest approach to social
order that the circumstances permitted, and, though strict legal
authority was wanting, yet the people were firmly determined to
maintain its efficiency, and to enforce its decrees. It may here be
mentioned that the overt act which was the last round on the fatal
ladder leading to the scaffold on which Slade perished, was the
tearing in pieces and stamping upon a writ of this court, followed
by his arrest of the Judge Alex. Davis, by authority of a presented
Derringer, and with his own hands.
J. A. Slade was himself, we have been informed, a Vigilante; he
openly boasted of it, and said he knew all that they knew. He was
never accused, or even suspected, of either murder or robbery,
committed in this Territory (the latter crime was never laid to his
charge, in any place); but that he had killed several men in other
localities was notorious, and his bad reputation in this respect was
a most powerful argument in determining his fate, when he was
finally arrested for the offence above mentioned. On returning from
Milk River he became more and more addicted to drinking, until at
last it was a common feat for him and his friends to “take the
town.” He and a couple of his dependents might often be seen on one
horse, galloping through the streets, shouting and yelling, firing
revolvers, etc. On many occasions he would ride his horse into
stores, break up bars, toss the scales out of doors and use most
insulting language to parties present. Just previous to the day of
his arrest, he had given a fearful beating to one of his followers;
but such was his influence over them that the man wept bitterly at
the gallows, and begged for his life with all his power. It had