them, where he was protected by Mr. Dawson, the factor at the post. He
remained there until spring, and then took passage on a Mackinaw boat to
the States.

Crawford’s friends, and the miners generally, who had regarded this
quarrel as a personal difficulty between him and Plummer, rejoiced at
his escape. It had terminated injuriously, as they felt, to the party
who was most in fault, and they were glad the result was no worse. Few
knew or ever suspected that it had any deeper origin than the frequent
collisions incident to Crawford’s attendance upon Cleveland, after he
was shot, and his action as sheriff at the trial of Moore and Reeves.
Had it been understood at this time that the roughs had not only decreed
the death of Crawford, but of every other man who participated in that
trial, the people would have placed themselves on a war footing, and
organized themselves to resist the encroachments of the ruffians, which
finally left them no other alternative. So fully did they carry out
their avowed purposes, that, within five months after the trial, not
more than seven of the twenty-seven men who participated in it as judge,
prosecutor, sheriff, witnesses, and jurors, were left alive in the
Territory. Eight or nine are known to have been killed by some of the
band, and others fled to avoid a like fate.

Plummer’s wound was very severe. The ball entered at the elbow. Passing
down the arm, it broke each bone in two places. Dr. Glick, the surgeon
in attendance upon him, after a careful examination of the wound, was of
the opinion that amputation of the member alone could save his life. The
ball could not be found, and the arm swelled to thrice its natural size,
and the passage made by the ball was filled for its entire length with
bony spiculæ.

Plummer had in a previous affray lost the ready use of his other hand,
and knowing that the loss of this arm would necessarily deprive him of
his position of chief among the roughs, and that his life depended upon
his skill in drawing his revolver,—as he had numerous enemies, who would
endeavor to kill him but for the advantage which this skill gave
him,—declared that he might as well die as lose his arm. He peremptorily
refused to consent to the operation, but insisted that the ball must be
found and removed.

Dr. Glick, who was highly accomplished in surgery, explained to him the
danger of such an operation, but Plummer said he would rather die in the
effort to cure the arm than live without it. With great reluctance, and
little faith in his ability to save the arm, the doctor undertook the
thankless task, and made preparations to operate accordingly. When the
arm was bared, and the doctor was about to commence, Old Tex and Bill
Hunter entered the room, the latter armed with a double-barrelled
shotgun.

“I just thought,” said he to the doctor, “that I’d tell you that if you
cut an artery, or Plummer dies from the operation you are going to
perform, I’m going to shoot the top of your head off.”

The operation was successfully performed, and a large amount of spiculæ
and disorganized tissue removed,—but the bullet could not be found. For
several days the result was uncertain. Dr. Glick gave to the wound,
which was terribly inflamed, his unremitting attention. He had incurred
the hatred of Plummer’s friends because of his active support of law and
order. They pretended to believe that he did not wish for Plummer’s
recovery, and told him that they would hold him responsible with his
life, for the safety of his patient. What was to be done? Escape from
the country in the midst of an inclement season seemed impossible. In
order to effect it, he must follow Crawford over an unknown trail to
Fort Benton or go to Bitter Root Valley, or run the gantlet of the
hostile Indians at Bear River over a route of four hundred miles to Salt
Lake. Plummer’s wound was daily getting worse. The doctor, well knowing
that the ruffians would put their threat into execution, prepared for
his escape. Suspecting his intention, the friends of Plummer kept a
close watch upon him. Despite their vigilance, however, a trusty friend
secured his horse, saddled and bridled, in the bushes behind his cabin
on the night that the crisis in the inflammation arrived. The doctor
instructed Plummer’s attendants to awaken him, in order that he might
make his escape, if the swelling did not begin to abate by midnight, and
lay down, booted and spurred, to get a little rest. But the favorable
change which took place, while it saved to Montana one of her best
citizens in Dr. Glick, lengthened out for a darker fate than that which
had threatened it, the guilty life of Henry Plummer.

Dr. Glick came to Bannack with a party of emigrants, of which he was
captain, in 1862. The company were bound for Salmon River, but were
arrested in their progress by the reputed richness of the Grasshopper
mines. Glick had lost a handsome property in the early part of the war,
and came to the gold mines to replenish his broken fortunes. He was
accomplished in his profession, especially in surgery, and was the only
physician in practice who had the confidence of the people,—Dr. Leavitt,
also an able practitioner, being, at the time, engaged in mining.

His services were in almost daily demand by the road agents, to dress
wounds received in broils among themselves, or while engaged in the
commission of robbery. It was impossible, from his frequent contact with
them, and the circumstances with which ofttimes he found them
surrounded, for him to avoid a knowledge of their guilty enterprises.
But he neither dared to decline to serve them, nor to divulge their
villainy, well knowing that in either case, he would fall a victim to
that summary vengeance, so promptly and fearlessly exercised in the case
of Dillingham. He foresaw also, that a time must come when all the
guilty misdeeds which he had been obliged to conceal, would be revealed,
and that then the lovers of law and order would suspect the integrity of
his motives, and possibly class him among the men of whom he justly
stood so much in fear. But there was no remedy. He knew that his actions
were narrowly watched, and that a word or glance indicating his
suspicions would cost him his life. It was a happy day for him when, by
the death of Plummer, his lips were unsealed.

The robbers, in other instances than the one recorded of his attendance
upon Plummer, were in the habit of using threats to control the doctor’s
conduct. On one occasion in July, 1863, Plummer invited him to accompany
him on a horseback excursion to his ranche on the Rattlesnake. Finding
no one at the cabin on their arrival, Plummer asked the doctor to go
with him down the creek and pick some berries. They soon came upon a
large clump of birch bushes. Pulling them aside, Plummer disclosed an
open space cut within the clump, in which were seated several men,
seeing whom Glick drew back, but was told by Plummer to come in. He
entered, and found himself amid five or six men with masked or blackened
faces, of whom he recognized Moore and Billy Terwiliger. The latter was
lying on a blanket, wounded in the leg by a bullet received in some
affray.

After dressing the wound, the doctor started with Plummer on the return
to Bannack. While crossing the plateau between Rattlesnake and Bannack,
Plummer suddenly wheeled in front of the doctor, and, cocking his
pistol, thrust it into his face, saying,

“Now you know all. These are my men. I’m their chief. If you ever
breathe a word of what you’ve seen, I’ll murder you.”

Under this kind of surveillance, the doctor lived until the robber band
was destroyed. His discretion, only equalled by his kindness of heart,
saved both his life from destruction by the robbers, and his good name
from the public odium of the people. Montana has had no worthier or more
useful citizen.

Henry Plummer was a man of wonderful executive ability. He was well
educated. In stature he was about five feet ten inches, and in weight,
one hundred and sixty pounds. His forehead was partially concealed by
the rim of the hat which he rarely removed from his head, and his eyes
were mild and expressive. In demeanor he was quiet and modest, free from
swagger and bluster, dignified and graceful. He was intelligent and
brilliant in conversation, a good judge of men, and his manners were
those of a polished gentleman. To his enemies his magnanimity was more
seeming than real. He always proffered them the advantage in drawing the
pistol, but he knew that the instance would be very rare, where, even
thus favored, his antagonist could anticipate him in its deadly use.

Hon. Wm. C. Rheem, in a letter to the Helena (Montana) _Herald_, writes
of Henry Plummer as follows:

  “I remember Plummer very well. He was frequently in my cabin, and I
  often came in contact with him while he was exercising the office of
  sheriff. His form and face were familiar to the first settlers in
  Bannack. He was about five feet eleven inches in height, and weighed
  a hundred and fifty pounds. He was straight, slender, spare, agile,
  and what Western men call withy. He was a quiet man and talked but
  little; when he did speak, it was always in a low tone and with a
  good choice of language. He never grew boisterous, even in his cups,
  and no impulse of anger or surprise ever raised his voice above that
  of wary monotone. His countenance was in perfect keeping with his
  utterance. Both were under the same vigilant command. If one was
  like the low, continuous purr of the crouching tiger, the muscles of
  the other were as rigid as those of the beast before he springs.
  Affection, fear, hate, grief, remorse, or any passion or emotion,
  found no expression in his immovable face. No color ever flushed his
  cheeks. With mobile and expressive features, he would have been
  handsome—all except the forehead; this, with the conformation of the
  skull, betrayed the murderer, and Plummer knew it. The observer
  beheld a well-cut mouth, indicating decision, firmness, and
  intelligence; but not a line expressive of sensuality; a straight
  nose and well-shaped chin, and cheeks rather narrow and fleshless,
  still, in their outlines, not unhandsome. But one might as well have
  looked into the eyes of the dead for some token of a human soul as
  to have sought it in the light gray orbs of Plummer. Their cold,
  glassy stare defied inquisition. They seemed to be gazing through
  you at some object beyond, as though you were transparent. While
  other men laughed or pitied or threatened with their eyes, his had
  the same half-vacant stare, no matter how moving the story or tragic
  the spectacle.

  “I have said that Plummer knew he had a bad front: he therefore kept
  it jealously covered with the turn-down rim of his slouch hat. When
  not in the mood or act of slaughter or rapine, his politeness was
  notable and well timed in demonstration. He understood the formulas
  of courtesy, but the one of uncovering his head he failed to
  observe.”

An examination of Plummer’s arm after his death, disclosed the fact that
the lower fracture of the radius never united, but formed a false joint.
The bullet passed into the marrow of the lower end of the bone, and was
stopped in its progress by the bones of the hand. From subsequent use of
the hand, while Plummer was sheriff, the bullet became worn as smooth as
polished silver.

                             CHAPTER XVIII
                         BROADWATER’S STRATAGEM

After sentence of banishment was pronounced upon them, Moore and Reeves
went to the mining camp in Deer Lodge Valley, located near the present
site of Deer Lodge City. Messrs. Broadwater and Pemberton, two young men
who had come into the Territory a few weeks before, had selected this
spot as an eligible location for a town, and were engaged in laying it
out at the time the guilty exiles arrived. They had already erected two
cabins, one of which they occupied, the other being vacant. It was the
middle of February, and the weather was intensely cold. Moore and Reeves
made their camp in a clump of willows upon the bank of the Deer Lodge
River. With no better protection than their blankets against the wintry
blasts which swept down the valley and the frequent storms that gathered
in the lofty ranges overhanging it, and with no food except beef and
coffee, these men suffered severely. Moore soon fell sick of mountain
fever, and would probably have died had not Broadwater caused his
removal to the vacant cabin, and supplied him with food and medicines
necessary to his recovery. Soon after he had sufficiently recovered to
leave his bed, a messenger from Bannack brought the intelligence that
the miners, at a recent meeting, had revoked the sentence of banishment
against him and Reeves, and that they were at liberty to return. During
his illness the Indians had stolen Moore’s horse. Broadwater placed one
at his disposal and Moore rejoined his comrades at Bannack.

In the following spring, Broadwater engaged in the cattle
business,—buying in Deer Lodge and selling his herds at Bannack. The
proceeds of these sales often amounted to thousands of dollars in gold
dust. On one of these occasions he was preparing to return to Deer Lodge
with six thousand dollars in gold. Moore called upon him, with a request
for a few moments’ confidential conversation.

“Make a free breast of anything you have to communicate,” said
Broadwater. “I will listen and be silent.”

“It’s for your own safety, Broad,” replied Moore, “and there is not
another man in the country for whom I’d take the risk; but you were my
friend when I needed friendship: you saved my life, gave me food and
shelter and care; and I can never forget to be grateful—but you must
pledge your honor not to betray me.”

“Freely, freely, Moore; I would lose my life first.”

“Then,” said Moore, “I give you friendly warning that there is a band of
road agents here, that know of your having received a large quantity of
gold dust during the past three days. They are informed of the time of
your intended departure for Deer Lodge, and intend to waylay and murder
you on the way, and corral your gold. You are ‘spotted’ for slaughter.
My advice to you is to leave town secretly, and to be constantly on your
guard, and under no circumstances let _any_ one, not even your most
intimate friend, know when you will leave.”

“I intended going to-morrow morning,” replied Broadwater, “but if
matters are as you tell me, I think I’ll start to-night.”

At this Moore exclaimed, “Why, you fool! there you go, shooting off your
mouth to me the first thing. Didn’t I caution you not to tell _any one_?
And in less than a minute you tell me just what you’re going to do.”

It would be curious to know by what system of ethics Moore was governed
in this strange admonition; whether it was to impress upon Broadwater
the necessity of a caution which should withhold confidence even from
the person who warned him of a danger, or whether there was a conflict
between gratitude to Broadwater and fidelity to his confederates. It is
not improbable that he was bound by strong obligations to communicate to
his associates the very information which Broadwater had given him.

Satisfied that Moore belonged to the gang, yet confiding in the
truthfulness of his disclosure, Broadwater mounted his horse early in
the evening, and at two o’clock the next morning was at the crossing of
the Big Hole River. There he intended to rest, but fearful that his
horse might be stolen by some Pend d’Oreille Indians camped near, he
rode on, six miles, to Willow Creek. Fastening the lariat firmly to his
wrist, and relying upon the sagacity of his horse to warn him of the
approach of any of his red neighbors, he lay down upon the grass, and
fell asleep. An hour before daylight he was aroused by a sudden plunge
and snort of his horse, which, with braced feet, was gazing intently at
a patch of wild rye growing near. He retained his prostrate position,
and, with his eyes riveted in the same direction, and his faithful
revolver grasped ready for use, quietly awaited further developments. At
length a slowly creeping object became dimly visible in the morning
twilight. He delayed no longer, but taking deliberate aim, fired.
Instantly an Indian rose above the rye stalks, and with a fearful yell,
sped away into darkness. More frightened than the redskin, whom he
afterwards learned he had severely wounded, he mounted his horse with
the least possible delay, and hurried away from the dangerous
neighborhood.

His route now lay directly over the main range of the Rocky Mountains,
by a pass whose ascent and descent are so imperceptible, that persons
unacquainted with its peculiarities can never determine where the one
ends, or the other begins. It is covered with bunch-grass for its entire
distance, and its very summit is crowned with one of the finest cattle
ranges in the mountains. The waters of the creek, flowing naturally
along its summit down its eastern slope to the Big Hole River, are
carried by ditches and races over its western slope, for mining
purposes, into the beautiful valley of the Deer Lodge, thus contributing
to swell on the one side the volume of the Missouri, and on the other,
that of the Columbia. The broad savannas which spread away on either
side of this remarkable passage lend enchantment to a shifting and
ever-varying scene of mountain beauties not excelled upon the continent.

Just before daylight, Broadwater began to descend the declivity at whose
foot flowed one of the forming streams of the Deer Lodge River. Glimpses
of the valley could be obtained at every bend in the tortuous road. Day
was just breaking, and the perpetual snow on the distant peak of Mount
Powell shone dimly through the haze. He was congratulating himself that
the dangers of his trip were over, and he could complete it by a
leisurely ride through one of the most delightful valleys in the world.
These thoughts received a sudden check when, turning an abrupt angle in
the road, he saw, seated by a camp-fire, the very persons, as he then
felt, against whom Moore had warned. One of them, George Ives, was
regarded as the most daring ruffian in the mountains; the other, Johnny
Cooper, was known to be one of his chosen associates. They manifested
great surprise at his approach. The quick eye of Broadwater took in all
the advantages of the situation. He saw their horses feeding upon the
foothills, two or three miles away, and knew if he had been expected so
soon, they would have been saddled and ready for pursuit. They hailed
him as he passed, urged him to wait until they could get their horses,
and they would accompany him, telling him that as the road agents were
abroad, it would be safer for him to do so. He replied that he was in a
hurry, and as his horse was jaded with travel, they would soon overtake
him,—and rode slowly on. To allay suspicion, he alighted from his horse
and led him slowly up a steep hill, looking back when under way to the
top, and calling to them,

“Get up your horses: you can overtake me over the hill.”

The horse, which was greatly fatigued, was favored by this device.
Broadwater felt all the peril of his situation, and knew that nothing
but coolness and decision could save him. He was twenty miles from the
second crossing of the Deer Lodge, where a Frenchman by the name of
David Contway was living with his Indian wife, preparing to take up a
ranche. This was the nearest place of safety. Casting another glance at
the freebooters, he saw, as he passed over the summit of the hill, that
they were making active preparations to pursue him. There was no time to
be lost. It was to be a race for life, and his chances for escape
depended upon the advantage he could win during the brief period his
pursuers would require in getting ready to start. As soon as he was lost
to their sight he remounted his horse, and, spurring him to his utmost
speed, descended into the broad open valley. His course now lay over a
level plain denuded of trees, and rank with prairie vegetation. Every
movement he made within any attainable distance, he knew would be seen
by the men who were on his track. The clumps of willow which defined the
course of the river were too small to afford even temporary shelter. His
horse, liable at any moment to give out, obeyed the urgency of the
occasion, under whip and spur, with great reluctance. But his rider kept
him up to his speed, more than once inclined to diverge from the trail
toward the pine forest, which covered the foothills, four or five miles
distant, on either side of the valley, and seek a covert there. When
half the distance had been travelled, he looked back, and amid a cloud
of dust, less than three miles away, he saw the robbers in pursuit,
seemingly gaining rapidly upon him. His poor, panting steed, whose sides
were bleeding from the frequent lacerations of the spur, seemed on the
point of exhaustion, and the thirty pounds of gold dust strapped to his
person bore with terrible weight upon him. But there was no time to
calculate any other chance for escape, than that of reaching the goal.
On and on he spurred the jaded animal, often casting furtive glances
back at the approaching death, and expecting at every turn in the trail
to feel the fatal bullet. At length the little lodge of Contway peered
above the willows. The horse renewed his vigor at the sight. The
hurrying tramp of the pursuers was heard in the rear. A last and
desperate effort was made to urge the horse to greater speed, and he
dashed up to the door, falling, on his arrival, with complete
exhaustion. He was ruined,—but he had saved the life of his master. Ives
and Cooper, less than fifty rods behind, reined their horses to a walk,
and rode slowly up, while Broadwater was removing the saddle from his
broken-down animal. Their horses were foaming with perspiration.

“Well, you beat us on the ride,” said Ives, addressing Broadwater.

“Yes,” replied Broadwater, “you must have had trouble in catching your
horses. I travelled slowly at first, but as you didn’t come up, and I
was anxious to get through, I afterwards hurried.”

The coolness of this colloquy betrayed to neither party what was passing
in the mind of the other.

The horses were all turned out upon the adjacent hills, and the three
men shared alike the hospitality of Contway. But the race was only half
finished. Twenty miles of distance intervened between Contway’s and Deer
Lodge, and how to pass over it, and escape with life, was the momentous
question for Broadwater to solve. As a measurement of wit between
himself and the ruffians, it involved consequences too important for any
pride in the strife. It was simply a matter of life or death with him,
with the added certainty that the smallest mistake in his calculations
would end in the latter. He knew that in Contway’s herd was one of the
fleetest horses in the Territory. Unobserved by his pursuers, he
contrived to inform Contway of his situation, and found him ready to
assist in his escape by all means in his power.

“Go and saddle Charley,” said Broadwater, “and bring him up, on the
pretence that you are going after your cows. Do it immediately; and
after he is hitched, I will ask you, in the presence of these men, for
permission to ride him to Deer Lodge. With your assent, reluctantly
given, I will mount and ride away, while their horses are grazing on the
foothills.”

“Zat is all ver’ goot,” replied Contway. “By Gar, you have got him fixed
all right”—and away he went, returning in a quarter of an hour, mounted
on a horse of great strength and beauty. Hitching him in front of his
lodge, he made the remark that his cows had been missing for a day or
two, and he must go in pursuit of them.

“Ho! Contway,” said Broadwater, “that is the very horse I want to
complete my trip. My own is broken down, and I will leave him in your
care, and return this one to you by the first opportunity.”

“By Gar, I don’t know,” replied Contway: “zat horse is great favorite. I
would not have him hurt for anything.”

“But I’ll pay you well,” said Broadwater. “I’m in a great hurry to get
home. Let me take him,—that’s a good fellow. If I hurt him, I’ll pay you
your own price.”

“You say zat here, before zese men. Zey will remember, and on zose
conditions you may take ze horse.”

It was but the work of a moment for Broadwater to change saddles and
mount.

“Hold on, Broad,” said Ives. “This is no way to leave a fellow. Wait
till we get up our horses, and we’ll all ride on together. It’ll be more
sociable.”

“Should be glad to do so, George, but it is of the utmost importance
that I reach Deer Lodge as soon as possible. I cannot wait; but if you
will get up your horses, and ride fast enough, you’ll overtake me.”

So saying, Broadwater put spurs to his horse, and rode the twenty miles
at a double-quick pace, arriving at Deer Lodge a little after two
o’clock, completing the entire trip of one hundred and seven miles from
Bannack to Deer Lodge, including stoppages, in eighteen hours. Ives and
Cooper, finding themselves outwitted, followed leisurely, arriving early
in the evening.

                              CHAPTER XIX
                       ORGANIZATION OF THE ROUGHS

While recovering from his wound, Plummer, by constant practice, had
acquired an expertness in the use of the pistol with his left hand,
nearly equal to that of which Crawford’s shot had deprived him. Crawford
being out of his way, he was not satisfied that the quarrel which had
terminated so injuriously to him should be propitiated without redress.
He accordingly selected Phleger for a victim. With every outward
demonstration of friendship, he would, whenever they met, press him to
drink, or to an interchange of such other civilities as would bring them
together, and afford opportunity or pretence for sudden quarrel. Phleger
never accepted any of these invitations, without his hand upon his
pistol. Plummer, often, when in company with Phleger, would make an
ostentatious display of his regard for him. “Once,” said he, “Harry, I
would have killed you; but I could not now, when I think matters all
over, find it in my nature to injure any true man, who would stand by
another as you did by Crawford.” Phleger could not be flattered by these
honeyed words, even into momentary forgetfulness of the diabolical
motives which prompted them. He maintained a quiet but unmistakable
attitude of defence. He was freighting at this time, and had several
teamsters in his employ.

“If,” said he to them, “Plummer or any of his associates come for me,
and I make the first shot and you fail to make the second, I’ll shoot
you. Just remember that.”

On one occasion, Plummer, as if for an excuse to draw his pistol,
commenced talking of its merits to Phleger, who also drew his upon the
instant. In the course of the conversation, Plummer, while illustrating
some quality of the weapon, pointed it directly at Phleger; but when he
saw the muzzle of Phleger’s at the same moment directed at his heart, he
took the hint, sheathed his pistol, and departed. Phleger was not
afterwards troubled with his attentions.

A miner by the name of Ellis, who had given important testimony against
Moore and Reeves, by whom he was wounded in the _mêlée_ which resulted
in the death of Cazette, was next singled out for slaughter. He owned a
mining claim in the gulch, which he was working with the hope of
speedily acquiring means to take him from the country. Cyrus Skinner, a
noted ruffian, assaulted him while on his way to the claim, and beat him
unmercifully. He left him with the assurance that if he ever saw him in
the town he would kill him. Through fear that he or some of his
associates would execute this threat, he used to steal out of his cabin
and go to his work by an old game trail over the spur of the mountain,
to escape observation. But his steps were dogged. He could not move in
any direction without a rough upon his track, watching for an
opportunity to shoot him. His life was rendered miserable by the
conviction that he was liable at any moment to secret assassination.
Resolved to escape if possible, he left for Fort Benton. The roughs soon
discovered his absence, and sent three or four of their number in
pursuit of him. He foiled them by turning from the main trail into an
unexplored region. After several days he reached the Missouri River
below Benton, where he constructed a wigwam in which he dwelt,
subsisting upon roots, berries, and the remnants of his provisions,
until the Mackinaw boats descended the river from Fort Benton in the
spring. Hailing one of them he was taken on board, and returned in
safety to the States.

The writer of this history was early marked for summary retaliation. I
had disappointed the expectations of the roughs at the trial of Moore
and Reeves, by voting for the death penalty, after having supported
their demand for a jury. They made no secret of their threats against my
life, and that of my friend, Judge Walter B. Dance. We never went to our
claims without a loaded gun and a revolver. Dance, being a man of great
physical strength, and courage to match, was not one to be easily
frightened. In personal contest he would have proved more than a match
for the strongest of his enemies. On one occasion, when Judge Dance and
I were quietly walking down the street, we saw Plummer approaching.
Dance drew a small bowie-knife, and picking up a stick, commenced
whittling. Plummer came up, and casting a suspicious glance at the
knife, asked,

“Judge, why do you always begin to whittle when you meet me?”

The answer, accompanied by a look of blended sternness and indignation,
came promptly,

“Because, sir, I never intend that you shall get the advantage of me.
You know my opinion of you and your friends. I will not be shot down
like a dog by any of you, if I can help it.”

The roughs held Dance in great fear. To those qualities I have
mentioned, he added remarkable force of character. He was bold and
fearless in his expression of opinion, and they well understood that no
man in the settlement could wield a stronger influence over the minds of
the community, in support of law and order, and the prompt punishment of
crime.

Moore and Reeves had now returned. The storm of indignation, which had
driven them out, was succeeded by a calm of sluggish incertitude. The
prominent actors in that event, abandoned by those upon whose support
they had depended, were obliged to protect themselves as best they could
against the persecutions and bloody designs of their vindictive enemies.
No true spirit of reform had yet animated the people. When appealed to
for combination and resistance to the fearful power now growing into an
absolute and bloody dictatorship, they based their refusal upon selfish
and personal considerations. They could not act without endangering
their lives. They intended to leave the country as soon as their claims
were worked out. They would be driven from their claims, and robbed of
all they had taken from them, if they engaged in any active opposition
to the roughs; whereas, if they remained passive, and attended to their
own business, there was a chance for them to take their money back to
their families. It was impossible to assemble a meeting for the purpose
of considering and discussing, with safety, the condition and exposure
of the people.

Meantime the roughs were thoroughly organized, and were carrying out
their plans for wholesale plunder in every direction. Every day added to
the number and magnitude of their depredations. The Walla Walla express
had been robbed, as it afterwards appeared, by Plummer’s direction. An
attempt to rob the store of Higgins and Worden at Missoula would have
succeeded, had not the merchants been apprised of it, in time to conceal
their gold.

A man by the name of Davenport, who, it was known to the roughs, had a
little money in Bannack, left with his wife, intending to go to Benton,
and thence by steamboat to the States. They stopped to lunch at the
springs between Bannack and Rattlesnake. A man whose face was concealed,
came from behind a pile of rocks standing near, drew a revolver, and
presenting it, demanded their money.

  JUDGE WALTER B. DANCE

  _Miners’ Judge at Bannack_
]

Mrs. Davenport asked,

“Who are you?”

He replied, “The Robber of the Glen.”

“Oh!” she said inquiringly, “are you Johnny Glenn?”

“No,” he answered, “I’m the Robber of the Glen, and want your money.”

Mrs. Davenport surrendered the three purses containing the money,
together with her gold watch, remarking as she did so, that two of the
purses and the watch belonged to her. With much gallantry of manner the
robber restored them to her immediately, retaining only the single purse
belonging to her husband. The plundered couple then proceeded to Benton,
and Mrs. Davenport secured an early passage to the States. They never
knew who the robber was.

While confined with his wound, Plummer repeatedly asked permission of
Doctor Glick to take a ride on horseback. The necessity for quiet while
the wound was healing obliged the doctor invariably to refuse him. One
morning he called as usual to see how the cure was progressing, and
Plummer was not at home. The doctor supposed he had gone out into the
town, and at a later hour called, and, on examination of the wound, was
satisfied that he had been taking violent exercise. On questioning him,
Plummer, who knew that the doctor dared not betray him, told him of the
robbery of Davenport, which he had that day committed.

The robbers next broke into and rifled a bakery belonging to one Le
Grau, a Frenchman, who lived on a back street in Bannack. Preparations
were made for burning the house, but the design was not carried out.

While atrocities like these were daily increasing, a reign of terror
more fearful in character and results pervaded the settlement. Every
man’s life was endangered by the free and reckless use of fire-arms. The
crack of pistols and guns, which weapons were always the first resort of
the roughs in settling disputes, was heard at all hours of the day and
night, in the saloon and restaurant.

Frequent and bloody affrays among themselves, often terminated in the
death of one or both of the parties engaged, and sometimes of one or
more of those who happened to be within range of the reckless firing
while the quarrel was in progress. It was dangerous to pass along the
streets, where stray bullets were not an exception, more dangerous still
to attempt to allay a broil among desperadoes, who settled all
difficulties with bowie-knives and revolvers.

On one of the days of this dismal period, two young men, named Banfield
and Sapp, the first a gambler, the latter a miner, engaged in a game of
poker in Cyrus Skinner’s saloon. During the game, Sapp saw Banfield
abstract a card from the deck, by the aid of which he was enabled to
declare a “flush” hand. He charged him with the theft. Jumping to his
feet, Banfield drew his revolver, which he levelled at the head of his
antagonist, who was unarmed. Jack Russell, who was watching the game,
now interfered, and quiet being restored, the men resumed play. In a few
moments Sapp again charged Banfield with cheating. Banfield fired at him
without effect. Sapp being unarmed, Dr. Bissell thrust a revolver into
his hand, and the two men at once engaged in a pistol fight, dodging
around the posts which supported the roof, and firing at random until
their revolvers were emptied. They then clinched, and Russell tried to
separate them. Moore and Reeves were in one of the bunks fastened to the
wall of the saloon, asleep. Roused by the firing both got up, and Moore,
pistol in hand, at once joined in the fight. Placing the muzzle of his
revolver in Russell’s ear, he pulled the trigger, and the cap failing to
explode, he pulled a second time, with a like result. So rapid had been
the movements of Moore, that it was not until after the second failure
that Russell could turn his face toward him and exclaim,

“What do you mean?”

Moore, who had not recognized him until that moment dropped his arm,
replying,

“Oh, is that you, Jack?”

Russell said in explanation,

“These are friends of mine, and I want them to stop quarrelling.”

Moore now assisted Russell, and they succeeded in a few minutes in
separating the combatants.

“Let’s all take a drink,” said Moore, “and be friends.”

To this Sapp and Banfield, as neither had injured the other, assented.
As they stood with their glasses raised, Moore heard a groan, and going
towards the table, saw Buz Cavan’s dog just expiring.

“Boys,” said he, turning towards the two reconciled men who were waiting
for him to rejoin them at the bar, “you’ve killed a dog.”

Banfield called immediately for more drinks, when another groan was
heard. On going to the bunk from whence it came, they found George
Carrhart writhing in extreme agony. Dr. Bissell lifted him from the bunk
to the table, and after a brief examination of his body and pulse, made
the announcement,

“He is dying.”

Moore who stood by, on hearing this, called to Reeves and Forbes who
were standing in another part of the room,

“Boys, they have shot Carrhart,” and with an emphatic stroke of his fist
upon the counter, he added with an oath, “Let’s kill ’em,”
simultaneously raising his pistol and firing at both Sapp and Banfield.
Russell at the same moment seized his arm, with a view to prevent his
shooting, and in the struggle misdirected his aim. Meanwhile, Reeves
fired at Banfield, who dodged under a table and crept out of the back
door with a shot in his knee. Sapp, wounded in the little finger, also
retreated under the fire of the road agents,—a friend, Goliah Reilly,
rushing to his assistance, who also, upon turning to escape, received a
bullet in his heel.

George Carrhart was a fine-looking, intelligent, gentlemanly man. He had
been a member of the legislature of one of the Western States. Whiskey
transformed him into a rowdy, made the company of ruffians congenial,
and led him on to his unfortunate fate.

Dick Sapp was a brave, generous young man, very popular with the people.
The next morning, accompanied by several Colorado friends, he returned
to Skinner’s saloon. Skinner, who had seconded without participating in
the attempt of Moore and Reeves to kill him the evening before, when he
saw him enter, was alarmed for his own safety, and sought to propitiate
him by inviting him and his friends to drink with him.

“No,” said Sapp, “I want none of your whiskey. Last night I came here
unarmed to indulge in a little game of poker, and you all tried to kill
me. Now I’m here to fight you all, singly, and I’ve brought some
friends, to see that I have fair play.”

Moore and Skinner apologized, and begged him to overlook it; but Sapp
refused to accept their apologies, and left. Afterwards some friends of
Moore and Skinner, at their request, went to Sapp, and with no little
difficulty effected a reconciliation.

Poor Banfield entrusted the care of his wound to an unskilful physician,
and died soon after, for the want of proper treatment.

Early in the Spring of 1863, Winnemuck, a warrior chief of the Bannacks,
and his band of braves, camped in the sage brush above the town. One of
the citizens of Bannack made known the fact that he had been informed by
a white lad, whom he had met at the time of his escape from these
Indians several years before, that they had slain his parents, and
captured two sisters and himself. The elder of the sisters died of harsh
treatment. A white girl who had been seen in Winnemuck’s band, was
supposed to be the other. A few citizens met at my cabin to devise means
for her ransom, as any attempt at forcible rescue would provoke the
Indians to violence. Skinner called the roughs together at his saloon.
They decided that the circumstances were sufficiently aggravating to
justify the slaughter of the band, and made preparations for that
object. Meantime a half-breed apprised Winnemuck of his danger. Nowise
alarmed, the old chief ranged his three hundred warriors along the
valley, where they could command the approach of an enemy, however
formidable. So confident was he of victory in the threatened encounter,
that he promised to follow it up by a general massacre of every white
person in the gulch. Fortunately at this time, whiskey came to the
rescue. The leaders got drunk, the allied citizens were disgusted, and a
murderous enterprise that would probably have cost many lives was
abandoned. In pursuance of the arrangements first made at the meeting in
my cabin, Mr. Carroll, for a very small consideration, effected the
ransom of the little girl, and took her to his cabin.

The inadequacy of the price roused in all a suspicion that the Indians
intended to recapture the child. Carroll was enjoined to secrete her
against such a possibility. The Indians loitered around his cabin, and
finally made an attempt to carry her off. An alarm was given, the
citizens and roughs rallied, the Indians released the child, and ran to
escape the attack of the citizens. In the _mêlée_, Hayes Lyons, one of
the roughs, fired at and wounded an Indian who was on the retreat, and
who at the time was shouting “good Indian,” to intimate his friendly
disposition. “Old Snag,” a Bannack chief, who had come with his band
into town a few days before, and who when the alarm was given was in
Carroll’s cabin, now came out, and was talking with his daughter, when
Buck Stinson, another of the ruffian gang, without the least intimation
of his design, walked close beside him, and shot him in the side and
head. The old man, who had always been friendly to the people, fell dead
in his tracks; and Skinner, with savage brutality, came up and scalped
him.

                               CHAPTER XX
                           A MASONIC FUNERAL

Had it been possible at any time during the period I have passed under
review, for the peaceable citizens of Bannack to return to their old
homes in safety, such was the terror that environed them, I doubt not
that nearly all would joyfully have gone. The opportunity for speedy
accumulation of fortune from a prolific gold placer, offered small
compensation for the daily risk of life in obtaining it, and the
possibility of ultimate destruction to the entire settlement. The people
were spellbound, and knew not what to do. They assented almost passively
to the belief that the ruffian population, when disposed, was strong
enough to crush them; and when a murder was committed, or a robbery
made, expressed no stronger feeling than that of thankfulness for their
own escape.

While public sentiment was gradually settling down into a state of
helpless submission to the ruffian element, William H. Bell, a respected
citizen, died of mountain fever. This was the first natural death that
had occurred in the settlement. After his illness had assumed a
dangerous form, he made known to myself and others that he was a Mason,
and expressed a desire to be buried with Masonic ceremonies. At first we
deemed it impossible, but after his death, concluded to comply with his
request, if a sufficient number of Masons could be assembled to conduct
the exercises. A request for all the Masons in the gulch to meet on
Yankee Flat at the cabin of Brother C. J. Miller, on the evening of the
day of Mr. Bell’s death, greatly to our surprise, was so numerously
responded to that we found it necessary to adjourn to more commodious
quarters. It was past midnight before the forms of recognition were
fully administered, and preparations completed for the funeral. So
delighted were all to meet so many of the order, that before we
separated it was virtually understood that early application should be
made for authority to open a lodge. In the meantime, we agreed to hold
frequent meetings.

The funeral ceremonies, the next day, were conducted by myself. The
strange peculiarities of the occasion added a mournful interest to the
impressive truths of the ritual. A large congregation had assembled.
Near by, and surrounding the grave, stood the little band of brethren,
linked by an indissoluble bond to him for whom they were now performing
the last sad office. With clasped hands and uncovered heads they
reverently listened to the solemn language which in that far-off land
committed one of their number to his mother earth; while farther away,
and encircling them, stood a curious multitude, whose eager gaze
betrayed that they there for the first time beheld a Masonic burial
ceremony. Among this latter number might be seen many whose daily lives
were filled with deeds of violence and crime,—who mayhap at the moment
might be meditating murder and robbery,—who, for the first time in many
years, were listening to language which recalled the innocence of
boyhood, the early teachings of parents, and hopefully pointed the way
to an eternity of unmixed enjoyment. How strange it seemed to see this
large assemblage, all armed with revolvers and bowie-knives, standing
silently, respectfully, around the grave of a stranger, their very
features,—distorted by the lines which their hardened lives had
planted,—now saddened by a momentary fleeting thought of the grave and
immortality.

Nor was this all. They learned from what they saw that here was an
association, bound together by bonds of brotherly love, that would stand
by and protect all its members in the hour of danger. They saw the
scroll deposited which signified so plainly that death alone could break
a link in the mystic chain which bound them together. They saw each
brother drop the evergreen as a symbol of the surrender of him they
mourned to the eternal care of a higher power. And while the brethren,
as they regarded each other in the light of their strong obligations,
felt that in themselves there was a power equal to the necessities of
their exposed condition, we may reasonably suppose that the ruffians who
had marked them for ultimate destruction felt that a new and formidable
adversary had thrown itself across their bloody pathway.

The ceremonies were conducted to a peaceful conclusion, and the assembly
quietly dispersed. But from this time onward, the Masons met often for
counsel. Among them there was no lack of confidence, and very soon they
began to consider measures necessary for their protection. These
meetings were carefully watched by the roughs, but they were quietly
told that the Masons met to prepare for organizing a lodge. This threw
them off their guard, and they continued in their lawless course.

As a part of the burial service, I read the first ten verses of the
thirty-seventh chapter of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, in these
words:

  “1. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the
  Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which
  was full of bones.

  “2. And caused me to pass by them round about; and, behold, there
  were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

  “3. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I
  answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.

  “4. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto
  them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.

  “5. Thus said the Lord God unto these bones: Behold, I will cause
  breath to enter into you, and ye shall live.

  “6. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon
  you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall
  live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

  “7. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there
  was a noise, and, behold a shaking, and the bones came together,
  bone to his bone.

  “8. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them,
  and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.

  “9. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of
  man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God: Come from the
  four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may
  live.

  “10. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into
  them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great
  army.”

Who can fittingly describe that solemn scene, wherein was the beginning
of the redemption of Montana from ruffian rule? In a vast sense the
death of Brother Bell was a vicarious sacrifice. A new power arose in
that beleaguered land from that very hour, to which all honest men
instinctively turned for inspiration and for strength. Verily, the
vision of the Prophet Ezekiel of old, became that day a new prophecy in
a new land; for from the dark cañons of those mountains, where the dry
bones of scores of murdered victims were lying, and symbolically from
the new-made grave of our Brother Bell, there arose, “and stood up upon
their feet, an exceeding great army,” the avengers of outraged justice,
even the Vigilantes of Montana.

After the Masonic fraternity at Bannack had decided to organize a
regular lodge, and a dispensation for that purpose had been applied for,
Plummer expressed publicly a strong desire to become a Mason. Such were
his persuasive powers that he succeeded in convincing some members of
the order that, in all his affrays, he had been actuated solely by the
principle of self-defence, and that there was nothing inherently
criminal in his nature. There were not wanting several good men among
our brotherhood, who would have recommended him for initiation.

It is a remarkable fact that the roughs were restrained by their fear of
the Masonic fraternity, from attacking its individual members. Of the
one hundred and two persons murdered by Henry Plummer’s gang, not one
was known to be a Mason.

It is worthy of comment that every Mason in these trying hours adhered
steadfastly to his principles. Neither poverty, persuasion, temptation,
nor opportunity had the effect to shake a single faith founded on
Masonic principle: and it is the crowning glory of our order that not
one of all that band of desperadoes who expiated a life of crime upon
the scaffold, had ever crossed the threshold of a lodge-room. The
irregularities of their lives, their love of crime, and their
recklessness of law, originated in the evil associations and corrupt
influences of a society over which neither Masonry nor religion has ever
exercised the least control. The retribution which finally overtook them
had its origin in principles traceable to that stalwart morality which
is ever the offspring of Masonic and religious institutions. All true
men then lived upon the square, and in a condition of mutual dependence.

Many persons who had been cooped up in Bannack, with nothing to do
during the winter, sallied forth in quest of new discoveries as soon as
the snow disappeared, in the Spring of 1863. A number of new gulches
were found, and the population of Bannack thinned out considerably under
the inducements they offered for the improvement of fortunes. All these
newly discovered placers were, however, known by the general name of
East Bannack, the prefix being used to distinguish the locality from
West Bannack, a mining camp in that portion of Idaho lying west of the
main range of the Rocky Mountains. As rapidly as any of these new camps
were settled, the miners adopted laws for their government, and elected
judges to enforce them. No sheriff had, however, been elected to fill
the place of Crawford. The miners held a meeting at which they concluded
to elect one sheriff who should reside at Bannack, and appoint his
deputies for the new locations. A day for the election was accordingly
designated.

Plummer busied himself among the miners to obtain the nomination, and as
an evidence not less of the unsteady purpose of this population than of
the personal magnetism of this remarkable man, he succeeded. Men, who a
few weeks before were clamorous for his execution as a murderer,
deceived by the plausibility of his professions, and the smoothness of
his eloquence, were now equally urgent for his election to the most
important office in the settlement. Such of the number as were unwilling
to support him, nominated a good man by the name of Jefferson Durley,
but the majority for Plummer decided the election largely in his favor.
A marked change immediately took place in his conduct. Soon after he was
married to Miss Eliza Bryan, the young lady with whom, as I have related
in a former chapter, he contracted an engagement while spending the
winter with her brother-in-law, Mr. Vail, at the government farm on Sun
River. Whether he honestly intended to reform at this time, or “assumed
the thing he was not” for the better concealment of his criminal
designs, can never be certainly known. There was much apparent sincerity
in his conduct and professions. He forsook the saloons, and was seldom
seen in the society of his old associates. His duties were promptly
attended to. On one occasion in a conversation with me, of his own
seeking, he spoke regretfully of his early life.

“I confess,” said he, “that the bad associations which I formed in
California and Nevada have adhered to me ever since. I was forced in
sheer self-defence, on different occasions, to kill five men there—and
of course was undeservedly denounced as a desperado and murderer. This
is not true,—and now that I am married and have something to live for,
and hold an official position, I will show you that I can be a good man
among good men. There is a new life before me, and I want you to believe
that I am not unfitted to fill it with credit to myself, and benefit to
the community.”

As he stood thus, in a beseeching voice pleading for some abatement of
the harsh judgment which he knew his conduct merited, it was not without
an effort that I mentally denied to him that confidence so truly
characterized by Pitt in his memorable reply to Walpole, as “a plant of
slow growth.” Very soon after, the justice of this opinion was confirmed
by an undercurrent of circumstances, which plainly showed that he was
either drifting back into the whirlpool of crime, or had assumed the
guise of virtue that he might better serve the devil. His face, usually
clear and white, betrayed in its weather-beaten appearance, that several
times when there was no occasion for it, he had been exposed to the
inclemencies of a fearful night storm. Where had he been? What was the
character of that business which could woo him from his home, to face
the angry elements, and require his return and appearance on the street
by daylight? At one time, having occasion to go to the ranche where my
horse was kept, I saw there a very superior saddle horse. Having never
seen it before, on inquiry, I was informed that it belonged to Plummer,
who often visited the ranche to exercise it; but never rode it into
town, or used it for any long journey. It was represented to possess
greater qualities of speed and endurance than any horse in the country.
Why was he keeping this horse, unused, and away from the public view, if
not for the purpose of escaping from the country in case of failure in
his criminal enterprise? Many other circumstances, equally demonstrative
as to the designs which Plummer was secretly carrying on, satisfied me
that I had not misjudged his true character.

Life in Bannack at this time was perfect isolation from the rest of the
world. Napoleon was not more of an exile on St. Helena than the newly
arrived immigrant from the States, in this recess of rocks and
mountains. All the stirring battles of the season of 1862,—Antietam,
Fredericksburg, and Second Bull Run,—all the exciting debates of
Congress, and the more exciting combats at sea, first became known to us
on the arrival of the first newspapers and letters, in the Spring of
1863. Old newspapers went the rounds of the camps until they literally
dropped to pieces. Pamphlets, cheap publications, and yellow-covered
literature, which had found their way by chance into the camp, were in
constant and unceasing demand. Bibles, of which there were a few copies,
were read by men who probably never read them before, to while away the
tedium of the dreary days of winter. Of other books there were none
then, nor for a year or more afterwards. Euchre, old sledge, poker, and
cribbage were resorted to until they became stale, flat, and disgusting.
When, afterwards, the first small library was brought into the
Territory, the owner was at once overwhelmed with borrowers, who, after
reading, loaned his books without leave, until the loss or destruction
of many of them drove him to the adoption of means for the preservation
of the remainder. He placarded over his library, where all could read
it, the following passage from Matthew xxv. 9: “Not so; lest there be
not enough for us and you; but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy
for yourselves.” This gentle hint served better as a joke than an
admonition.

As a counterpoise to this condition of affairs, the newcomer found much
in the rough, wild scenery, the habits, customs, and dress of the
miners, and in the pursuits of the camp, to interest his attention.
There was a freedom in mountain life entirely new to him. The common
forms of expression, rough, unique, and full of significance, were such
as he had never been accustomed to hear. The spirit of a humor full of
fun, displaying itself practically on all occasions, often at his own
expense, presented so many new phases of character, that he was seldom
at a loss for agreeable pastime, or, indeed, profitable occupation.

The wit of a mining camp is _sui generis_. It partakes of the
occupation, and grows out of it as naturally as the necessities. Indeed,
it is of itself a necessity,—for the instance of a miner without humor
or a relish for it, if it be of the appreciable kind, is very rare. One
must be versed in the idiom of the camp to always understand it. As for
example, if, in speaking of another, a miner says, “I have panned that
fellow out and couldn’t get a color,” it means the same as if he had
said, “He’s a man of no principle, dishonest, or a scamp.” So if, of
another, he says, “He’s all right, clear down to bed-rock,” it means,
“He is honest and reliable.” A hundred expressions of this kind are in
common use in a mining camp. Common parlance has long ago wrung the
humor from all these oddities of expression; but every now and then
something new springs up which has its run through mining communities as
a bit of fun, before its final incorporation into the epidemic
vernacular.

It occasionally happens that a genuine loafer turns up. This is not
common; for a man without money or employment, among miners, especially
if he evinces an indisposition for work, is a pitiable object. Nobody
cares for him. His very necessities are subjects for ribaldry, and his
laziness affords ample excuse for a neglect which may end in absolute
starvation. There is no lack of kindness among miners,—their generosity
is only bounded by their means in meritorious cases, but it is cruelly
discriminative against bummers and loafers. They must live by their
wits,—and sometimes this resource is available.

A singular genius known as “Slippery Joe,” whose character reflected the
twofold qualities of bummer and loafer, hung around the saloons and
restaurants in the early days of Bannack. He worked when compelled by
necessity, and was never known to buy “a square meal.” One evening he
was an on-looker at a party of miners who were playing euchre in
Kustar’s bakery. Their frequent potations, as was often the case,
developing first noise, then dispute, then quarrel, finally culminated
in a fight and general row. Pistols and knives were drawn, one man was
badly stabbed, and several shots fired. The by-standers stampeded
through the door and into the street, to avoid injury. One man was
prostrate, and another bent over him, with an upraised knife. Kustar and
his bartender were engaged in quelling the _mêlée_. Seizing this
opportunity, Slippery Joe stole behind the counter, and taking a couple
of pies from the shelf, mashed them out of shape with his knuckles, and
laid them, still in the tin plates, on the floor near the combatants. He
did not dare to steal the pies, knowing that detection would result in
his banishment from the gulch. Kustar, discovering them after the fight
was over, supposed from the appearance they presented, that they had
been jarred from the shelf and trodden upon. He was about casting them
into the street, when Joe stepped forward, and offered twenty-five cents
for them, pies at the time being sold at a dollar apiece. Glad to sell
them at any price, Kustar regarded the quarter of a dollar as clear
gain, and the sneak owed his supper to his criminal ingenuity.

This same slippery individual was the hero of another foraging exploit,
which, however we may regard it in a moral aspect, was not discreditable
to his strategic perspicacity. Two partners in a mining claim had
quarrelled, fought, and so far reconciled differences as to agree to
live together. One day a load of potatoes, the first that we had had for
eight months, and a great luxury at sixty cents per pound, arrived from
the Bitter Root Valley. The two miners bought several pounds, and agreed
upon having a holiday, with an old-fashioned stew for dinner at three
o’clock P.M. Joe had epicurean tastes, and longed for a dish of the
stew. He stationed himself near the door of the cabin. Just after it was
taken from the pan, and placed, steaming hot, between the partners, and
one was in the act of slicing the loaf, Joe entered, and with much
adroitness introduced the subject of former difference. This brought on
a dispute, and the two men rose from the table and rushed into the
street to engage in a fist fight. While thus employed, Joe made a single
meal of the entire stew.

In the early days of gold hunting in California, many young men of
religious proclivities, who had been reared by Christian parents, went
there to make speedy fortunes and return home. Failing to do so,
unwilling to work, and still intent upon suddenly acquiring wealth, they
have wandered from camp to camp among the mountains ever since. These
mining vagabonds are often met with. Their lives have been full of
vicissitude and disappointment, and nature has covered them with signs
and labels, which render their character unmistakable. Lost to all
self-respect, ragged, uncombed, often covered with vermin, they seem to
have no definite object in life, and are content to earn enough to eke
out a meagre subsistence. Sometimes we meet with one, who betrays in the
glow of conversation the remains of a cultivated foreground; but
generally the slang of the camp and the rough manners of the miner have
wrought a radical transformation in both mind and body.

Such an one was Bill—with whom I first became acquainted in 1863.
Passing Mather’s saloon, one day in the Fall of 1872, I caught a glimpse
of him, and stepped in to renew my acquaintance. He stood by the bar
talking with a friend whom he had known at Boise City, Idaho, in 1862.
The conversation had reference to those early days.

“Jim,” he inquired, “when did you hear of Yeast Powder Dave last?” A
little farther on in the conversation, after taking a drink, Jim
inquired in return, “Whatever became of Tin Cup Joe?” Then the
conversation flagging, another drink was indulged, and the inquiry
followed, “How late have you heard where Six Toed Pete hangs out?” At
last Bill, fully warmed up to the subject, remarked,

“Jim, you haven’t forgot the parson, have you?”

“Parson who?” inquired Jim dubiously.

“Parson Crib—you know.”

At the mention of the name, tears came into the eyes of both. It was
evident the memory of the man was very pleasant. Bill continued,

“Jim, they don’t have no such preachers nowadays as the parson was.
These newcomers, most of ’em feel above us ’cause we wear ragged
clothes, and then they are so slow and lamb-like, that their talks have
little effect on such fellows as you and me; but the old parson used to
rattle up the boys every clatter, and when he’d got through they’d think
their chances of salvation were mighty slim. And he was such a good man,
so charitable and so kind—and how beautifully and eloquently he would
explain the Christian religion as he talked to us of our duties to the
Master. He was a real good man. There ain’t many like him.” Brushing a
tear from his cheek, he added sorrowfully, “Jim, do you know I never did
quite forgive Sam Jones for shooting the parson, for stealing that
sorrel mare.”

It must have been a warm affection which would fail to approve of an act
regarded so just as shooting or hanging for “cribbing” a horse in a
mining camp. The parson is supposed to have held forth near Boise City.

Those of my readers who resided in Bannack at the time doubtless
remember the “Miners’ Ten Commandments,” written copies of which were
circulated freely throughout the camp. I recall two of them. If the
first one here given serves to illustrate the prevailing customs of a
mining camp, the other contains a warning which the dishonest and
covetous did not fail to heed.

“FOURTH COMMANDMENT. Thou shalt not remember what thy friends do at home
on the Sabbath day, lest the remembrance may not compare favorably with
what thou doest. Six days thou mayst dig or pick all that thy body can
stand under; but the other day is Sunday, when thou shalt wash all thy
soiled shirts, darn all thy stockings, tap all thy boots, mend all thy
clothing, chop all thy whole week’s firewood, make up and bake thy
bread, and boil thy pork and thy beans, that thou wait not when thou
returnest from thy long tour, weary. For in six days’ labor only, thou
canst not wear out thy body in two whole years; but if thou workest hard
on Sunday also, thou canst do it in six months, and thou, and thy son,
and thy daughter, thy male friend, and thy female friend, thy morals,
and thy conscience, be none the better for it, but reproach thee
shouldst thou ever return with thy worn-out body to thy mother’s
fireside, and thou strive to justify thyself, because the trader and the
merchant, the carpenter and the blacksmith, the tailors and the Jews,
defy God and civilization, by keeping not the Sabbath day, and wish not
for a day of rest such as memory and home and youth made hallowed.

“NINTH COMMANDMENT. Thou shalt not tell any false tales about ‘good
diggings in the mountains’ to thy neighbor, that thou mayst benefit thy
friend who hath mules and provisions and blankets and mining tools he
cannot sell; lest in deceiving thy neighbor, when he returneth through
the snow with naught save his rifle, he presenteth thee with the
contents thereof, and like a dog thou shalt fall down and die.”

                              CHAPTER XXI
                          BATTLE OF BEAR RIVER

During the year preceding the period whereof I write, and in fact from
the time of the discovery of the Salmon River mines, nearly every train
or single company of immigrants going in that direction was attacked,
robbed, the animals belonging to it stolen, and frequently many of the
persons composing it slain, by predatory bands of Bannack Indians, which
tribe possessed the entire country for a distance of five hundred miles
north of Salt Lake City. Their rapacity and cruelty had become the great
terror of a journey otherwise full of difficulty and discouragement. So
frequent and terrible had been this warfare, that nearly all
communication between the distant mines and Salt Lake City was
suspended; yet the wretches who conducted it, conscious of their
superior power, hesitated not, meantime, to visit the settlements, and
maintain an apparent friendliness towards the people. Several attacks
had been made upon them by detachments of troops from Camp Douglas,
attended with more or less success, but none of them had the effect to
allay their murderous depredations. Success had made them defiant as
well as bloodthirsty, and long impunity begot in them the belief that
they were invincible.

When the winter began to close in, rich in the spoils of their bloody
forays, a large band of nearly three hundred Bannacks, under their
chiefs Sand Pitch, Sag Witch, and Bear Hunter, established quarters for
the cold months in a ravine on the west bank of Bear River, about four
days’ march distant from the Federal camp. Gen. P. Edward Connor, the
officer in command at Camp Douglas, had carefully watched their
movements with the intention of inflicting the severest punishment upon
them for the enormities they had committed. The example to be salutary,
must be terrible, and Connor contemplated nothing less than the
destruction of the entire band. It was a measure of safety. Many
thousand people in the States and Territories were engaged in active
preparation to make the journey to the northern mines, on the return of
warm weather, and the lives and property of many of them depended, as
General Connor knew, upon the success of his contemplated expedition.

The Indians selected their camp because of the protection it afforded
from the inclemencies of the weather. The general southwest course of
the river was, by a bend, changed so as to be nearly due west where it
passed their encampment. The nook or ravine, open on the bank, stretched
tortuously between high precipitous banks, north from the river several
hundred yards, until lost in the abrupt ascent of a lofty overhanging
mountain. Clumps of willows grew irregularly over the surface of the
little dell, amid which the Indians pitched their buffalo tents, and
fastened their ponies for better protection against wind and snow. Their
women and children were with them, and all the conveniences and comforts
known to savage life were clustered around them.

Perceiving soon after they took possession of the spot, that it united
with its other advantages admirable means of defence against an
approaching enemy, they went to work, and improved, by excavation and
otherwise, every assailable point, until satisfied that it was perfectly
impregnable. During the occasional visits of their chiefs and head men
to the settlements, they learned and came to believe that an attack of
some kind would be made upon them before spring. They relished the idea
as a good joke, and with more than customary bravado declared their
readiness to meet it, boldly challenging the whites to come on.

The winter sped on. Colder than usual even in these high latitudes, both
Indians and whites felt that if nothing else would prevent an attack,
the cold weather was sufficient. General Connor kept his own counsel,
but matured his plans with consummate skill. The citizens of Salt Lake
City, seeing no military preparations in progress, grew restive under
the delay, charged the garrison with neglect of duty, and finally
appealed to the civil authorities. In the latter days of January, when
General Connor’s plans were approaching maturity, Chief Justice Kinney
issued warrants for the arrest of Sand Pitch, Sag Witch, and Bear
Hunter, for murders committed by them on emigrants passing through the
Territory. The officer directed to serve these writs, on one of the
coldest days of the middle of January, applied to General Connor, at
Camp Douglas, for an escort.

“I have an expedition against the Indians in contemplation,” said the
general, “which will march soon. You can go under its escort; but as I
do not intend to take any prisoners, I cannot tell you whether you will
be able to serve your writ or not. My opinion is you will find it
difficult.”

Whether the intimation conveyed in this closing remark touched the
official pride of the marshal, or not, I cannot say. Certain it is that
he concluded at once to accompany the expedition, and arrest the accused
chiefs.

The Indians were on the watch for an attack, and had their runners out
with instructions to bring them the earliest information of an
approaching foe. On the morning of the twenty-second, Captain Samuel N.
Hoyt, with forty men of Company K of infantry, two howitzers, and a
train of fifteen baggage wagons, left Camp Douglas with secret orders to
march leisurely in the direction of the Indian encampment. The Indian
spies, under promise of secrecy, were told by some who assumed to know,
that this was the army sent to exterminate the Indians. They carried the
intelligence to the Indians, where it excited great derision. The little
company marched very slowly, making their roads through the snows of the
divides, and were careful to afford the Indian scouts full opportunity
to learn their strength and armament. The chiefs unconcernedly gave
orders to their warriors to prepare for a warm reception of the foe,
while they visited the settlements. On the morning of the sixth day’s
march, Captain Hoyt and his men reached the vicinity of the present town
of Franklin, within a few hours’ march of the Indian stronghold. Bear
Hunter, who was there at the time, seeing how few the men were in
number, left immediately in high glee, at the prospect of cutting them
off the next day.

At midnight that night, after a ride of four nights, one of sixty miles,
the others of easier marches, through deep snows and a piercing, bitter
wind that nearly disabled a third of the command, Major McGarry, at the
head of two hundred cavalry, accompanied by General Connor and his aids,
rode into the little camp, and bivouacked with the infantry. The Indians
knew nothing of this arrival. So far the plan for their destruction was
successful. The troops slept on their arms. Orders were given to the
infantry to march an hour after midnight. They were obliged to break
their road through the snow, which completely covered the entire region
to the depth of one or two feet. The heavy howitzers were dragged
through it, over the unequal surface, with great difficulty, and for the
purpose of concealment, kept in the rear. Several hours after the
infantry started, the cavalry dashed by them and drew up on the south
bank of Bear River before the dawn broke over the Indian camp. The
savages were prepared for the attack. The ravine rang with their fearful
and defiant howling.

  GENERAL P. E. CONNOR

  _Commander at Battle of Bear River_
]

The passage of the river was very difficult. Covered at the bottom to
the depth of a foot or more with anchor-ice, its rapid current, too
strong for congealment at its surface, was filled with floating masses
of ice, whose sharp edges and great weight threatened disaster to every
horse which ventured the treacherous passage. But there was no
alternative. The troops who had dismounted to load their pistols, now
remounted their horses, and led by Majors McGarry and Gallagher, by
slow, tedious, and careful effort, succeeded in reaching the northern
bank in safety. Before the passage was completed, however, the companies
of Captain Price and Lieutenant Chase, which were the first to land, had
drawn up in line of battle. Captain McLean and Lieutenant Quinn, with
their commands, had barely joined them, when the Indians opened the
fight with a shower of balls, wounding one of the men.

General Connor had instructed McGarry to surround the ravine, and was
himself at this moment awaiting the arrival of the infantry on the south
side of the river. He had not anticipated so early a commencement of the
fight, but leaving his orders to be given by his aid, he hastily crossed
the river and joined McGarry. That officer finding it impossible with
the two companies at his disposal to outflank the Indians, ordered them
to advance as skirmishers. Up to this time the Indians had been
tantalizing our troops by their appearance upon the benches, over which
it was necessary to pass before an attack could be made from the east on
their stronghold. At the approach of the skirmishing party they
retreated under cover of the precipitous bank, where, entirely protected
from our guns, they opened a galling and deadly fire, killing and
wounding several of Connor’s men. The General ordered his men to protect
themselves as much as possible, and sent McGarry forward with a
detachment to scale the mountain which enclosed the ravine on the north,
and outflank the Indians on the left, while the companies on the benches
attacked them in front.

At this stage of the fight, the most disastrous to our troops, Captain
Hoyt arrived with the infantry on the south bank of the river. He had
heard the firing at a distance, and hurried forward his men, who in
their eagerness for the fray, attempted to ford the river, but found it
impossible. Wet and chilled they crossed the river on cavalry horses
sent from the north side, and galloped up to the battle, just in time to
enable McGarry, with their assistance, to complete his flanking
movement. Captain Hoyt now came up with a portion of his men on the west
side of the ravine, extending the cordon so as to form about
three-fourths of a circle, embracing three sides of the Indian camp. The
fight now became very brisk. By the enfilading fire from the east, west,
and north sides of the ravine, the Indians were gradually driven to the
centre and south. Their stronghold proved a complete _cul de sac_, and
they were entirely at the mercy of the troops. Taken at this great
disadvantage, and seeing their chiefs and head men falling around them,
they fought with desperate bravery, moving slowly toward the mouth of
the ravine on the west side of which General Connor had stationed a
detachment of cavalry to cut off their retreat. The great slaughter
occasioned by the incessant fire of the troops, at length broke the
Indians’ line. Each man sought how best to save himself. Many of them
ran in the most disorderly manner to the mouth of the ravine, where they
fell in heaps before the deadly fire of the rifles. Some attempted to
cross the river, but did not live to effect it. Others crawled into the
willow clumps with the hope of escaping notice, but the troops were
ordered to scour the bushes, and dislodge them. Many of these latter
disclosed their places of concealment by firing from them upon the
troops, as if resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible. The
last Indian foe waited his opportunity. While Major Gallagher was
leading a detachment into a thicket, the savage fired upon him. The ball
passed through his left arm into his side. Again the Indian fired, and a
cavalryman fell from his horse beside General Connor. The flash of his
rifle revealed his hiding-place, and a volley from the detachment ended
the bloody contest.

The details I have here given of this battle, while they sufficiently
demonstrate the skill and bravery of the officers and men by whom it was
fought, would be wanting in justice to them did I fail to mention other
incidental facts connected with it, which entitle them to additional
claims upon our gratitude and admiration. Few people who have never
experienced a winter in the Rocky Mountains know how to appreciate the
elemental difficulties attending the march of such an expedition as this
one of General Connor’s. The sudden storms, the deep snows, the
trackless wastes, the rapid, half-frozen mountain torrents, the lofty
divides, the keen blasts, and the pinching nights, coupled with all the
unavoidable demands which must encumber the movements of troops and
artillery through a country that for most of the distance is entirely
desolate, should give this expedition a conspicuous place among the
remarkable events of our country’s history. Seventy-four of the number
engaged in it had their feet frozen by exposure. The night rides of the
cavalry to overtake the infantry would furnish as thrilling a theme for
song as any of the rides during our National struggle, which have been
thus immortalized. The transportation of munitions, camp equipage, and
heavy artillery through eighty miles of snow, which for most of the
distance was unmarked by a road, over mountains, through cañons, and
across unbridged streams, furnishes a chapter that can find no parallel
in our former military experience. I mention them, that my readers may
form some idea of the amount of labor and care necessary to carry such
an enterprise through with success, and give the proper credit to those
who accomplished it.

Through the kindness of General Connor I am enabled to give the names
and rank of those who were killed and wounded. All the officers and men
fought with great bravery. General Connor himself, during the entire
four hours the battle was in progress, was always in the thickest of it,
and seldom out of range of the deadly rifles of the Indians. The
historian of the battle says:

“General Connor exhibited high qualities of command, and his perfect
coolness and bravery are the universal theme of praise. Possibly some
might have been better pleased with less exposure of their commander,
but I have the best authority for saying it was the call of duty, and
not indifference.”

The object of the fight was fully accomplished. Two hundred and
sixty-seven Indians were killed, several of their leading chiefs among
the number. Not fifteen escaped to tell the story of the battle.

This victory removed at once and forever the greatest impediment in the
way of emigration to the new Territory and a safe exit from it for those
who wished to return to their homes in the States. Previous to it people
could not, with safety, pass in either direction except in large and
strongly armed companies; and with certain exposure to the Indians on
the one hand, and the robbers and brigands on the other, with no other
possible outlet for escape except by crossing the Territory to Fort
Benton or over the Cœur D’Alene Mountains to Walla Walla, both very
uncertain and dangerous routes, the inhabitants of the Territory were
completely at the mercy of their assailants. No more fortunate event
could have occurred at the time, than this successful extermination of a
dangerous foe.

The lesson this battle taught the Bannacks has never been forgotten. The
instance of an attack by other bands upon the emigrants has never been
known since that day. It so reduced their tribe in number that they have
ever since been a broken and dispirited people. They are the vagrants of
the mountains, as remarkable for their pusillanimity, as, in the days of
Bonneville, they were for their bravery, and the commanding position
they held among the mountain tribes.

The following is a list of the killed and wounded in the fight:

SECOND CAVALRY, COMPANY A

_Killed._—Privates, James W. Baldwin, George German.

_Wounded._—Lieut. D. J. Berry; Privates, John W. Wall, James S.
Montgomery, John Welsh, William H. Lake, William Jay.

_Frozen._—Corporal Adolph Spraggle; Privates, John D. Marker, J.
Kearney, Samuel L’Hommidieu, R. McNulty, G. Swan.

COMPANY H

_Killed._—Privates, John K. Briggs, Charles L. Hallowell.

_Wounded._—Capt. Daniel McLean, Sergeant James Cantillon;[4] Corporals,
Philip Schaub and Patrick Frauley; Privates, Michael O’Brien,[4] H. L.
Fisher, John Franklin, Hugh Connor, Joseph Clows, Thomson Ridge, James
Logan, Bartele C. Hutchinson, Frank Farley.[4]

_Frozen._—Sixteen names not obtained.

COMPANY K

_Killed._—Privates, Lewis Anderson, Christian Smith, Shelbourne C. Reed,
Adolphus Rowe, Henry W. Trempf.

_Wounded._—Lieut. Darwin Chase,[4] Sergeant Sylvanus S. Longley,
Corporal Benjamin Landis; Privates, William Slocum,[4] Albert N. Parker,
John S. Lee, Walter B. Welton, Nath’l Kinsley, Patrick H. Kelly, Eugene
J. Brady, Silas C. Bush, John Daly, Robert Hargrave, Morris Illig,
Alonzo A. P. V. McCoy.

_Frozen._—Sergeant Wm. L. Beach; Corporals, Wm. L. White and James R.
Hunt; Privates, Stragder Ausby, Matthew Almone, David Bristow, Fred W.
Becker, Nath’l Chapman, Sam’l Caldwell, Joseph Chapman, John G. Hertle,
Chas. B. Howe, Joseph Hill, George Johnston, Jefferson Lincoln, Arthur
Mitchell, James McKown, Alonzo R. Palmer, Charles Wilson.

COMPANY M

_Killed._—Wagoner, Asa F. Howard; Privates, Geo. C. Cox, Geo. W. Hoton,
Wm. Davis.

_Wounded._—Sergeants, Anthony Stevens[4] and Lorin Robbins, Corporal L.
W. Hughes; Privates, W. H. Wood, L. D. Hughes, J. Legget, E. C. Chase,
F. Barcafer, R. Miller, M. Forbes, John Stevens, P. Humbert; Bugler, A.
Hoffner.

_Frozen._—Sergeant John Cullen; Corporals, A. P. Hewitt and Wm. Steel;
Privates, W. W. Collins, James Dyer, John McGonagle, A. G. Case.

THIRD INFANTRY, COMPANY K

_Killed._—Privates, John E. Baker, Samuel W. Thomas.

_Wounded._—Major P. A. Gallagher; Sergeants, A. J. Austin and E. C.
Hoyt; Privates, John Hensley, Thomas Walker.

_Frozen._—Sergeants, C. J. Herron and C. F. Williams; Corporals, Wm.
Bennett, John Lattman, and John Wingate; Privates, Joseph German, James
Urquhart, Wm. St. John, Algeray Ramsdell, James Epperson, A. J. T.
Randall, Wm. Farnham, John Baurland, Giles Ticknor, Alfred Pensho, B. B.
Bigelow, J. Anderson, F. Bacralso, F. Branch, A. L. Bailey, Wm. Carlton,
D. Donahue, C. H. Godbold, J. Haywood, C. Heath, J. Manning, Wm. Way.

Footnote 4:

  Died of wounds.

                            RECAPITULATION

                 REGIMENT       KILLED WOUNDED FROZEN TOTAL
            2nd Cavalry, Co. A       2       6      6    14
            2nd Cavalry, Co. H       2      14     16    32
            2nd Cavalry, Co. K       5      15     19    39
            2nd Cavalry, Co. M       4      13      7    24
            3rd Infantry, Co. K      2       5     27    34
                                    ——      ——     ——   ———
            _Total_                 15      53     75   143

                              CHAPTER XXII
                              ALDER GULCH

In May, 1863, a company of miners, while returning from an unsuccessful
exploring expedition, discovered the remarkable placer afterwards known
as Alder Gulch. They gave the name of one of their number, Fairweather,
to the district. Several of the company went immediately to Bannack,
communicated the intelligence, and returned with supplies to their
friends. The effect of the news was electrical. Hundreds started at once
to the new placer, each striving to outstrip the other, in order to
secure a claim. In the hurry of departure, among many minor accidents, a
man whose body, partially concealed by the willows, was mistaken for a
beaver, was shot by a Mr. Arnold. Discovering the fatal mistake, Arnold
gave up the chase and bestowed his entire attention upon the unfortunate
victim until his death, a few days afterwards. The great stampede with
its numerous pack-animals, penetrated the dense alder thicket which
filled the gulch, a distance of eight miles, to the site selected for
building a town. An accidental fire occurring, swept away the alders for
the entire distance in a single night. In less than a week from the date
of the first arrival, hundreds of tents, brush wakiups, and rude log
cabins, extemporized for immediate occupancy, were scattered at random
over the spot, now for the first time trodden by white men. For a
distance of twelve miles from the mouth of the gulch to its source in
Bald Mountain, claims were staked and occupied by the men fortunate
enough first to assert an ownership. Laws were adopted, judges selected,
and the new community was busy in upheaving, sluicing, drifting, and
cradling the inexhaustible bed of auriferous gravel, which has yielded
under these various manipulations a greater amount of gold than any
other placer on the continent.

The Southern sympathizers of the Territory gave the name of Varina to
the new town which had sprung up in Alder Gulch, in honor of the wife of
President Jefferson Davis. Dr. Bissell, one of the miners’ judges of the
gulch, was an ardent Unionist. Being called upon to draw up some papers
before the new name had been generally adopted, and requested to date
them at “Varina City,” he declared, with a very emphatic expletive, he
would not do it, and wrote the name “Virginia City,”—by which name the
place has ever since been known.

The road agents were among the first to follow in the track of the
miners. Prominent among them were Cyrus Skinner, Jack Gallagher, Buck
Stinson, and Ned Ray,—the last three as deputies of Plummer in the
sheriffalty. Ripe for the commission of any deed, however atrocious,
which gave the promise of plunder, jackal-like they watched the
gathering crowd and its various industries, marking each and all for
early and unceasing depredation.

The Hon. Washington Stapleton who had been at work in the Bannack mines
from the time of their discovery, a miner named Dodge, and another man,
each supposed to possess a considerable amount of gold, having
determined to go to Virginia City, Dodge was privately informed by
Dillingham, one of Plummer’s deputies, on the eve of their intended
departure, that Buck Stinson, Hayes Lyons, and Charley Forbes had laid
plans for robbing them on the way, and had requested him (Dillingham) to
join them in the robbery. When the time for their going came, Dodge
expressed his fear of an attack, and announced his determination to
remain. His friends rallied him, until, smarting under their taunts, he
revealed the information given by Dillingham. Stinson, Lyons, and Forbes
heard of it, and determined to kill the informer. Stapleton left his
companions, and started for Virginia City alone. At Rattlesnake he
encountered Hayes Lyons, who rode up and asked him if he had heard of
the robbery which Dillingham alleged had been planned against him.
Stapleton replied in the negative; but when telling the story since,
says that he has felt more comfortable even when sleeping in church,
than when he saw that scoundrel approaching him. He told him, he says,
that this was the first he had heard of it, adding, “If you want my
money, I have only one hundred dollars in greenbacks. You had better
take that, and let me go.”

Lyons replied with an oath that the story was a lie, and that he was
then on his way to kill Dillingham for putting such a story in
circulation, but he feared Dillingham had heard of his intention and
left the country.

Stapleton accomplished his trip without molestation. Lyons and Forbes
rode on to Virginia City, also, and finding Dillingham there, they, in
company with Stinson, met the next day and arranged for his
assassination.

A miners’ court for the trial of a civil case was in session the
following morning near the bank of the creek fronting the town. To the
observation of a person unaccustomed to the makeshifts and customs of a
mining community, the picture presented by this court of justice would
have exhibited many amusing features—not the least of which was the
place wherein it was held. The Temple of Justice was a wakiup of brush
and twigs, gathered from the different coppices of willow and alder
growing upon the banks of the creek, thrown together in conical form,
and of barely sufficient capacity to accommodate the judge, clerk,
parties, and jurors. Spectators were indebted to the interstices in this
primitive structure for a view of the proceedings; and as no part of the
person except the eyes was visible to those within, the appearance of
those visual orbs bore no inapt comparison to a constellation in a brush
heap.

Dr. Steele, president of the gulch, acted as judge. He united with much
native good sense, great modesty of demeanor. He was not a lawyer. On
his trip from the States, while crossing the plains, an unfriendly gust
had swept his only hat beyond recovery, and he came into Montana with
his brows bound in a parti-colored cotton handkerchief, which, for want
of something more appropriate, not obtainable at the stores, he had worn
until some friendly miner possessing an extra hat presented him with it.
Proving too small to incase his intellectual organs, the doctor had, by
a series of indented slits encircling the rim, increased its elasticity,
so that, saving a succession of gaps, through which his hair bristled
“like quills upon the fretful porcupine,” it answered the purpose of its
creation. With this upon his head he sat upon the bench, an embodiment
of the dignity, law, and learning of this little mountain judiciary.

In the progress of the trial, the defendant’s counsel asked for a
nonsuit, on account of some informality of service.

“A what?” inquired the judge with a puzzled expression, as if he had not
rightly understood the word.

“A nonsuit,” was the rejoinder.

“What’s a—” The question partly asked, was left incomplete. The judge
blushed, but reflecting that he would probably learn the office of a
nonsuit in the course of the argument, he broke through the dilemma by
asking,

“Upon what ground?”

The argument followed, and the judge, soon comprehending the meaning of
a nonsuit, decided that unless the defendant could show that he had
suffered by reason of the informal service, the case must proceed. Some
of the friends of the magistrate, seated near the door, understanding
the cause of his embarrassment, enjoyed the scene hugely, and as it
presented an opportunity for returning in kind some of the numerous
jokes which he had played at their expense, one of them, thinking it too
good to be lost, with much mock sobriety of manner and tone, arose and
said,

“Most righteous decision!”

All eyes were turned upon the speaker, but before they could comprehend
the joke at the bottom, another arose, and with equal solemnity,
exclaimed,

“Most just judge!”

Dr. Steele, though embarrassed by this ill-timed jocularity, was so well
satisfied with his sagacity in finding out what a nonsuit meant, without
betraying his legal unlearnedness, that the joke was taken in good part,
and formed a subject of frequent merriment in after times.

Charley Forbes was the clerk of the court, and sat beside the judge
taking notes of the trial. After the decision denying the motion, the
plaintiff passed around a bottle of liquor, of which the court and jury
partook. Not to be outdone, the defendant circulated a box of cigars.
And it was while the spectators were giving expression in various forms
to their approval of the decision, that Stinson and Lyons came into the
court, and, proceeding to the seat occupied by Forbes, engaged with him
in a whispered conversation inaudible to the by-standers. After a few
moments, Forbes suddenly rose in his place, and, with an oath,
exclaimed,

“Well, we’ll kill the scoundrel then, at once,” and accompanied Stinson
and Lyons out of the wakiup. The audience, startled by the announcement,
hurriedly followed. Dillingham had come over from Bannack in his
capacity as deputy sheriff, to look for some stolen horses. He had come
on the ground a moment before, in search of Mr. Todd, the deputy at
Virginia City, for assistance.

An assemblage of a hundred or more miners and others was congregated in
and about the place where the court was in progress,—some intent upon
the trial, others sauntering through the crowd and along the bank of
Alder Creek. The three ruffians, after a moment’s conversation,
approached in company the spot where Dillingham stood.

“We want to see you,” said Lyons, addressing him. “Step this way a
moment.”

Stinson advanced a few paces, and looking over his shoulder said to his
companions,

“Bring him along. Make him come.”

Dillingham waited for no second invitation. Evidently supposing that
they had some matter of business to communicate, he accompanied them to
an open spot not more than ten paces distant. There they all stopped,
and facing Dillingham, with a muttered curse Lyons said to him,

“Take back those lies,” when with the quickness of thought, they drew
their revolvers,—Charley Forbes at the same time exclaiming, “Don’t
shoot, don’t shoot,”—and fired upon him simultaneously. The groan which
Lyons’ ball drew from the poor victim as it entered his thigh, was
hushed by the bullet of Forbes, as it passed through his breast,
inflicting a mortal wound. He fell, and died in a few moments. Jack
Gallagher, who was in the plot, rushed up, and in his capacity as a
deputy sheriff, seized the pistols of the three ruffians, one of which,
while unobserved, he reloaded, intending thereby to prevent the
identification of the villain who fired the fatal shot.

The deed was committed so quickly that the by-standers hardly knew what
had happened till they saw Dillingham stretched upon the ground in the
death agony. The court broke up instantly, and the jury dispersed.
Aghast at the bloody spectacle, for some moments the people surveyed it
in speechless amazement. The ruffians meanwhile sauntered quietly away,
chuckling at their own adroitness. They had not gone far, until several
of the miners, by direction of Dr. Steele, arrested them. The reaction
from terror to reason was marked by the adoption of vigorous measures
for the punishment of the crime, and but for the calm self-possession of
a few individuals, the murderers would have been summarily dealt with.
An officer elected by the people, with a detail of miners, took them
into custody, and having confined them in a log building, preparations
were made for their immediate trial.

Here again, as at the trial of Moore and Reeves, the difficulty of a
choice between a trial by the people, and by a jury of twelve,
occasioned an obstinate and violent discussion. The reasons for the
latter, though strongly urged, were finally overcome by the paramount
consideration that the selection of a jury would devolve upon a deputy
sheriff who was in league with the prisoners, and, as it was afterwards
ascertained, an accomplice in the crime for which they were arrested.

The people assembled _en masse_ upon the very spot where the murder had
been committed. Dr. Steele, by virtue of his office as president of the
gulch, was appointed judge, and at his request Dr. Bissell, the district
judge, and Dr. Rutar, associates, to aid with their counsel in the
decisions of such questions as should arise in the progress of the
trial. E. R. Cutler, a blacksmith, and James Brown acted as public
prosecutors, and H. P. A. Smith, a lawyer of ability, appeared on behalf
of the prisoners.

A separate trial was assigned to Forbes, because the pistol which
Gallagher had privately reloaded, was claimed by him, a fact of which he
wished to avail himself. In fact, however, the pistol belonged to
Stinson. It was mid-day when the trial of Lyons and Stinson commenced.
At dark it was not concluded, and the prisoners were put under a strong
guard for the night. They were confined in a small, half-roofed,
unchinked cabin, overlooking Daylight Creek, which ran through a hollow
filled with willows. Dr. Six and Major Brookie had charge of the
prisoners. Soon after dark their attention was attracted by the repeated
shrill note of a night-hawk, apparently proceeding from the willows.
After each note, Forbes commenced singing. This being noticed by the
guard, on closer investigation they discovered that the note was
simulated by some person as a signal for the prisoners. They immediately
ordered Forbes to stop singing. He refused. They then proposed to chain
the prisoners, they objecting, and Forbes remarking,

“I will suffer death before you shall do it.”

He receded, however, under the persuasion of six shotguns drawn upon a
line with his head, and in a subdued tone, said,

“Chain me.”

During the night Lyons sent for one of the citizens, who, under cover of
the guns of the guard, approached and asked him what he wanted.

“I want you,” said he, “to release Stinson and Forbes. I killed
Dillingham. I came here for that express purpose. They are innocent. I
was sent here by the best men in Bannack to kill him.”

“Who sent you?” inquired the citizen.

After naming several of the best citizens of Bannack, who knew nothing
of the murder until several days after it was committed, he added,

“Henry Plummer told me to shoot him.” It was afterwards proven that this
was true.

Hayes Lyons was greatly unnerved, and cried a great part of the night;
but Buck Stinson was wholly unconcerned, and slept soundly.

The trial was resumed the next morning. At noon, the arguments being
concluded, the question of “guilty or not guilty,” was submitted to the
people, and decided almost unanimously in the affirmative.

“What shall be their punishment?” asked the president of the now eager
crowd.

“Hang them,” was the united response.

Men were immediately appointed to erect a scaffold, and dig the graves
of the doomed criminals, who were taken into custody to await the result
of the trial of Forbes. This followed immediately; and the loaded
pistol, and the fact that when the onslaught was made upon Dillingham,
he called out, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” were used in evidence with
good effect. When the question was finally put, Forbes, who was a young
man of fine personal appearance, and possessed of good powers as a
speaker, made a personal appeal to the crowd, which so wrought upon
their sympathies, and was so eloquent withal, that they acquitted him by
a large majority. In marked contrast with the spirit which they had
exhibited a few hours before while condemning Stinson and Lyons to a
violent death, the people, upon the acquittal of Forbes, crowded around
him with shouts and laughter, eager to shake hands with and congratulate
him upon his escape. Months afterwards, when the excitement of the
occasion, with the memory of it, has passed from men’s minds, Charley
Forbes was heard vauntingly to say that he was the slayer of Dillingham.
He was known to deride the tender susceptibilities of the people, who
gave him liberty to renew his desperate career, and chuckle over the
exercise of powers of person and mind that could make so many believe
even Truth herself to be a liar. Among the villains belonging to
Plummer’s band, not one, not even Plummer himself, possessed a more
depraved nature than Forbes; and with it, few, if any, were gifted with
as many shining accomplishments. He was a prince of cut-throats, uniting
with the coolness of Augustus Tomlinson all the adaptability of Paul
Clifford. On one occasion he said to a gentleman about to leave the
Territory,

“You will be attacked on your way to Salt Lake City.”

“You can’t do it, Charley,” was the reply. “Your boys are scattered, we
are together, and will prove too many for you.” Nevertheless, the party
drove sixty miles the first day out, and thus escaped molestation.

His early life was passed in Grass Valley, California. While
comparatively a youth, he was convicted of robbery. On the expiration of
his sentence, he visited his old friends, and on his promise of
reformation, they obtained employment for him in McLaughlin’s gas works.
For a while his conduct was unexceptionable, and he was rapidly
regaining the esteem of all; but in an evil hour he indulged in a game
of poker for money. From that moment he yielded to this temptation,
until it became a besetting vice. Not long after he entered upon this
career, he provoked a quarrel with one “Dutch John,” who threatened to
kill him.

Forbes told McLaughlin, saying in conclusion, “When Dutch John says so,
he means it.”

“Take my revolver out of the case,” said McLaughlin, “put it in your
breast-pocket, and defend yourself as occasion may require.”

Forbes obeyed. Soon after, as he was passing along with a ladder on his
shoulder, an acquaintance said to him,

“Dutch John is looking for you to kill you.”

“So I hear,” replied Forbes. “He’ll find me sooner than he wants to.”

A few rods farther on he saw John coming from the Magnolia saloon, where
he had been looking for Forbes. Forbes sprang towards him, exclaiming
with an oath,

“Here I am,” and immediately fired four shots at him. John fired once in
return, and throwing up his hands in affright at the rapid firing of
Forbes, ejaculated,

“_O mein Gott!._ Will I be murdered?”

A bystander who had witnessed the meeting, and saw that John, who had
expected an easy victory, was paralyzed with fear, called to him,

“Turn your artillery loose!”

Forbes was tried for this crime, and acquitted. He was afterwards
convicted of crime of some kind in Carson City, and imprisoned. On New
Year’s day he succeeded in removing his handcuffs, broke jail, and went
to the sheriff’s house, as he said upon entering, “to make a New Year’s
call.” The officer returned him to prison. From this time, his career of
crime knew no impediment.

On his first arrival in the mountains he corresponded for some of the
California and Nevada papers. His letters were highly interesting. His
true name was Edward Richardson.

To return to Stinson and Lyons. After the demonstrations of joy at
Forbes’s escape had subsided, the people remembered that there was an
execution on the _tapis_. Drawing up a wagon in front of the building
where the criminals were confined, they ordered them to get in. They
obeyed, followed by several of their friends, who took seats beside
them. Lyons became almost uproarious in his appeals for mercy. The
women, of whom there were many, began to cry, begging earnestly for the
lives of the criminals. Smith, their lawyer, joined his petitions to
those of the women, and the entire crowd began to give way under this
pressure of sympathy. Meantime the wagon was drawn slowly towards the
place of execution. When the excitement was at its highest pitch, a man
demanded in a loud tone that the people should listen to a letter which
Lyons had written to his mother. This document, which had been prepared
by some person for the occasion, was now read. It was filled with
expressions of love for the aged mother, regret for the crime,
repentance, acknowledgments of misspent life, and strong promises of
amendment, if only life could be spared a little longer. Every sentence
elicited fresh grief from the women, who now became perfectly clamorous
in their calls for mercy to the prisoners. After the letter was read,
some one cried out, in derision,

“Give him a horse, and let him go to his mother.”

Another immediately moved that they take a vote upon that proposition.
Sheriff Todd, whose duty it was only to carry out the sentence of the
court, consented to this, and the question was submitted to ayes and
noes. Both parties claimed the victory. It was then agreed that those in
favor of hanging should go up, and those opposed, down the side of a
neighboring hill. Neither party being satisfied, as a final test, four
men were selected, and those who wished the sentence enforced were to
pass between two of them, and those who opposed, between the other two.
The votes for liberty were increased to meet the occasion, by a second
passage of as many as were necessary to carry the question. An Irish
miner, while the voting was in progress, exclaimed in a loud voice, as a
negro passed through the acquittal bureau,

“Bedad, there’s a bloody nagur that’s voted three times.”

But this vote, dishonest as it was, settled the question; for Jack
Gallagher, pistol in hand, shouted,

“Let them go. They’re cleared.”

This was a signal for a general uproar, and amid shouts from both
parties, expressive of the opinions which each entertained, some one
mounted the assassins upon a horse standing near, which belonged to a
Blackfoot squaw, and cutting the lariat, started them off at a gallop
down the gulch. At this moment one of the guard pointed to the gallows,
and said to another,

“There stands a monument of disappointed justice.”

Immediately after sentence of death had been passed upon Stinson and
Lyons, Dr. Steele returned to his cabin, two miles down the gulch. The
result of the trial had furnished him with food for sad
reflection,—especially as the duty of passing the death sentence had
devolved upon him. Other considerations followed in quick succession. He
has since, when speaking of it, said that he never indulged in a more
melancholy reverie, than while returning home from this trial. The youth
of the convicts; their evident fitness, both by culture and manners, for
any sphere of active business; the effect that their execution must have
upon distant parents and friends,—all these thoughts presented
themselves in sad array before his mental vision; when, as he was about
entering his cabin, a quick clatter of hoofs roused him, and turning to
see the cause, he beheld the subjects of his gloomy reflections both
mounted upon the Indian pony, approaching at the animal’s swiftest pace.
He had hardly time to recover from his surprise, and realize that the
object was not a vision, until the animal with its double rider passed
him,—and Lyons, nodding familiarly, waved his hand, accompanying the
gesture with the parting words,

“Good-bye, Doc.”

The body of the unfortunate Dillingham lay neglected upon a gambling
table in a tent near by, until this wretched travesty was completed.
Then a wagon was obtained, and, followed by a small procession, it was
hurriedly buried. The tears had all been shed for the murderers.

“I cried for Dillingham,” said one, on being told that his wife and
daughters had expended their grief upon the wrong persons.

“Oh, you did,” was the reply. “Well thought of. Who will pray for him?
Will you do it, judge?”

Judge Bissell responded by kneeling upon the spot and offering up an
appropriate prayer, as the body of the unfortunate young man was
consigned to its mother earth.

Soon after the murder of Dillingham, Charley Forbes suddenly
disappeared. No one knew what became of him, but it was supposed that he
had fallen a victim to the vengeance of his comrades for the course he
had taken in securing for himself a separate trial. This supposition was
afterwards confirmed by some of the robbers themselves, who stated that
in a quarrel with Moore at the Big Hole River, Forbes was killed.
Fearing that the friends of the murdered ruffian would retaliate, Moore
killed Forbes’s horse at the same time, and burned to ashes the bodies
of horse and rider. This fact was known to Plummer only, at the time of
its occurrence.

Dillingham was a straightforward, honest young man, and his office as
deputy sheriff was given him under the supposition that he would readily
affiliate with the roughs. Lyons, Stinson, and Forbes, who were also
deputies, supposed him to be as bad as they were.

On my trip east in 1863, the Overland coach in which I had taken passage
was detained a night by snow at Hook’s Station in Nebraska. Ascertaining
that I was from Bannack, a young man at the station asked me many
questions about Hayes Lyons, telling me that he had heard that he
narrowly escaped hanging the previous summer. I narrated to him the
circumstances attending the murder of Dillingham and the trial.

“He is my brother,” said the young man, and invited me to go with him
and see his mother and sister. I learned that Hayes had been well
brought up, but was the victim of evil associations. His mother wept
while deploring his criminal career, which she ascribed to bad company.

Later in the winter I received a letter from the father of Dillingham,
who resided at North Orange, New Jersey, inquiring after his son. I
replied, giving the particulars of his son’s death, and the trial and
escape of his murderers, and of my subsequent meeting with the mother of
Lyons. In the meantime, Lyons had been hanged.

The father was almost heart-broken at the intelligence of his son’s
death, but in his letter, written in a kindly and Christian spirit, he
says:

  “While the shocking details of the sad narrative are inexpressibly
  distressing to us, it is a great alleviation to our grief to know
  that an act of manly virtue and honor was the superinducing cause
  that excited our son’s murderers in their bloody purpose. Death
  under such circumstances, so far as it relates to the poor sufferer
  himself, is praiseworthy in the highest degree, and inspires us with
  thankfulness to God for our son’s integrity, and with humble trust
  that it may be overruled in infinite wisdom for our good; and is
  certainly a thousand times to be preferred by the afflicted
  survivors, to a knowledge of, compliance with, and successful
  prosecution of, the infamous scheme proposed. Our hearts truly and
  deeply sympathize with the sorrowing mother and family of the
  criminal young Lyons. Truly, indeed, may it be said that only God
  can assuage the poignancy of such sorrow as must fill their bosoms.
  May He sustain and comfort them.

  “It is satisfactory to know that summary measures were finally, and
  in a good measure effectually, adopted by your citizens, for ridding
  their interesting region of country of these worse than savages.
  Retributive justice is almost invariably sure, sooner or later, to
  overtake all such heaven-daring outlaws....

                                                “Very sincerely yours,
                                                  “W. S. DILLINGHAM.”

                             CHAPTER XXIII
                             VIRGINIA CITY

No longer in fear of attack by the Indians, immigrants had been steadily
pouring into the Territory over the Salt Lake route during the month of
June. Many came also over the mountains from Salmon River. The opportune
discovery of Alder Gulch relieved Bannack of a large and increasing
population of unemployed gold hunters, who, lured by the overdrawn
reports of local richness, had exhausted all their means in a long and
perilous journey, to meet only disappointment and disaster at its close.
Almost simultaneously with the settlement at Virginia City, other
settlements lower down and farther up the gulch were commenced. Those
below were known by the respective names of Junction, Nevada, and
Central; those above, Pine Grove, Highland, and Summit. As the entire
gulch for a distance of twelve miles was appropriated, the intervals of
two or three miles between the several _nuclei_ were occupied by the
cabins of miners, who owned and were developing the claims opposite to
them, so that in less than three months after the discovery, the gulch
was really one entire settlement. One long stream of active life filled
the little creek, on its auriferous course from Bald Mountain, through a
cañon of wild and picturesque character, until it emerged into the large
and fertile valley of the Pas-sam-a-ri. Pas-sam-a-ri is the Shoshone
word for “Stinking Water,” and the latter is the name commonly given in
Montana to the beautiful mountain stream which was called by Lewis and
Clark, in their journal, “Philanthropy River.” Lateral streams of great
beauty pour down the sides of the mountain chain bounding the valley,
across which they run to their union with the Pas-sam-a-ri, which,
twenty miles beyond, unites with the Beaverhead, one of the forming
streams of the Jefferson. Gold placers were found upon these streams,
and occupied soon after the settlement at Virginia City was commenced.
One of these, at Bivin’s Gulch, in the mountains twelve miles from
Virginia City, though limited in extent, was sufficiently productive to
afford profitable employment to a little community of twenty or more
miners. Twenty miles below Virginia City on the route to Bannack, a man
by the name of Dempsey located a ranche, and built a large cabin for the
accommodation of travellers. Seven miles above, and between that and
Virginia City, another similar building for like purposes was owned by
Peter Daly, and three miles above Daly’s was another owned by Mr.
Lorrain. These establishments are only important as they serve to locate
occurrences connected with this history.

Of the settlements in Alder Gulch, Virginia City was the principal,
though Nevada, two miles below, at one time was of nearly equal size and
population. A stranger from the Eastern States entering the gulch for
the first time, two or three months after its discovery, would be
inspired by the scene and its associations with reflections of the most
strange and novel character. This human hive, numbering at least ten
thousand people, was the product of ninety days. Into it were crowded
all the elements of a rough and active civilization. Thousands of cabins
and tents and brush wakiups, thrown together in the roughest form, and
scattered at random along the banks, and in the nooks of the hills, were
seen on every hand. Every foot of the gulch, under the active
manipulations of the miners, was undergoing displacement, and it was
already disfigured by huge heaps of gravel, which had been passed
through the sluices, and rifled of their glittering contents. In the
gulch itself all was activity. Some were removing the superincumbent
earth to reach the pay-dirt, others who had accomplished that were
gathering up the clay and gravel upon the surface of the bed-rock, while
by others still it was thrown into the sluice boxes. This exhibition of
mining industry was twelve miles long. Gold was abundant, and every
possible device was employed by the gamblers, the traders, the vile men
and women that had come with the miners to the locality, to obtain it.
Nearly every third cabin in the towns was a saloon where vile whiskey
was peddled out for fifty cents a drink in gold dust. Many of these
places were filled with gambling tables and gamblers, and the miner who
was bold enough to enter one of them with his day’s earnings in his
pocket, seldom left until thoroughly fleeced. Hurdy-gurdy dance-houses
were numerous, and there were plenty of camp beauties to patronize them.
There too, the successful miner, lured by siren smiles, after an evening
spent in dancing and carousing at his expense, steeped with liquor,
would empty his purse into the lap of his charmer for an hour of license
in her arms. Not a day or night passed which did not yield its full
fruition of fights, quarrels, wounds, or murders. The crack of the
revolver was often heard above the merry notes of the violin. Street
fights were frequent, and as no one knew when or where they would occur,
every one was on his guard against a random shot.

Sunday was always a gala day. The miners then left their work and
gathered about the public places in the towns. The stores were all open,
the auctioneers specially eloquent on every corner in praise of their
wares. Thousands of people crowded the thoroughfares, ready to rush in
any direction of promised excitement. Horse-racing was among the most
favored amusements. Prize rings were formed, and brawny men engaged at
fisticuffs until their sight was lost and their bodies pommelled to a
jelly, while hundreds of on-lookers cheered the victor. Hacks rattled to
and fro between the several towns, freighted with drunken and rowdy
humanity of both sexes. Citizens of acknowledged respectability often
walked, more often perhaps rode side by side on horseback, with noted
courtesans in open day through the crowded streets, and seemingly
suffered no harm in reputation. Pistols flashed, bowie-knives
flourished, and braggart oaths filled the air, as often as men’s
passions triumphed over their reason. This was indeed the reign of
unbridled license, and men who at first regarded it with disgust and
terror, by constant exposure soon learned to become part of it, and
forget that they had ever been aught else. All classes of society were
represented at this general exhibition. Judges, lawyers, doctors, even
clergymen, could not claim exemption. Culture and religion afforded
feeble protection, where allurement and indulgence ruled the hour.

Underneath this exterior of recklessness, there was in the minds and
hearts of the miners and business men of this society, a strong and
abiding sense of justice,—and that saved the Territory. While they could
enjoy what they called sport even to the very borders of crime, and
indulge in many practices which in themselves were criminal, yet when
any one was murdered, robbed, abused, or hurt, a feeling of resentment,
a desire for retaliation, animated all. With the ingathering of new men,
fear of the roughs gradually wore away,—but the desire to escape
responsibility, to acquire something and leave in peace, prevented any
active measures for protection; and so far as organization was
concerned, the law and order citizens, though in the majority, were as
much at sea as ever.

Previous to the organization of the Territory of Idaho on the third of
March, 1863, all of that which is now Montana west of the Rocky
Mountains, was part of Washington Territory, with Olympia on Puget Sound
as capital. All east thereof belonged to Dakota, the capital of which
was Yankton on the Missouri, which by the nearest available route of
travel, was two thousand two hundred miles distant. The existence of
Bannack was not known there at that time, to say nothing of the
impossibility of executing any Territorial laws, at such arm’s-length,
even if it had been. Our legal condition was not greatly improved by the
organization of the new Territory of Idaho. Lewiston, the capital, was
seven hundred miles away, on the western side of the mountains. Eighteen
months had passed since we became part of that Territory, before we
received an authentic copy of the Territorial Statutes, and when they
came we had been half a year in Montana.

In August, 1863, D. S. Payne, the United States Marshal of Idaho, came
over from Lewiston to Bannack to district the eastern portion of the
Territory and effect a party organization of the Republicans. Our people
felt little interest in the measure. Some of the leading citizens had
requested, some time before, that I should make application in person
for them, at the next session of Congress, for a new Territorial
organization, east of the Cœur D’Alene Mountains. Payne was urgent for a
representation of this part of the Territory in the Legislative Council,
and as an inducement for me to consent to the use of my name as a
candidate, offered to appoint any person whom I might name to the office
of Deputy United States Marshal in the east side district.

A Union League had been for some time in existence in Bannack, of which
I was President. I asked the advice of the members in making the
appointment, first cautioning them to ballot secretly, as by that means
those who otherwise would not support Plummer, who was known to be a
candidate, would escape detection by him. Neither Mr. Rheem, the
Vice-President of the League, nor myself voted. The votes cast, about
thirty in number, were unanimous for Plummer. Some one informed him of
it. He expressed his gratification at the result, and told me that the
confidence of the League in him should never be betrayed. I immediately
informed him that he must not expect the appointment. He gave this reply
a favorable interpretation, and even after it was repeated, turned upon
his heel, laughing, and saying as he went,

“It’s all right, Langford. That’s the way to talk it to outsiders.”

Soon after this, in a conversation with Mr. Samuel T. Hauser, I informed
him of the recommendation of the League. Hauser replied,

“Whoever lives to see the gang of highwaymen now infesting the country
broken up, will find that Henry Plummer is at the head of it.”

Amazed at the expression of an opinion so much stronger than my own, I
at once decided to reject the advice of the League, rather than incur
the responsibility of recommending so dangerous a person for the office.
Plummer heard of it, and lost no time in asking an explanation,
affecting to believe that I had promised to recommend him. We sat down
upon an ox-shoeing frame, and talked over the whole matter. He had his
pistol in his belt. I was unarmed. He said many provoking things, and
used many oaths and epithets, in his attempt to provoke a quarrel, but
all to no purpose. Finding that no excuse would be given him for a
resort to violence, he arose, and as we parted, said,

“Langford, you’ll be sorry for this before the matter ends. I’ve always
been your friend, but from this time on, I’m your enemy; and when I say
this, I mean it in more ways than one.”

These were the closing words of our last conversation. We met
afterwards, but never spoke.

During that fall I was engaged in purchasing lumber at Bannack to sell
at Virginia City, where no sawmills had yet been put in operation. The
business required frequent trips between the two places; and the ride of
seventy miles through a lonely country, whose surface alternated with
cañons, ravines, foothills, and mountains, afforded such ample
opportunity for secret robbery and murder, that it required considerable
ingenuity to throw the villains off the track. With the threat of
Plummer hanging over me to be executed upon the first favorable
opportunity, my position was by no means an enviable one. I would send
forward the loaded teams, which were four days on the trip, and on the
morning of the fourth would follow, mounted on a good horse, and arrive
in Virginia City the same evening. On my arrival my horse was
immediately put in charge of a rancher, or person who made the care of
horses a specialty. He would send it with a herd to a convenient grass
range, where it would feed in the care of herders night and day until
wanted. Then it was brought into town and delivered at the office of the
rancher. The order for a horse was given the night before it was wanted,
in order to have the animal ready the following morning.

George Ives, who turned out to be one of the most desperate of the gang
of robbers, was the rancher’s clerk at Virginia City. Whenever
application was made for a horse, unless the applicant was on his guard,
Ives could, by a careless inquiry, learn his destination. By
communicating this to his confederates, they could pursue and rob, or
kill the rider without delay or suspicion. To escape this system of
espionage it was my custom, when ready to leave for Bannack or
elsewhere, to send an order by a friend to the rancher or Ives,
requesting him to let the bearer have the horse to go to some point
which I designated, in an opposite direction from my actual destination.
The friend would receive and mount the horse, and ride out of town,
beyond observation, where I would meet him and go on my way. Thirty
journeys of this kind were safely made between Virginia City and Bannack
during the fall, none, however, without the precaution of carrying a
pair of revolvers in my cantinas, and a double-barrelled gun across my
saddle.

During a brief stay in Omaha several years ago, I met with Dr. Leavitt,
who was a resident of Bannack while Plummer dwelt there. He related the
following incident, which is repeated here, for the insight it affords
of Plummer’s malignancy.

“One night in October, 1863,” said the doctor, “I was walking along the
roadway of Main Street in Bannack. The moon, obscured by clouds, shed a
dim light, by which I could see for a few yards quite distinctly. As I
passed your boarding-house, my attention was attracted by a noise at my
left. I stopped, and on close observation saw a dark object under the
window. My curiosity was excited to know what it could be. Judge of my
surprise on approaching it to behold a man with a revolver in his hand,
on his knees at the window, peering into the room through a space of
less than an inch between the curtain and the window casing. I watched
him unobserved for some seconds. Disturbed by my approach, he sprang to
his feet and darted around the corner of the building—but not so rapidly
as to escape recognition.

“‘Why, Plummer,’ I exclaimed, ‘what in the world are you doing there?’

“Seeing that he was known, he came forward, laughing, and replied,

“‘I was trying to play a joke on my friend Langford. He and Gillette
board here, and I heard their voices.’

“I was puzzled to conceive what sort of a joke he was playing with a
loaded revolver, but thought I had better not be too curious to
ascertain. Plummer accompanied me home. He said that you and he were
great friends; that you had done him many favors, and there was no
person in the world he esteemed more highly. I thought nothing more of
the matter, until I heard that Plummer had threatened your life for
refusing to recommend his appointment as Deputy United States Marshal. I
had no doubt then, and have none now, that he was trying to get a sight
through the window for the purpose of shooting you. Your departure for