



Produced by David Widger





                              ROUGHING IT

                             by Mark Twain

                                 1880

                                Part 2.




CHAPTER XI.

And sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did hear him again.
News came to the Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Montana
(whither Slade had removed from Rocky Ridge) had hanged him.  I find an
account of the affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a paragraph
from in the last chapter--"The Vigilantes of Montana; being a Reliable
Account of the Capture, Trial and Execution of Henry Plummer's Notorious
Road Agent Band: By Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, Virginia City, M.T."
Mr. Dimsdale's chapter is well worth reading, as a specimen of how the
people of the frontier deal with criminals when the courts of law prove
inefficient.  Mr. Dimsdale makes two remarks about Slade, both of which
are accurately descriptive, and one of which is exceedingly picturesque:
"Those who saw him in his natural state only, would pronounce him to be a
kind husband, a most hospitable host and a courteous gentleman; on the
contrary, those who met him when maddened with liquor and surrounded by a
gang of armed roughs, would pronounce him a fiend incarnate."  And this:
"From Fort Kearney, west, he was feared a great deal more than the
almighty."  For compactness, simplicity and vigor of expression, I will
"back" that sentence against anything in literature.  Mr. Dimsdale's
narrative is as follows.  In all places where italics occur, they are
mine:

      After the execution of the five men on the 14th of January, the
      Vigilantes considered that their work was nearly ended.  They had
      freed the country of highwaymen and murderers to a great extent, and
      they determined that in the absence of the regular civil authority
      they would establish a People's Court where all offenders should be
      tried by judge and jury.  This was the nearest approach to social
      order that the circumstances permitted, and, though strict legal
      authority was wanting, yet the people were firmly determined to
      maintain its efficiency, and to enforce its decrees.  It may here be
      mentioned that the overt act which was the last round on the fatal
      ladder leading to the scaffold on which Slade perished, was the
      tearing in pieces and stamping upon a writ of this court, followed
      by his arrest of the Judge Alex. Davis, by authority of a presented
      Derringer, and with his own hands.

      J. A. Slade was himself, we have been informed, a Vigilante; he
      openly boasted of it, and said he knew all that they knew.  He was
      never accused, or even suspected, of either murder or robbery,
      committed in this Territory (the latter crime was never laid to his
      charge, in any place); but that he had killed several men in other
      localities was notorious, and his bad reputation in this respect was
      a most powerful argument in determining his fate, when he was
      finally arrested for the offence above mentioned.  On returning from
      Milk River he became more and more addicted to drinking, until at
      last it was a common feat for him and his friends to "take the
      town."  He and a couple of his dependents might often be seen on one
      horse, galloping through the streets, shouting and yelling, firing
      revolvers, etc.  On many occasions he would ride his horse into
      stores, break up bars, toss the scales out of doors and use most
      insulting language to parties present.  Just previous to the day of
      his arrest, he had given a fearful beating to one of his followers;
      but such was his influence over them that the man wept bitterly at
      the gallows, and begged for his life with all his power.  It had
      become quite common, when Slade was on a spree, for the shop-keepers
      and citizens to close the stores and put out all the lights; being
      fearful of some outrage at his hands.  For his wanton destruction of
      goods and furniture, he was always ready to pay, when sober, if he
      had money; but there were not a few who regarded payment as small
      satisfaction for the outrage, and these men were his personal
      enemies.

      From time to time Slade received warnings from men that he well knew
      would not deceive him, of the certain end of his conduct.  There was
      not a moment, for weeks previous to his arrest, in which the public
      did not expect to hear of some bloody outrage.  The dread of