



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,