Roughing It
settle. Several parties spoke to him on the subject; but to all such
inquiries he turned a deaf ear, being entirely absorbed in the
terrifying reflections on his own awful position. He never ceased his
entreaties for life, and to see his dear wife. The unfortunate lady
referred to, between whom and Slade there existed a warm affection, was
at this time living at their ranch on the Madison. She was possessed of
considerable personal attractions; tall, well-formed, of graceful
carriage, pleasing manners, and was, withal, an accomplished horsewoman.
A messenger from Slade rode at full speed to inform her of her husband’s
arrest. In an instant she was in the saddle, and with all the energy
that love and despair could lend to an ardent temperament and a strong
physique, she urged her fleet charger over the twelve miles of rough and
rocky ground that intervened between her and the object of her
passionate devotion.
Meanwhile a party of volunteers had made the necessary preparations for
the execution, in the valley traversed by the branch. Beneath the site
of Pfouts and Russell’s stone building there was a corral, the gate-
posts of which were strong and high. Across the top was laid a beam, to
which the rope was fastened, and a dry-goods box served for the
platform. To this place Slade was marched, surrounded by a guard,
composing the best armed and most numerous force that has ever appeared
in Montana Territory.
The doomed man had so exhausted himself by tears, prayers and
lamentations, that he had scarcely strength left to stand under the
fatal beam. He repeatedly exclaimed, “My God! my God! must I die? Oh, my
dear wife!”
On the return of the fatigue party, they encountered some friends of
Slade, staunch and reliable citizens and members of the committee, but
who were personally attached to the condemned. On hearing of his
sentence, one of them, a stout-hearted man, pulled out his handkerchief
and walked away, weeping like a child. Slade still begged to see his
wife, most piteously, and it seemed hard to deny his request; but the
bloody consequences that were sure to follow the inevitable attempt at a
rescue, that her presence and entreaties would have certainly incited,
forbade the granting of his request. Several gentlemen were sent for to
see him, in his last moments, one of whom (Judge Davis) made a short
address to the people; but in such low tones as to be inaudible, save to
a few in his immediate vicinity. One of his friends, after exhausting
his powers of entreaty, threw off his coat and declared that the
prisoner could not be hanged until he himself was killed. A hundred guns
were instantly leveled at him; whereupon he turned and fled; but, being
brought back, he was compelled to resume his coat, and to give a promise
of future peaceable demeanor.
Scarcely a leading man in Virginia could be found, though numbers of the
citizens joined the ranks of the guard when the arrest was made. All
lamented the stern necessity which dictated the execution.
Everything being ready, the command was given, “Men, do your duty,” and
the box being instantly slipped from beneath his feet, he died almost
instantaneously.
The body was cut down and carried to the Virginia Hotel, where, in a
darkened room, it was scarcely laid out, when the unfortunate and
bereaved companion of the deceased arrived, at headlong speed, to find
that all was over, and that she was a widow. Her grief and heart-
piercing cries were terrible evidences of the depth of her attachment
for her lost husband, and a considerable period elapsed before she could
regain the command of her excited feelings.
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There is something about the desperado-nature that is wholly
unaccountable—at least it looks unaccountable. It is this. The true
desperado is gifted with splendid courage, and yet he will take the most
infamous advantage of his enemy; armed and free, he will stand up before
a host and fight until he is shot all to pieces, and yet when he is
under the gallows and helpless he will cry and plead like a child. Words
are cheap, and it is easy to call Slade a coward (all executed men who
do not “die game” are promptly called cowards by unreflecting people),
and when we read of Slade that he “had so exhausted himself by tears,
prayers and lamentations, that he had scarcely strength left to stand
under the fatal beam,” the disgraceful word suggests itself in a
moment—yet in frequently defying and inviting the vengeance of banded
Rocky Mountain cut-throats by shooting down their comrades and leaders,
and never offering to hide or fly, Slade showed that he was a man of
peerless bravery. No coward would dare that. Many a notorious coward,
many a chicken-livered poltroon, coarse, brutal, degraded, has made his
dying speech without a quaver in his voice and been swung into eternity
with what looked liked the calmest fortitude, and so we are justified in
believing, from the low intellect of such a creature, that it was not
_moral_ courage that enabled him to do it. Then, if moral courage is not
the requisite quality, what could it have been that this stout-hearted
Slade lacked?—this bloody, desperate, kindly-mannered, urbane gentleman,
who never hesitated to warn his most ruffianly enemies that he would
kill them whenever or wherever he came across them next! I think it is a
conundrum worth investigating.
CHAPTER XII.
Just beyond the breakfast-station we overtook a Mormon emigrant train of
thirty-three wagons; and tramping wearily along and driving their herd
of loose cows, were dozens of coarse-clad and sad-looking men, women and
children, who had walked as they were walking now, day after day for
eight lingering weeks, and in that time had compassed the distance our
stage had come in _eight days and three hours_—seven hundred and ninety-
eight miles! They were dusty and uncombed, hatless, bonnetless and
ragged, and they did look so tired!
After breakfast, we bathed in Horse Creek, a (previously) limpid,
sparkling stream—an appreciated luxury, for it was very seldom that our
furious coach halted long enough for an indulgence of that kind. We
changed horses ten or twelve times in every twenty-four hours—changed
mules, rather—six mules—and did it nearly every time in _four minutes_.
It was lively work. As our coach rattled up to each station six
harnessed mules stepped gayly from the stable; and in the twinkling of
an eye, almost, the old team was out, and the new one in and we off and
away again.
During the afternoon we passed Sweetwater Creek, Independence Rock,
Devil’s Gate and the Devil’s Gap. The latter were wild specimens of
rugged scenery, and full of interest—_we were in the heart of the Rocky
Mountains, now_. And we also passed by “Alkali” or “Soda Lake,” and we
woke up to the fact that our journey had stretched a long way across the
world when the driver said that the Mormons often came there from Great
Salt Lake City to haul away saleratus. He said that a few days gone by
they had shoveled up enough pure saleratus from the ground (it was a
_dry_ lake) to load two wagons, and that when they got these two wagons-
loads of a drug that cost them nothing, to Salt Lake, they could sell it
for twenty-five cents a pound.
In the night we sailed by a most notable curiosity, and one we had been
hearing a good deal about for a day or two, and were suffering to see.
This was what might be called a natural ice-house. It was August, now,
and sweltering weather in the daytime, yet at one of the stations the
men could scape the soil on the hill-side under the lee of a range of
boulders, and at a depth of six inches cut out pure blocks of ice—hard,
compactly frozen, and clear as crystal!
Toward dawn we got under way again, and presently as we sat with raised
curtains enjoying our early-morning smoke and contemplating the first
splendor of the rising sun as it swept down the long array of mountain
peaks, flushing and gilding crag after crag and summit after summit, as
if the invisible Creator reviewed his gray veterans and they saluted
with a smile, we hove in sight of South Pass City. The hotel-keeper, the
postmaster, the blacksmith, the mayor, the constable, the city marshal
and the principal citizen and property holder, all came out and greeted
us cheerily, and we gave him good day. He gave us a little Indian news,
and a little Rocky Mountain news, and we gave him some Plains
information in return. He then retired to his lonely grandeur and we
climbed on up among the bristling peaks and the ragged clouds. South
Pass City consisted of four log cabins, one of which was unfinished, and
the gentleman with all those offices and titles was the chiefest of the
ten citizens of the place. Think of hotel-keeper, postmaster,
blacksmith, mayor, constable, city marshal and principal citizen all
condensed into one person and crammed into one skin. Bemis said he was
“a perfect Allen’s revolver of dignities.” And he said that if he were
to die as postmaster, or as blacksmith, or as postmaster and blacksmith
both, the people might stand it; but if he were to die all over, it
would be a frightful loss to the community.
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Two miles beyond South Pass City we saw for the first time that
mysterious marvel which all Western untraveled boys have heard of and
fully believe in, but are sure to be astounded at when they see it with
their own eyes, nevertheless—banks of snow in dead summer time. We were
now far up toward the sky, and knew all the time that we must presently
encounter lofty summits clad in the “eternal snow” which was so common
place a matter of mention in books, and yet when I did see it glittering
in the sun on stately domes in the distance and knew the month was
August and that my coat was hanging up because it was too warm to wear
it, I was full as much amazed as if I never had heard of snow in August
before. Truly, “seeing is believing”—and many a man lives a long life
through, thinking he believes certain universally received and well
established things, and yet never suspects that if he were confronted by
those things once, he would discover that he did not really believe them
before, but only thought he believed them.
In a little while quite a number of peaks swung into view with long
claws of glittering snow clasping them; and with here and there, in the
shade, down the mountain side, a little solitary patch of snow looking
no larger than a lady’s pocket-handkerchief but being in reality as
large as a “public square.”
And now, at last, we were fairly in the renowned SOUTH PASS, and
whirling gayly along high above the common world. We were perched upon
the extreme summit of the great range of the Rocky Mountains, toward
which we had been climbing, patiently climbing, ceaselessly climbing,
for days and nights together—and about us was gathered a convention of
Nature’s kings that stood ten, twelve, and even thirteen thousand feet
high—grand old fellows who would have to stoop to see Mount Washington,
in the twilight. We were in such an airy elevation above the creeping
populations of the earth, that now and then when the obstructing crags
stood out of the way it seemed that we could look around and abroad and
contemplate the whole great globe, with its dissolving views of
mountains, seas and continents stretching away through the mystery of
the summer haze.
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As a general thing the Pass was more suggestive of a valley than a
suspension bridge in the clouds—but it strongly suggested the latter at
one spot. At that place the upper third of one or two majestic purple
domes projected above our level on either hand and gave us a sense of a
hidden great deep of mountains and plains and valleys down about their