Roughing It
breast, and he reeled around forward and fell in front of the cask.
Gumbert then raised his gun and fired the second barrel, which missed
Reeder and entered the ground. At the time that this occurred, there
were a great many persons on the street in the vicinity, and a number of
them called out to Gumbert, when they saw him raise his gun, to “hold
on,” and “don’t shoot!” The cutting took place about ten o’clock and the
shooting about twelve. After the shooting the street was instantly
crowded with the inhabitants of that part of the town, some appearing
much excited and laughing—declaring that it looked like the “good old
times of ‘60.” Marshal Perry and officer Birdsall were near when the
shooting occurred, and Gumbert was immediately arrested and his gun
taken from him, when he was marched off to jail. Many persons who were
attracted to the spot where this bloody work had just taken place,
looked bewildered and seemed to be asking themselves what was to happen
next, appearing in doubt as to whether the killing mania had reached its
climax, or whether we were to turn in and have a grand killing spell,
shooting whoever might have given us offence. It was whispered around
that it was not all over yet—five or six more were to be killed before
night. Reeder was taken to the Virginia City Hotel, and doctors called
in to examine his wounds. They found that two or three balls had entered
his right side; one of them appeared to have passed through the
substance of the lungs, while another passed into the liver. Two balls
were also found to have struck one of his legs. As some of the balls
struck the cask, the wounds in Reeder’s leg were probably from these,
glancing downwards, though they might have been caused by the second
shot fired. After being shot, Reeder said when he got on his
feet—smiling as he spoke—“It will take better shooting than that to kill
me.” The doctors consider it almost impossible for him to recover, but
as he has an excellent constitution he may survive, notwithstanding the
number and dangerous character of the wounds he has received. The town
appears to be perfectly quiet at present, as though the late stormy
times had cleared our moral atmosphere; but who can tell in what quarter
clouds are lowering or plots ripening?
Reeder—or at least what was left of him—survived his wounds two days!
Nothing was ever done with Gumbert.
Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not know what a
palladium is, having never seen a palladium, but it is a good thing no
doubt at any rate. Not less than a hundred men have been murdered in
Nevada—perhaps I would be within bounds if I said three hundred—and as
far as I can learn, only two persons have suffered the death penalty
there. However, four or five who had no money and no political influence
have been punished by imprisonment—one languished in prison as much as
eight months, I think. However, I do not desire to be extravagant—it may
have been less.
However, one prophecy was verified, at any rate. It was asserted by the
desperadoes that one of their brethren (Joe McGee, a special policeman)
was known to be the conspirator chosen by lot to assassinate Williams;
and they also asserted that doom had been pronounced against McGee, and
that he would be assassinated in exactly the same manner that had been
adopted for the destruction of Williams—a prophecy which came true a
year later. After twelve months of distress (for McGee saw a fancied
assassin in every man that approached him), he made the last of many
efforts to get out of the country unwatched. He went to Carson and sat
down in a saloon to wait for the stage—it would leave at four in the
morning. But as the night waned and the crowd thinned, he grew uneasy,
and told the bar-keeper that assassins were on his track. The bar-keeper
told him to stay in the middle of the room, then, and not go near the
door, or the window by the stove. But a fatal fascination seduced him to
the neighborhood of the stove every now and then, and repeatedly the
bar-keeper brought him back to the middle of the room and warned him to
remain there. But he could not. At three in the morning he again
returned to the stove and sat down by a stranger. Before the bar-keeper
could get to him with another warning whisper, some one outside fired
through the window and riddled McGee’s breast with slugs, killing him
almost instantly. By the same discharge the stranger at McGee’s side
also received attentions which proved fatal in the course of two or
three days.
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CHAPTER L.
These murder and jury statistics remind me of a certain very
extraordinary trial and execution of twenty years ago; it is a scrap of
history familiar to all old Californians, and worthy to be known by
other peoples of the earth that love simple, straightforward justice
unencumbered with nonsense. I would apologize for this digression but
for the fact that the information I am about to offer is apology enough
in itself. And since I digress constantly anyhow, perhaps it is as well
to eschew apologies altogether and thus prevent their growing irksome.
Capt. Ned Blakely—that name will answer as well as any other fictitious
one (for he was still with the living at last accounts, and may not
desire to be famous)—sailed ships out of the harbor of San Francisco for
many years. He was a stalwart, warm-hearted, eagle-eyed veteran, who had
been a sailor nearly fifty years—a sailor from early boyhood. He was a
rough, honest creature, full of pluck, and just as full of hard-headed
simplicity, too. He hated trifling conventionalities—“business” was the
word, with him. He had all a sailor’s vindictiveness against the quips
and quirks of the law, and steadfastly believed that the first and last
aim and object of the law and lawyers was to defeat justice.
He sailed for the Chincha Islands in command of a guano ship. He had a
fine crew, but his negro mate was his pet—on him he had for years
lavished his admiration and esteem. It was Capt. Ned’s first voyage to
the Chinchas, but his fame had gone before him—the fame of being a man
who would fight at the dropping of a handkerchief, when imposed upon,
and would stand no nonsense. It was a fame well earned. Arrived in the
islands, he found that the staple of conversation was the exploits of
one Bill Noakes, a bully, the mate of a trading ship. This man had
created a small reign of terror there. At nine o’clock at night, Capt.
Ned, all alone, was pacing his deck in the starlight. A form ascended
the side, and approached him. Capt. Ned said:
“Who goes there?”
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“I’m Bill Noakes, the best man in the islands.”
“What do you want aboard this ship?”
“I’ve heard of Capt. Ned Blakely, and one of us is a better man than
’tother—I’ll know which, before I go ashore.”
“You’ve come to the right shop—I’m your man. I’ll learn you to come
aboard this ship without an _in_vite.”
He seized Noakes, backed him against the mainmast, pounded his face to a
pulp, and then threw him overboard.
Noakes was not convinced. He returned the next night, got the pulp
renewed, and went overboard head first, as before.
He was satisfied.
A week after this, while Noakes was carousing with a sailor crowd on
shore, at noonday, Capt. Ned’s colored mate came along, and Noakes tried
to pick a quarrel with him. The negro evaded the trap, and tried to get
away. Noakes followed him up; the negro began to run; Noakes fired on
him with a revolver and killed him. Half a dozen sea-captains witnessed
the whole affair. Noakes retreated to the small after-cabin of his ship,
with two other bullies, and gave out that death would be the portion of
any man that intruded there. There was no attempt made to follow the
villains; there was no disposition to do it, and indeed very little
thought of such an enterprise. There were no courts and no officers;
there was no government; the islands belonged to Peru, and Peru was far
away; she had no official representative on the ground; and neither had
any other nation.
However, Capt. Ned was not perplexing his head about such things. They
concerned him not. He was boiling with rage and furious for justice. At
nine o’clock at night he loaded a double-barreled gun with slugs, fished
out a pair of handcuffs, got a ship’s lantern, summoned his
quartermaster, and went ashore. He said:
“Do you see that ship there at the dock?”
“Ay-ay, sir.”
“It’s the Venus.”
“Ay-ay, sir.”
“You—you know _me_.”
“Ay-ay, sir.”
“Very well, then. Take the lantern. Carry it just under your chin. I’ll
walk behind you and rest this gun-barrel on your shoulder, p’inting
forward—so. Keep your lantern well up so’s I can see things ahead of you
good. I’m going to march in on Noakes—and take him—and jug the other
chaps. If you flinch—well, you know _me_.”
“Ay-ay, sir.”
In this order they filed aboard softly, arrived at Noakes’s den, the
quartermaster pushed the door open, and the lantern revealed the three
desperadoes sitting on the floor. Capt. Ned said:
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“I’m Ned Blakely. I’ve got you under fire. Don’t you move without
orders—any of you. You two kneel down in the corner; faces to the
wall—now. Bill Noakes, put these handcuffs on; now come up close.
Quartermaster, fasten ’em. All right. Don’t stir, sir. Quartermaster,
put the key in the outside of the door. Now, men, I’m going to lock you
two in; and if you try to burst through this door—well, you’ve heard of
_me_. Bill Noakes, fall in ahead, and march. All set. Quartermaster,
lock the door.”
Noakes spent the night on board Blakely’s ship, a prisoner under strict
guard. Early in the morning Capt. Ned called in all the sea-captains in
the harbor and invited them, with nautical ceremony, to be present on
board his ship at nine o’clock to witness the hanging of Noakes at the
yard-arm!
“What! The man has not been tried.”
“Of course he hasn’t. But didn’t he kill the nigger?”
“Certainly he did; but you are not thinking of hanging him without a
trial?”
“_Trial_! What do I want to try him for, if he killed the nigger?”
“Oh, Capt. Ned, this will _never_ do. Think how it will sound.”
“Sound be hanged! Didn’t he kill the nigger?”
“Certainly, certainly, Capt. Ned,—nobody denies that,—but—”
“Then I’m _going to hang him_, that’s all. Everybody I’ve talked to
talks just the same way you do. Everybody says he killed the nigger,
everybody knows he killed the nigger, and yet every lubber of you wants
him _tried_ for it. I don’t understand such bloody foolishness as that.
_Tried_! Mind you, I don’t object to trying him, if it’s got to be done
to give satisfaction; and I’ll be there, and chip in and help, too; but
put it off till afternoon—put it off till afternoon, for I’ll have my
hands middling full till after the burying—”
“Why, what do you mean? Are you going to _hang_ him any how—and try him
afterward?”
“Didn’t I say I was going to _hang_ him? I never saw such people as you.
What’s the difference? You ask a favor, and then you ain’t satisfied
when you get it. Before or after’s all one—_you_ know how the trial will
go. He killed the nigger. Say—I must be going. If your mate would like
to come to the hanging, fetch him along. I like him.”
There was a stir in the camp. The captains came in a body and pleaded
with Capt. Ned not to do this rash thing. They promised that they would
create a court composed of captains of the best character; they would
empanel a jury; they would conduct everything in a way becoming the
serious nature of the business in hand, and give the case an impartial
hearing and the accused a fair trial. And they said it would be murder,
and punishable by the American courts if he persisted and hung the
accused on his ship. They pleaded hard. Capt. Ned said: