Whiskey Bill was not given much chance for last words. He was hung from horseback, the noose being dropped down from a tree to his neck as he sat on a horse behind one of the
Vigilantes. "Good-by, Bill," was the remark of the latter, as he spurred his horse and left Bill hanging.
One of the most singular phenomena of these executions was that of Bill Hunter, who, while hanging by the neck, went through all the motions of drawing and firing his six-shooter six times. Whether the action was conscious or unconscious it is impossible to tell.
Bill Bunton resisted arrest and was pugnacious, of course declaring his innocence. At the last he showed great gameness. He was particular about the manner in which the knot of the rope was adjusted to his neck, seeming, as did many of these men, to dread any suffering while hanging. He asked if he might jump off the platform himself, and was told he might if he liked. "I care no more for hanging," he explained, "than I do for taking a drink of water, but I'd like to have my neck broken. I'd like to have a mountain three hundred feet high to jump off from. Now, I'll give you the time: One—two—three. Here goes!"
Chapter X
Joseph A. Slade—A Man with a Newspaper Reputation—Bad, but Not as Bad as Painted—Hero of the Overland Express Route—A Product of Courage Plus Whiskey, and the End of the Product.
One of the best-known desperadoes the West ever produced was Joseph A. Slade, agent of the Overland stage line on the central or mountain division, about 1860, and hence in charge of large responsibilities in a strip of country more than six hundred miles in extent, which possessed all the ingredients for trouble in plenty. Slade lived, in the heyday of his career, just about the time when men from the East were beginning to write about the newly discovered life of the West. Bret Harte had left his indelible stamp upon the literature of the land, and Mark Twain was soon to spread widely his impressions of life as seen in "Roughing It"; while
countless newspaper men and book writers were edging out and getting hearsay stories of things known at first hand by a very few careful and conscientious writers.