WAL. HENDERSON.
In one of the busy little mining camps just over the range in New Mexico there prowled around, about twenty-five years ago, a notorious character whose life was made up of desperate adventures, and whose tragic death, which is the subject of this sketch, illustrates the inevitable fate of the average border bully.
Wal. Henderson was born and "raised"—as he termed it—in Missouri. He came over the mountains into the New Mexico mines from Colorado soon after the first discovery of gold in the Moreno hills, where he staked off a claim in Humbug Gulch, and commenced working in an apparently honest way. He was a rough, illiterate fellow, possessing the physique of a giant, courageous as a she-grizzly with cubs, and such a dead shot with his revolver that he soon became a terror to the whole mountain population. He was a desperado in its fullest sense, without one redeeming quality, except that he was kind to his dog, a wicked-looking cur, fit companion for such a surly master.
WAL. HENDERSON.
Any more intercourse with Wal. than was absolutely necessary was carefully avoided by every one, and the idea of getting into a dispute with him—who would rather shoot than eat—never entered the heads of those who worked claims in the vicinity; so that, virtually, he commanded the respect of a king. One afternoon Wal. was seized with a desire to start off on a little prospecting tour to another portion of the range, where he suspected the existence of a quartz lead. He left his claim in the "Gulch" only partially opened, never dreaming for an instant that anyone would have the temerity to jump it in his absence, after they had discovered that he owned it; which he took good care they could easily learn, for before he went he asked one of his more educated neighboring miners to "come over and cut his name" on a dead pine stump that stood near the mouth of his pit.
This friend was nothing loth to oblige his surly comrade, so just after dinner he came over, and with his keen bowie-knife slashed out a huge
"Wal henDerSoN his KLaime"
on the dead stump.