He threw me in the calaboose, promising to take me to Blackfoot the next day to start on my six months. He hired no Indians this time, but just locked the door and went back uptown, probably to look for George. I paced up and down the length of the calaboose, cursing my carelessness. About midnight there came a rap on the door.
“Are you in there, Kid?” It was Salt Chunk Mary. She passed in a small bottle of whisky and some sandwiches. I implored her to go over by the depot and try to find some bum that would break the lock and let me out.
“No use, Kid,” she said. “The town has been hostile ever since the convention. A bum can’t light here any more. I’ll try to get some gambler to do it.”
She hurried away. In an hour she came back alone, armed with a crowbar. She put the pointed end of it into the neck of the lock and with a mighty wrench twisted it off and threw the door open. I stepped out. That pale, light-fingered ghost, “The lady that’s known as Lou,” would have fainted in my arms. Not Mary. When I reached for her hand, she pushed me away.
“Don’t waste time thanking me. Here’s the coin for your stickers. I borrowed it from the girls. You’ve got to hurry; there’s a train leaving in ten minutes.”
While I was still pouring out my thanks to Mary she turned away, and I hastened to the railroad yards, where I hid myself till the train pulled in. I didn’t go near the depot to buy a ticket, but crawled under a coach and deposited myself on the rods. Before daylight I crawled out at Ogden and hiked straight out of the town. I waited at the first station out, and in a few hours got a train into Salt Lake, where George was waiting for me.
He had seen Judge Powers, who defended me when I ran away from the verdict of not guilty. The judge assured him that there was no claim on me and the worst I need fear was a charge of “vag” from some sore-head copper. I at once told him of my troubles at Pocatello and my delivery from the calaboose by Mary.
“You don’t have to tell me what a grand character she is, Kid. I know all about that. She’s righter than April rain. If you knew half what I know about her you’d have put a couple of slugs into Gold Tooth yourself. You probably thought I ‘smoked him off’ because I was full of ‘Hall’ (alcohol) and wanted to cut some crazy caper. I croaked him because he was slandering the best woman that ever stood in two shoes. I’m not lookin’ for a chance to kill anybody. I got my belly full of that in the war, an’ that ain’t all. No matter what they say, dead men do tell tales. Robbery and burglary are soon forgotten and outlawed, but when you leave a dead man behind you they’ve got the balance of your life to catch you and hang you. A couple of those bums could go into the Salvation Army ten years from now and get religion and hang me.
“I’ve packed a gun for thirty years, and every time I fired it I was in the wrong except, maybe, when I let that Gold Tooth have it. That’s because my business is wrong. But it don’t include murder and I won’t travel with anybody that deliberately shoots people.
“When the town ‘bull’ interferes with you at night shoot at him, of course, and shoot at him first; but don’t hit him. He thinks you’re tryin’ to kill him and that’s enough. He’ll go after reënforcements and you get away. If he shoots at you that’s just a common incident; if he hits you it’s a rare accident.