“Why do you single us out, when there are others more boisterous?”
Porter waited for no further provocation, but drawing and cocking his revolver with one hand, and seizing the soldier nearest to him with the other, he dragged him ignominiously into the circle where he was standing, ordering the deputy city marshal and Bob and his friends to assist in arresting him. The soldiers offered resistance. An immediate mêlée was the consequence. The women and children in the audience screamed in affright. The other soldiers present rushed with drawn pistols to the rescue of their comrade. The one in the gallery sprang upon one of the officers with the ferocity of a wild beast. Cherokee Bob with a pistol in one hand and a bowie-knife in the other, his voice wildly ringing above all other sounds, was in his true element. More than a dozen pistol shots followed in quick succession. Two of the soldiers were killed, and others fearfully mangled. Porter and his deputy assistant were each shot through a leg, the latter crippled for life. The work of blood was progressing, and but for the interference of an officer of the garrison, would have ended only with the death of the assassins.
The next day the soldiers appealed to their commanding officer for redress. He ordered those of them engaged in the affray to be placed under arrest, and dismissed the subject from his thoughts. Indignant at this unexpected treatment, about fifty of the soldiers armed themselves, and marched into town, with the determination to capture and hang Cherokee Bob, whom they knew to be the chief mover of the murderous assault. Disavowing all riotous intentions they informed the citizens of their design and commenced a thorough search for the murderer. He, meanwhile, fearful of their revenge, eluded them by leaving the town before the dawn of morning on a stolen horse, for Lewiston.
The year before his appearance in Walla Walla, Ridgely was living in Sacramento. During his sojourn there he acquired notoriety for his thievish and villainous propensities. One of the police corps, detecting him in the commission of a larceny, arrested him. He was convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail. He vowed revenge against Gilchrist the policeman, but on his release fled to the gold mines. Soon after his arrival at Walla Walla he fell in with his old enemy, and secretly renewed the determination to take his life. Calling upon a friend to accompany him, he boldly entered a saloon where he knew Gilchrist to be and fired several shots at him. Gilchrist fell at the first fire. Ridgely, believing he had killed him, left the saloon, saying as he went, “I have thrown a load off my mind, and now feel easy.” Gilchrist was badly wounded, but recovered. Ridgely, escaping arrest on the night of the assault, crossed the river into Oregon the next day, beyond the jurisdiction of the authorities of Walla Walla, which was in Washington Territory. Thence he went to Lewiston and joined Plummer.
Cherokee Bob and Ridgely being out of the way, Charley Harper, as next in rank on the scale of villainous preferment, became the Walla Walla chief.
CHAPTER V
CHEROKEE BOB
Intelligence of the discovery in 1861 of extensive placers on the head waters of Salmon River, excelling in richness any former locations, had been circulated through all the border towns during the following Winter. The excitement consequent thereon was intense. Such was the impatience of the people to effect an early arrival there that many left Walla Walla and Lewiston in mid-winter, and on their way thither perished in the snows which engorged the mountain passes. Others, more cautious, awaited the coming of warm weather, and made the journey,—tedious, difficult, and dangerous at best,—with comparative safety. Among the latter number were Charley Harper and his band of brigands. Mounted on strong, fleet horses which they had acquired during the winter, the criminal cavalcade with its chief at the head dashed up the river valley, insulting, threatening, or robbing every one so unfortunate as to fall in their way. Of the number prominent in the riotous column were Peoples, English, Scott, and Brockie—men whose deeds of villainy have blackened the criminal records of nearly all the larger cities of the Pacific slope. With none of the magnanimity which characterized Joaquin Murieta and the earlier brigands of California, and with all their recklessness of crime and murder, a meaner, baser, more contemptible band of ruffians perhaps never before disgraced the annals of the race. No crime was too atrocious for them to commit, no act of shame or wantonness was uncongenial to their grovelling natures. They were as totally depraved as a long and unchecked career of every variety of criminal indulgence could make them. Afraid of nothing but the law, and not afraid of that in these new and unorganized communities, they were little else than devils incarnate. Insensible to all appeals for mercy, and ever acting upon the cautious maxim that “dead men tell no tales,” the only chance for escape from death for those whom they assaulted was in their utter inability to do them injury. Human life regarded as an obstacle to their designs, was of no more importance than the blowing up of a safe, or any other act which stood between them and their prey. Of course it was impossible that such a band of desperadoes should pass over the long and desolate route from Walla Walla to Florence without adventure.
On the second or third day after leaving Walla Walla, when nearing Florence, they met a company consisting of five men and a boy of sixteen, who were on their way to a neighboring camp. The brigands surrounded them, and with cocked pistols well aimed, gave the usual order, “Throw up your hands.” This order being obeyed, two of them dismounted to search the persons of their victims for treasure, the others meanwhile covering them with their revolvers. Five purses, containing amounts varying from fifty to five hundred dollars, were taken from them. The boy was overlooked, and had seated himself on a granite bowlder by the roadside.
Scott, as he tells the story himself, approached him more from curiosity than expectation, when the following conversation ensued:
“Come,” said Scott, addressing him, “draw your weasel now.”