Many jarring and discordant incidents disfigured this flattering foreground in Slade’s border life, but there was only one which gave it a sanguine hue. That in all its parts, and from the very first, has been so tortured and perverted in the telling, that persons perfectly familiar with all its details do not hesitate to pronounce every published version a falsehood. I have the narrative from truthful men, personally familiar with all the facts.
Among the ranchemen with whom Slade early commenced to deal was one Jules Reni, a Canadian Frenchman. He was a representative man of his class, and that class embraced nearly all the people scattered along the road. They regarded him as their leader and adviser, and he was proud of the position. He espoused their quarrels with outsiders, and reconciled all differences occurring among themselves. In this way, he exercised the power of a chief over the class, and maintained a rustic dignity, which commanded respect within the sphere of its influence. Jules and Slade had frequent collisions, which generally originated in some real or supposed encroachment by the latter upon the dignity or importance of the former. They always arose from trivial causes, and were forgotten by Slade as soon as over; but Jules treasured them up until the account against his rival became too heavy to be borne. A serious quarrel, in which threats were exchanged, was the consequence. If Slade had treasured up any vicious memory of this difficulty, no evidence of it was apparent when he afterwards met Jules. They accosted each other with usual courtesy, and soon fell into a friendly conversation, in which others standing by participated. Both were seated at the time on the fence fronting the station. At length Jules left and entered his house, and a moment afterwards Slade followed. Slade was unarmed. He had gone but a few rods, when one of the men he had just left, in a tone of alarm, cried to him,
“Look out, Slade, Jules is going to shoot you!”
As Slade turned to obey the summons, he received the bullet from Jules’s revolver. Five shots from the pistol were fired in instant succession, and then Jules, who was standing in the door of his cabin, took a shotgun which was within reach, and emptied its contents into the body of Slade, who was facing him when he fell. Slade was carried into the station, and placed in a bunk, with bullets and buckshot to the number of thirteen lodged in his person. No one who witnessed the attack supposed he could survive an hour. Jules was so well satisfied that he was slain, that in a short time afterwards he said to some person near, in the hearing of Slade, “When he is dead, you can put him in one of these dry-goods boxes, and bury him.”
Slade rose in his bunk, and glaring out upon Jules, who was standing in front of the station, exclaimed with an oath, “I shall live long enough to wear one of your ears on my watch-guard. You needn’t trouble yourself about my burial.”
In the midst of the excitement occasioned by the shooting, the overland coach arrived, bringing the superintendent of the road. Finding Slade writhing in mortal agony, he, on hearing the nature of the assault, caused Jules to be arrested, and improvised a scaffold for his immediate execution. Three times was Jules drawn up by willing hands and strangled until he was black in the face. On letting him down the last time, the superintendent, upon his promise to leave the country, ordered his release. He left immediately.
Slade lingered for several weeks at the station, and finally went to St. Louis for treatment. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he returned to his division, with eight remaining bullets in his body. The only sentiment of all, except the personal friends of Jules, was that this attack upon Slade, as brutal as it was unprovoked, should be avenged. Slade must improve the first opportunity to kill Jules. This was deemed right and just. In no other way could he, in the parlance of the country, get even with him. Slade determined to kill Jules upon sight, but not to go out of his way to meet him. Indeed, he sent him word to that effect, and warned him against a return to his division.
Jules, in the meantime, had been buying and selling cattle in some parts of Colorado. Soon after Slade’s return to his division, Jules followed, for the ostensible purpose of getting some cattle that he owned, which were running at large; but his real object, as he everywhere boasted on his journey, was to kill Slade. This threat was circulated far and wide through the country, coupled with the announcement that Jules was on his return to the division to carry it into speedy execution. He exhibited a pistol of a peculiar pattern, as the instrument designed for Slade’s destruction.
Slade first heard of Jules’s approach and threat at Pacific Springs, the west end of his division, just as he was about leaving to return to Julesburg. At every station on that long route of six hundred miles, he was warned by different persons of the bloody purpose which Jules was returning to accomplish. Knowing the desperate character of the man with whom he had to deal, and that the threats he had made were serious, Slade resolved to counsel with the officers in command at Fort Laramie, and follow their advice. On his arrival at that post he laid the subject before them. They were perfectly familiar with former difficulties between Slade and Jules, and the treacherous attack of the latter upon the former. They advised him to secure the person of Jules, and kill him. Unless he did so, the chances were he would be killed himself; and in any event, there could be no peace on his division while Jules lived, as he was evidently determined to shoot him on sight. Slade had been informed that Jules had passed the preceding night at Bordeaux’s ranche, a stage station about twelve miles distant from the fort, and had repeated his threats, exhibited his pistol, and declared his intention of lying in wait at some point on the road until Slade should appear.
When Slade was told of this, he hesitated no longer to follow the advice he had received. Four men were sent on horseback in advance of him to capture Jules and disarm him. Soon after they left, Slade, in company with a friend, followed in the coach. Jules had left Bordeaux’s before his arrival, but the story of the threats he had uttered there, was confirmed by Bordeaux, who, when the coach departed, took a seat in it, carrying with him a small armory of guns and pistols. It was apparent that the old man, whose interest was with the winner in the fight, whichever he might be, was prepared to embrace his cause, in case of after disturbance.