Aden commenced a suit against Cline, the justice, for damages, and recovered a judgment of eight hundred dollars, which Cline was obliged to pay. Cline resigned his office. At Aden’s examination, Reuben Raymond had sworn to the identity of the ponies, which was disputed by nearly all the roughs in the expedition, and it was almost solely on his testimony that Aden was discharged. The “Opdyke gang” were very angry with him; and on the morning of April 3, 1865, a few days after the examination, while Raymond was employed in a stall in Opdyke’s stable, John C. Clark, a noted rough, stepped before the stall with his revolver in his hand, and commenced cursing Raymond. Opdyke and several of his associates, together with a number of good citizens, were standing near. Clark finally threatened to shoot Raymond.

“I am entirely unarmed,” said Raymond, at the same time pulling open his shirt bosom, “but if you wish to shoot me down like a dog, there is nothing to hinder you. Give me a chance, and I will fight you in any way you choose, though I have nothing against you.”

Clark covered Raymond for a moment or more, with his pistol, and then with an opprobrious epithet, said, “I will shoot you, anyway,” and, taking deliberate aim, fired, and killed Raymond on the spot. This murder produced the wildest excitement, and Clark, who had been immediately arrested, was taken out of the guard-house the second night afterwards, and hanged upon an impromptu gibbet between the town and the garrison. Threats of vengeance were publicly proclaimed by the “Opdyke gang,” Opdyke himself improving the occasion to tell several of the grand jury men, who had found the indictment already mentioned against him, that they would not live to walk the streets of Boise City many days more. It was also reported that the roughs intended to burn the city, and not leave a house standing.

The citizens, fully aroused to the dangers of the crisis, organized a night patrol. Every inhabitant of the city was armed, and all coöperated for the purpose of clearing the country of every suspected person in it. While plans were maturing for this purpose, the roughs became uneasy, and one after another began to disappear until but few remained. Opdyke took the alarm for his own safety, and on the twelfth of April, accompanied by John Dixon, a notorious confederate in crime, departed by the Rocky Bar road, and brought up at a cabin thirty miles distant. A party of Vigilantes followed in close pursuit. They captured him during the night, and conducting him ten miles farther on the road to Syrup Creek, hanged him under a shed between two vacant cabins, on the following morning. His companion Dixon, who was caught on the march, was hanged at the same time.

When this intelligence became known in Boise City, every suspicious character disappeared, and the vilest gang of ruffians in Idaho was effectually broken up. Opdyke had many friends, and was naturally a man of genial qualities, but he had become corrupted by the evil associations contracted in Idaho Territory.

It was believed by many, at the time of Opdyke’s execution, that he was hanged for his money by some of the employees of the Overland Stage Company. This, however, was a mistake in his case. The Vigilantes of Boise City had determined upon his death before he left the city, a measure they deemed necessary to rid the country of his associates, and establish peace in the community.

It was true, however, that some of the Overland Stage Company’s employees were justly suspected of robbery and murder. On one occasion, two miners from Boise City, returning to the States, indiscreetly exhibited a large quantity of gold dust at Gibson’s Ferry on Snake River, which excited the curiosity of some of the observers. They were arrested on a pretence of having spurious gold dust, and hanged by some half dozen of the stage company’s employees. Their bodies were burned, but no account was ever given of the gold dust. No one was deceived as to the character of this act. It was the cold-blooded, heartless murder for their money, of two honest miners who were returning to their homes with their hard-earned savings. This was the popular judgment.

CHAPTER XLVIII
A RIDE FOR LIFE

Crime, as an organized force in Montana, ceased with the execution of Plummer and his infamous band early in 1864. The perseverance with which they were pursued, and the swift punishment following their capture, caused the few who escaped either to leave the Territory or abstain from crime.

From July, 1864, till November, 1868, I was collector of internal revenue for Montana. The duties of the office necessitated repeated visits to many of the small gulches and outlying mining camps, accessible only by bridle paths. My horseback journeys over these ill-defined trails, unmarked by any sign of civilization, would aggregate many thousands of miles—and while such experiences were necessarily full of adventures, I regarded them as nearly free from actual peril until undeceived by the following incident: