No immediate investigation was made of the circumstances of this affray. It was thought by many that Plummer merely anticipated Cleveland’s intention by firing first. Shooting of pistols and duelling were so common as of themselves to excite no attention. Many bloody encounters took place of which no record has been preserved, and which at the time were regarded as very proper settlements of difficulties between the parties.
A few incidents as illustrative of the customs of a mining camp will not be out of place in this immediate connection. On one occasion during the winter a quarrel sprung up between George Ives and George Carrhart in the main street. After a long wordy war interlarded with much profanity and various opprobrious epithets, Ives ran into a near saloon for his pistol, exclaiming, “I will shoot you.” Carrhart followed him and both reappeared at the door of the saloon a moment thereafter, each armed with a revolver. Facing each other upon the instant, both parties raised their pistols and fired without effect. After a second fire with no better effect, both parties walked rapidly backwards till they were widely separated, at the same time firing upon each other. Ives having emptied his revolver, stood perfectly still while Carrhart took deliberate aim and shot him in the groin, the ball passing through his body, inflicting a severe wound. Soon afterwards they reconciled their difficulties, and Ives lived with Carrhart on his ranche the remainder of the winter.
Many of the early emigrants arrived at Bannack so late in the fall that they could provide themselves with no better shelter from the weather during the winter than was afforded by their wagons. Of this number were Dr. Biddle and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Short, and their hired man from Minnesota. While seated around their camp-fire one dismal afternoon, engaged in conversation with Mr. J. M. Castner, a bullet whizzed so near the ear of Castner that he felt its sting for several days. Castner ascertained that it was fired by one Cy. Skinner, a rough, who excused himself with the plea that he thought they were Indians, and by way of amends invited Dr. Biddle and Castner to drink with him. Castner had the good taste to decline.
The very composition of the society of Bannack at the time was such as to excite suspicion in all minds. Outside of their immediate acquaintances, men knew not whom to trust. They were in the midst of a people which had come from all parts of this country and from many of the nations of the Old World. Laws which could not be executed were no better than none. A people, however disposed to the preservation of order and punishment of crimes, was powerless for either so long as every man distrusted his neighbor. The robbers, united by a bond of sympathetic atrocity, assumed the right to control the affairs of the camp by the bloody code. No one was safe. The miner fortunate enough to accumulate a few thousands, the merchant whose business gave evidence of success, the saloon-keeper whose patronage was supposed to be productive, were all marked as victims by these lawless adventurers. If one of them needed clothing, ammunition, or food, he obtained it on a credit which no one dared refuse, and settled it by threatening to shoot the person bold enough to ask for payment. Such a condition of society, as all foresaw, must sooner or later terminate in disaster to the lovers of law and order or to the villains who depredated upon them. Which were the stronger? The roughs knew their power, but their antagonists, separately hedged about by suspicion as indiscriminate as it was inflexible, knew not how to establish confidence in each other upon which to base an effective opposition. Meantime the carnival of crime was progressing. Scarcely a day passed unsignalled by outrage or murder. The numerous tenants of the little graveyard had all died by violence. People walked the streets in fear.
This suspense was at last broken by a murder of unprovoked, heartless atrocity, which the people felt it would be more criminal in them to overlook than it was in the perpetrators to commit. In January, 1863, that notorious scoundrel, Charley Reeves, bought a squaw from the Sheep Eater tribe of Bannack. She soon fled from him to her friends to escape his abuse. The tepee was located on an elevation south of that portion of the town known as “Yankee Flat,” a few rods in rear of the street. Reeves went after her. Finding her deaf to persuasion, he employed violence to force her return to his camp. An old chief interfered and thrust Reeves unceremoniously from the tepee. Burning with resentment, Reeves and Moore fired into the tepee the next evening, wounding one of the Indians. They then returned to town, where they were joined by William Mitchell, with whom they counter-marched, each firing into the tepee, and this time killing the old chief, a lame Indian, a papoose, and a Frenchman by the name of Cazette, who had come to the tepee to learn the cause of the first shot. Two other persons who had been influenced by similar curiosity were badly wounded. When the murderers were afterwards told that they had killed white men, Moore with a profusion of profane appellations said “they had no business there.”
CHAPTER XVI
MOORE AND REEVES
Alarmed at the indignation which this brutal deed had enkindled in the community, Moore and Reeves, at a late hour the same night, fled on foot in the direction of Rattlesnake. They were preceded by Plummer, who it was supposed had gone to provide means for their protection. He, however, afterwards asserted that he left through fear that in the momentary excitement the people would hang him for shooting Cleveland.
A mass meeting of the citizens was held the next morning, and a cordon of guards appointed to prevent the escape of the ruffians. When it was discovered that they had gone, on a call for volunteers to pursue them, Messrs. Lear, Higgins, Rockwell, and Davenport immediately followed on their track. The weather was intensely cold. The route of the pursuers lay over a lofty mountain range covered with snow to a great depth. After riding as rapidly as possible, they came up with the fugitives at a distance of twelve miles from town. They had taken refuge in a dense thicket of willows on the bank of the Rattlesnake. Being challenged to surrender, they peremptorily refused. Pointing their pistols with well-directed aim at the approaching party, and interlarding their discourse with a flood of oaths, they ordered them to advance no farther on peril of their lives. The advantage was on the side of the robbers, and they could easily have shot down every one of their pursuers. A parley ensued. The position of both parties was fully discussed. The conviction that it was equally impossible for the pursuers to effect a capture, and for the ruffians to escape such a pursuit as would be made if they did not return, induced the latter to agree to a surrender, upon the express condition that they should be tried by a jury. The pursuing party gave a ready assent to this arrangement, and the fugitives returned in their custody to town.
Plummer was put upon his trial immediately. While that was progressing a messenger was sent to Godfrey’s Cañon, ten miles distant, to summon Mr. Godfrey and the writer, who, with others, were erecting a saw-mill there. Before our arrival at midnight, Plummer was acquitted, no doubt being entertained, on presentation of the evidence, that he had killed Cleveland in self-defence. Several witnesses testified that they had on various occasions heard Cleveland threaten to shoot Plummer on sight.
At a late hour the people separated with the purpose of assembling for the trial of Moore, Reeves, and Mitchell early the next morning. Day broke clear and cold. All work was suspended in the gulch, stores and hotels were abandoned, and the entire population, numbering at least four hundred persons, assembled in and about the large log building which had been designated as the place of trial. Every man was armed, some with rifles and shotguns, others with pistols and knives. The friends of the prisoners gave free utterance to threats, which they accompanied with much profane assumption of superior power and many defiant demonstrations. Pistols were flourished and discharged, oaths and epithets freely bestowed upon the citizens, and whatever vehemence of gesture and expression could do to intimidate the people, was adopted. Amid all this bluster it was apparent from the first that the current of popular opinion set strongly against the prisoners. There was an air of quiet determination manifested in every movement preparatory for the trial. The citizens were ready for an outbreak, and the least indication in that direction would have been the signal for a bloody and decisive battle. It is not improbable that an attempt at rescue was prevented by the presence of the overpowering force of armed and indignant citizens.