It seemed as if fate had decreed the death of Bill Hunter. He was a man of dauntless courage, and would have faced a hundred men to the last, being a perfect desperado when roused, though ordinarily peaceful in demeanor. At his capture he was as weak as a child, and had scarcely strength to ask for what he wanted.
The only remarkable circumstance attending the return journey was the inconvenience and pain caused by the reflection of the sun’s rays from the snow. It produced temporary blindness, and was only relieved by blacking their faces. Riding late at night, one of the horsemen dismounted, with a view of easing his steed, which was tired with the long march,and walked some distance by his side. On getting again into the saddle, he accidentally discharged his gun, which was slung muzzle down, by his side. The charge passed down the leg of his boot, between the counter and the lining, lodging an ounce ball and six buckshot, in the heel. All started at the sudden flash and report. The man himself believed that his foot was shot to pieces, and they spurred forward at hot speed, for the next Ranch, where an examination revealed the above state of facts, much to the consolation of the excited mind of the owner of the boot. He was wounded only in spirit, and reached home safely.
One of the Vigilantes “bagged” a relic. He had promised to bring back a token of having seen Bill Hunter, either dead or alive, and, accordingly, while talking to him at the fire, he managed to detach a button from his coat, which he fetched home as he had promised.
Some days after, men who were hauling wood discovered the body, and determined to give it burial. It was necessary to get the corpse over a snow drift; so they tied a rope to the heels and essayed to drag it up; but finding that this was the wrong way of the grain, as they said, they replaced the noose round the neck, and thus having pulled him over, they finally consigned to mother earth the last of Henry Plummer’s Band.
Bill Hunter was, we have said the last of the old Road Agent band that met death at the hands of the Committee. He was executed on the 3d of February, 1864. There was now no openly organized force of robbers in the Territory, and the future acts of the Committee were confined to taking measures for the maintenance of the public tranquility and the punishment of those guilty of murder, robbery and other high crimes and misdemeanors against the welfare of the inhabitants of Montana.
On looking back at the dreadful state of society which necessitated the organization of the Vigilantes, and on reading these pages, many will learn for the first time the deep debt of gratitude which they owe to that just and equitable body of self-denying and gallant men. It was a dreadful and a disgusting duty that devolved upon them; but it was a duty, and they did it. Far less worthy actions have been rewarded by the thanks of Congress, and medals glitter on many a bosom, whose owner won them, lying flat behind a hillock, out of range of the enemy’s fire. The Vigilantes, for the sake of their country encountered popular dislike, the envenomed hatred of the bad, and the cold toleration of some of the unwise good. Their lives they held in their hands. “All’s well that ends well.” Montana is saved, and they saved it, earning the blessings of future generations, whether they receive them or not. Our next chapter will record the execution of the renowned Capt. J. A. Slade, of whom more good and evil stories have been told than would make a biography for the seven champions of Christendom, and concerning whose life and character there have been more contradictory opinions expressed, than have been uttered for or against any other individual that has figured in the annals of the Rocky Mountains.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE ARREST AND EXECUTION OF CAPTAIN J. A. SLADE WITH A SHORT ACCOUNT OF HIS PREVIOUS CAREER.
Some write him hero, some a very knave;
Curses and tears are mingled at his grave.—Anon.
J. A. Slade, or, as he was often called, Captain Slade, was raised in Clinton County, Ill., and was a member of a highly respectable family. He bore a good character for several years in that place. The acts which have given so wide a celebrity to his name, were performed especially on the Overland Line, of which he was, for years, an official. Reference to these matters will be made in a subsequent part of this chapter.
Captain J. A. Slade came to Virginia City in the Spring of 1863. He was a man gifted with the power of making money, and, when free from the influence of alcoholic stimulants, which seemed to reverse his nature, and to change a kind hearted and intelligent gentleman into a reckless demon, no man in the Territory had a greater faculty of attracting the favorable notice of even strangers, and in spite of the wild lawlessness which characterized his frequent spells of intoxication, he had many, very many friends whom no commission of crime itself could detach from his personal companionship. Another, and less desirable class of friends were attracted by his very recklessness. There are probably a thousand individuals in the West possessing a correct knowledge of the leading incidents of a career that terminated at the gallows, who still speak of Slade as a perfect gentleman, and who not only lament his death, but talk in the highest terms of his character, and pronounce his execution a murder. One way of accounting for the diversity of opinion regarding Slade is sufficiently obvious. Those who saw him in his natural state only, would pronounce him to be a kind husband, a most hospitable host and a courteous gentleman. On the contrary, those who met him when maddened with liquor and surrounded by a gang of armed roughs, would pronounce him a fiend incarnate.