Followed gambling at his regular calling, at Lewiston, Idaho in the winter of 1861-2. In the summer of 1862, he shot a man named Daniel Cagwell, without provocation. There was a general fracas at a ball, held on Copy-eye creek, near Walla Walla. Bunton was arrested; but made his escape from the officer, by jumping on a fast horse and riding off at full speed.
The first that was afterwards heard of him was that he turned up in this country. In person, Bunton was a large, good-looking man, about thirty years of age, and rather intelligent. He had been for some years on the Pacific coast, where he had lived as a sporting man and saloon keeper, He was absolutely fearless, but was still addicted to petty theft, as well as to the greater enormities of Road Agency and murder. His dying request, it will be remembered, was for a mountain to jump off, and his last words, as he jumped from the board, “Here goes it.”
Of Johnny Cooper we have already spoken. A word is necessary concerning the history of
ALICK CARTER
which forms a strong contrast to the others. It appears that, for several years this eminent member of Plummer’s band bore an excellent character in the West. He was a native of Ohio, but followed the trade of a packer in California and Oregon, maintaining a reputation for honor and honesty of the highest kind. Large sums of money were frequently entrusted to his care, for which he accounted to the entire satisfaction of his employers. He left the “other side” with an unstained reputation; but falling into evil company in Montana, he threw off all recollections of better days, and was one of the leading spirits of the gang of marauders that infested this Territory. It is sad to think that such a man should have ended his life as a felon, righteously doomed to death on the gallows.
CYRUS SKINNER
was a saloon-keeper in Idaho, and always bore a bad character. His reputation for dishonesty was well known, and in this country he was a blood-thirsty and malignant outlaw, without a redeeming quality. He was the main plotter of Magruder’s murder.
BILL HUNTER.
Probably not one of those who died for their connection with the Road Agent Band was more lamented than Hunter. His life was an alternation of hard, honest work, and gambling. That he robbed and assisted to murder a Mormon, and that he was a member of the gang, there can be no doubt; but it is certain that this was generally unknown, and his usual conduct was that of a kind-hearted man. He had many friends, and some of them still cherish his memory. He confessed his connection with the band, and the justness of his sentence just before his death. His escape from Virginia, through the pickets placed on the night of the 9th of January, 1864, was connived at by some of the Vigilantes, who could not be made to believe that he was guilty of the crimes laid to his charge.