The headquarters of the marauders was Rattlesnake Ranche. Plummer often visited it, and the robbers used to camp, with their comrades, in little wakiups above and below it, watching, and ready for fight, flight or plunder. Two rods in front of this building was a sign post, at which they used to practice with their revolvers. They were capital shots. Plummer was the quickest hand with his revolver of any man in the mountains. He could draw the pistol and discharge the five loads in three seconds. The post was riddled with holes, and was looked upon as quite a curiosity, until it was cut down, in the summer of 1863.
Another favorite resort of the gang was Dempsey’s Cottonwood Ranche. The owner knew the character of the robbers, but had no connection with them; and, in those days, a man’s life would not have been worth fifteen minutes purchase, if the possessor had been foolish enough even to hint at his knowledge of their doings. Daley’s, at Ramshorn Gulch, and ranches or wakiups on the Madison, the Jefferson, Wisconsin Creek, and Mill Creek, were also constantly occupied by members of the band.
By discoveries of the bodies of the victims, the confessions of the murderers before execution, and reliable information sent to the Committee, it was found that one hundred and two people had been certainly killed by those miscreants in various places, and it was believed, on the best information, that scores of unfortunates had been murdered and buried, whose remains were never discovered, nor their fate definitely ascertained. All that was known, was that they started, with greater or less sums of money, for various places, and were never heard of again.
CHAPTER V.
THE DARK DAYS OF MONTANA.
“Will all Neptune’s Ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand?”—Macbeth.
Henry Plummer, a sketch of whose previous career will appear in a subsequent part of this narrative, came to Montana Territory from Orofino. He and Reeves had there got into a difficulty with another man, and had settled the matter in the way usual in the trade—that is to say, they shot him.
Plummer—who, it seems, had for a long time contemplated a visit to the States—made at once for the River, intending to go down by boat; but finding that he was too late, he came back to Gold Creek, and there met Jack Cleveland, an old acquaintance, and former partner in crime. They made arrangements to pass the winter together at Sun River Farm. Plummer was to attend to the chores about the house, and Jack Cleveland was to get the wood. The worthy couple true to their instincts, did not long remain in harmony, but quarrelled about a young lady, whom Plummer afterwards married. Neither would leave, unless the other went also, and at last they both started, in company, for Bannack.
This town originated from the “Grasshopper Diggings,” which were first discovered in the month of July, by John White and a small party of prospectors, on the Grasshopper Creek, a tributary of the Beaverhead. The discoverer, together with Rodolph Dorsett, was murdered by Charley Kelly, in the month of December, 1863, near the Milk Ranche, on the road from Virginia City to Helena. Wash Stapleton and his party came in a short time after, and were soon joined by others, among whom were W. B. Dance, S. T. Hauser, James Morley, Drury Underwood, F. M. Thomson, N. P. Langford, James Fergus, John Potter, Judge Hoyt and Dr. Hoyt, Chas. St. Clair, David Thompson, Buz Caven, Messrs. Burchett, Morelle, Harby, J. M. Castner, Pat Bray and brother, Sturges, Col. McLean, R. C. Knox, and other well known citizens of Montana. The name, “Bannack,” was given to the settlement, from the Bannack Indians, the lords of the soil. It was the first “mining camp” of any importance, discovered on the eastern slope of the Mountains, and as the stories of its wonderful richness went abroad, hundreds of scattered prospectors flocked in, and before the following Spring, the inhabitants numbered upwards of a thousand.
It is probable that there never was a mining town of the same size that contained more desperadoes and lawless characters, than did Bannack, during the winter of 1862-3. While a majority of the citizens were of the sterling stock, which has ever furnished the true American pioneers, there were great numbers of the most desperate class of roughs and road agents, who had been roving though the mountains, exiles from their former haunts in the mining settlements, from which they had fled to avoid the penalties incurred by the commission of many a fearful crime. These men no sooner heard of the rich mines of Bannack, than they at once made for the new settlement, where, among strangers, ignorant of their crimes, they would be secure from punishment, at least until their true character should become known.
During their journey to Bannack, Cleveland often said, when a little intoxicated, that Plummer was his meat. On their arrival at their destination, they were, in Mountain phrase, “strapped;” that is, they were without money or means; but Cleveland was not thus to be foiled; the practice of his profession furnishing him with ample funds, at the cost of a short ride and a pistol cartridge. In February, 1863, a young man named George Evans, having a considerable sum of money on his person, was hunting stock belonging to William Bates, beyond Buffalo Creek, about eight miles from Bannack, and this man, it is believed, was shot by Cleveland, and robbed, as the murderer—who had no money at the time—was seen riding close to the place, and the next day he had plenty. Evans’ partner, Ed. Hibbert, got a horse from J. M. Castner, and searched for him in vain, returning impressed with the belief that he had frozen to death. In a short time, a herder named Duke, a partner of Jemmy Spence, was also hunting cattle, when he found Evans’ clothes tucked into a badger hole. A body, which, however, was never fully identified, was found naked in the willows, with a shot wound in the right armpit. It seems as if the victim had seen a man about to shoot, and had raised his arm deprecatingly.