We never did get much satisfaction about that dark
occurrence. All that we could make out of the
odds and ends of the information we gathered in the
morning, was that the disturbance occurred at a station;
that we changed drivers there, and that the driver
that got off there had been talking roughly about
some of the outlaws that infested the region ("for
there wasn’t a man around there but had a price
on his head and didn’t dare show himself in
the settlements,” the conductor said); he had
talked roughly about these characters, and ought to
have “drove up there with his pistol cocked
and ready on the seat alongside of him, and begun
business himself, because any softy would know they
would be laying for him.”
That was all we could gather, and we could see that
neither the conductor nor the new driver were much
concerned about the matter. They plainly had
little respect for a man who would deliver offensive
opinions of people and then be so simple as to come
into their presence unprepared to “back his
judgment,” as they pleasantly phrased the killing
of any fellow-being who did not like said opinions.
And likewise they plainly had a contempt for the
man’s poor discretion in venturing to rouse the
wrath of such utterly reckless wild beasts as those
outlaws—and the conductor added:
“I tell you it’s as much as Slade himself
want to do!”
This remark created an entire revolution in my curiosity.
I cared nothing now about the Indians, and even lost
interest in the murdered driver. There was such
magic in that name, Slade! Day or night,
now, I stood always ready to drop any subject in hand,
to listen to something new about Slade and his ghastly
exploits. Even before we got to Overland City,
we had begun to hear about Slade and his “division”
(for he was a “division-agent”) on the
Overland; and from the hour we had left Overland City
we had heard drivers and conductors talk about only
three things —“Californy,”
the Nevada silver mines, and this desperado Slade.
And a deal the most of the talk was about Slade.
We had gradually come to have a realizing sense of
the fact that Slade was a man whose heart and hands
and soul were steeped in the blood of offenders against
his dignity; a man who awfully avenged all injuries,
affront, insults or slights, of whatever kind—on
the spot if he could, years afterward if lack of earlier
opportunity compelled it; a man whose hate tortured
him day and night till vengeance appeased it—and
not an ordinary vengeance either, but his enemy’s
absolute death—nothing less; a man whose
face would light up with a terrible joy when he surprised
a foe and had him at a disadvantage. A high
and efficient servant of the Overland, an outlaw among
outlaws and yet their relentless scourge, Slade was
at once the most bloody, the most dangerous and the
most valuable citizen that inhabited the savage fastnesses
of the mountains.
CHAPTER X.
Copyrights
Roughing It from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
