In a few weeks these chaps had put the road agents out of business and out of life, for they attacked them wherever found.  One sunny Sunday morning two of them strolling down a street of Deadwood recognized five or six of the rascals, ran back to their hotel for their rifles, and returning killed them all!

Boone May was one of these avengers.  When I employed him, as a messenger, he was under indictment for murder.  He had trailed a “road agent” across, the Bad Lands for hundreds of miles, brought him back to within a few miles of Deadwood and picketed him out for the night.  The desperate man, tied as he was, had attempted to escape, and May found it expedient to shoot and bury him.  The grave by the roadside is perhaps still pointed out to the curious.  May gave himself up, was formally charged with murder, released on his own recognizance, and I had to give him leave of absence to go to court and be acquitted.  Some of the New York directors of my company having been good enough to signify their disapproval of my action in employing “such a man,” I could do no less than make some recognition of their dissent, and thenceforth he was borne upon the pay-rolls as “Boone May, Murderer.”  Now let me get back to my story.

I knew the road fairly well, for I had previously traveled it by night, on horseback, my pockets bulging with currency and my free hand holding a cocked revolver the entire distance of fifty miles.  To make the journey by wagon with a companion was luxury.  Still, the drizzle of rain was uncomfortable.  May sat hunched up beside me, a rubber poncho over his shoulders and a Winchester rifle in its leathern case between his knees.  I thought him a trifle off his guard, but said nothing.  The road, barely visible, was rocky, the wagon rattled, and alongside ran a roaring stream.  Suddenly we heard through it all the clinking of a horse’s shoes directly behind, and simultaneously the short, sharp words of authority:  “Throw up your hands!”

With an involuntary jerk at the reins I brought my team to its haunches and reached for my revolver.  Quite needless:  with the quickest movement that I had ever seen in anything but a cat—­almost before the words were out of the horseman’s mouth—­May had thrown himself backward across the back of the seat, face upward, and the muzzle of his rifle was within a yard of the fellow’s breast!  What further occurred among the three of us there in the gloom of the forest has, I fancy, never been accurately related.

Boone May is long dead of yellow fever in Brazil, and I am the Sole Survivor.

* * * * *

There was a famous prima donna with whom it was my good fortune to cross the Atlantic to New York.  In truth I was charged by a friend of both with the agreeable duty of caring for her safety and comfort.  Madame was gracious, clever, altogether charming, and before the voyage was two days old a half-dozen of the men aboard, whom she had permitted me to present, were heels over head in love with her, as I was myself.