He was so friendly and so gentle-spoken that I warmed to him in spite of his awful history.  It was hardly possible to realize that this pleasant person was the pitiless scourge of the outlaws, the raw-head-and-bloody-bones the nursing mothers of the mountains terrified their children with.  And to this day I can remember nothing remarkable about Slade except that his face was rather broad across the cheek bones, and that the cheek bones were low and the lips peculiarly thin and straight.  But that was enough to leave something of an effect upon me, for since then I seldom see a face possessing those characteristics without fancying that the owner of it is a dangerous man.

The coffee ran out.  At least it was reduced to one tin-cupful, and Slade was about to take it when he saw that my cup was empty.

He politely offered to fill it, but although I wanted it, I politely declined.  I was afraid he had not killed anybody that morning, and might be needing diversion.  But still with firm politeness he insisted on filling my cup, and said I had traveled all night and better deserved it than he—­and while he talked he placidly poured the fluid, to the last drop.  I thanked him and drank it, but it gave me no comfort, for I could not feel sure that he would not be sorry, presently, that he had given it away, and proceed to kill me to distract his thoughts from the loss.  But nothing of the kind occurred.  We left him with only twenty-six dead people to account for, and I felt a tranquil satisfaction in the thought that in so judiciously taking care of No. 1 at that breakfast-table I had pleasantly escaped being No. 27.  Slade came out to the coach and saw us off, first ordering certain rearrangements of the mail-bags for our comfort, and then we took leave of him, satisfied that we should hear of him again, some day, and wondering in what connection.

CHAPTER XI.

And sure enough, two or three years afterward, we did hear him again.  News came to the Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Montana (whither Slade had removed from Rocky Ridge) had hanged him.  I find an account of the affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a paragraph from in the last chapter—­“The Vigilantes of Montana; being a Reliable Account of the Capture, Trial and Execution of Henry Plummer’s Notorious Road Agent Band:  By Prof.  Thos.  J. Dimsdale, Virginia City, M.T.”  Mr. Dimsdale’s chapter is well worth reading, as a specimen of how the people of the frontier deal with criminals when the courts of law prove inefficient.  Mr. Dimsdale makes two remarks about Slade, both of which are accurately descriptive, and one of which is exceedingly picturesque:  “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.”  And this:  “From Fort Kearney, west, he was feared a great deal more than the almighty.”  For compactness, simplicity and vigor of expression, I will “back” that sentence against anything in literature.  Mr. Dimsdale’s narrative is as follows.  In all places where italics occur, they are mine: