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.

Really and truly, two thirds of the talk of drivers and conductors had
been about this man Slade, ever since the day before we reached
Julesburg. In order that the eastern reader may have a clear conception
of what a Rocky Mountain desperado is, in his highest state of
development, I will reduce all this mass of overland gossip to one
straightforward narrative, and present it in the following shape:

Slade was born in Illinois, of good parentage. At about twenty-six years
of age he killed a man in a quarrel and fled the country. At St. Joseph,