head of the table, at my elbow. Never youth stared and shivered as I did
when I heard them call him SLADE!

Here was romance, and I sitting face to face with it!--looking upon it
--touching it--hobnobbing with it, as it were! Here, right by my side, was
the actual ogre who, in fights and brawls and various ways, had taken the
lives of twenty-six human beings, or all men lied about him! I suppose I
was the proudest stripling that ever traveled to see strange lands and
wonderful people.

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