"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:

After the execution of the five men on the 14th of January, the
Vigilantes considered that their work was nearly ended. They had
freed the country of highwaymen and murderers to a great extent, and
they determined that in the absence of the regular civil authority
they would establish a People's Court where all offenders should be
tried by judge and jury. This was the nearest approach to social
order that the circumstances permitted, and, though strict legal
authority was wanting, yet the people were firmly determined to
maintain its efficiency, and to enforce its decrees. It may here be
mentioned that the overt act which was the last round on the fatal
ladder leading to the scaffold on which Slade perished, was the
tearing in pieces and stamping upon a writ of this court, followed
by his arrest of the Judge Alex. Davis, by authority of a presented
Derringer, and with his own hands.

J. A. Slade was himself, we have been informed, a Vigilante; he
openly boasted of it, and said he knew all that they knew. He was
never accused, or even suspected, of either murder or robbery,
committed in this Territory (the latter crime was never laid to his
charge, in any place); but that he had killed several men in other
localities was notorious, and his bad reputation in this respect was
a most powerful argument in determining his fate, when he was
finally arrested for the offence above mentioned. On returning from
Milk River he became more and more addicted to drinking, until at