iers.

* * * * *

They are passing from bleak graveyards on the alkali flats and in the
northern mountains where the sage-brush meets the pines: gaunt men in
laced boots and faded blue overalls who traveled once too often
through the desert's mirage searching for the golden ledges; big-boned
hard rock men who died in underground passages where the steel was
battering the living granite; men with soft hands and cold eyes who
fattened on the fruits of robbery and murder.

This swarthy black-haired one in the soft silk shirt and spotless
raiment of the gambler is Cherokee Bob, who killed and plundered
unchallenged throughout eastern Washington and Idaho during the early
sixties; until the camp of Florence celebrated its third New Year's
Eve with a ball in which respectability held sway, and he took his
consort thither to mingle with the wives of others. Then he kindled a
flame of resentment which his blackest murders had failed to rouse.
The next morning the entire camp turned out to drive him forth
together with Bill Willoughby, his partner. The two retreated slowly,
from building to building, facing the mob. Shotguns bellowed;
rifle-bullets sang about their ears, and they answered with their
revolvers, until death left their trigger fingers limp.

Here comes one with catlike tread, slender and with a dignity of
presence which proclaims the gentleman. But when you glance at the
lean immobile face, there is that in the pale eyes which checks your
blood; their gray is like the gray of old ice late in the wintertime.
This is Henry Plummer. Behind him troop thirty others, bearded men,
and the evil of their deeds is plainly written on their features; the
members of his band who slew for gold, leaving the dead to mark their
trail through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. In Alder Gulch
their leader was elected sheriff and planned their murders for them
while he held the office. Finally such men as Sam Hauser, N. P.
Langford, J. X. Beidler, and Colonel W. F. Saunders took their lives
in their hands and organized a vigilance committee at Virginia City.
They got their evidence; and in January, 1864, they lynched the
sheriff and his thirty, whose deeds would make a long story were they
worthy of a place within this chronicle. But the mining camps never
produced the type of desperado who was willing to take his share of
chances in a shooting affair; excepting when the cattle countr