Permit me to explain the situation. Several months before, it had been the
custom to send a "treasure-coach" twice a week from Deadwood to Sidney,
Nebraska. Also, it had been the custom to have this coach captured and
plundered by "road agents." So intolerable had this practice become--even
iron-clad coaches loopholed for rifles proving a vain device--that the
mine owners had adopted the more practicable plan of importing from
California a half-dozen of the most famous "shotgun messengers" of Wells,
Fargo & Co.--fearless and trusty fellows with an instinct for killing, a
readiness of resource that was an intuition, and a sense of direction that
put a shot where it would do the most good more accurately than the most
careful aim. Their feats of marksmanship were so incredible that seeing
was scarcely believing.

In a few weeks these chaps had put the road agents out of business and out
of life, for they attacked them wherever found. One sunny Sunday morning
two of them strolling down a street of Deadwood recognized five or six of
the rascals, ran back to their hotel for their rifles, and returning
killed them all!

Boone May was one of these avengers. When I employed him, as a messenger,
he was under indictment for murder. He had trailed a "road agent" across,
the Bad Lands for hundreds of miles, brought him back to within a few
miles of Deadwood and picketed him out for the night. The desperate man,
tied as he was, had attempted to escape, and May found it expedient to
shoot and bury him. The grave by the roadside is perhaps still pointed out
to the curious. May gave himself up, was formally charged with murder,
released on his own recognizance, and I had to give him leave of absence
to go to court and be acquitted. Some of the New York directors of my
company having been good enough to signify their disapproval of my action
in employing "such a man," I could do no less than make some recognition
of their dissent, and thenceforth he was borne upon the pay-rolls as
"Boone May, Murderer." Now let me get back to my story.

I knew the road fairly well, for I had previously traveled it by night, on
horseback, my pockets bulging with currency and my free hand holding a
cocked revolver the entire distance of fifty miles. To make the journey by
wagon with a companion was luxury. Still, the drizzle of rain was
uncomfortable. May sat hunched up beside me, a rubber poncho over his
shoulders and a Winchester rifle in its leather