anner of doubt as to the perpetrators of the
deed--the animus was too directly to be traced. And it is a matter for
curious remark that in all early history, whether of California in the
forties, or of Montana in the bloodier sixties, the desperadoes, no
matter how strong they felt themselves or how arrogantly they ran the
community, nevertheless must have felt a great uncertainty as to the
actual power of the decent element. This is evidenced by the fact that
they never worked openly. Though the identity of each of them as a
robber and cut-throat was a matter of common knowledge, so that any
miner could have made out a list of the members of any band, the fact
was never formally admitted. And as long as it was not admitted, and as
long as actual hard proof was lacking, it seemed to be part of the game
that nothing could be done. Moral certainties did not count until some
series of outrages resulted in mob action.

Now consider this situation, which seemed to me then as it seems to me
now, most absurd in every way. Nobody else considered it so. Everybody
knew that the rough element was out to "get" Thompson and Cleveland.
Everybody, including both Thompson and Cleveland themselves, was pretty
certain that they would not be quietly assassinated, the argument in
that case being that the deed would be too apt to raise the community.
Therefore it was pretty well understood that some sort of a quarrel or
personal encounter would be used as an excuse. Personally I could not
see that that would make much essential difference; but, as I said, the
human mind is a curious piece of mechanism.

Among the occasional visitors to the camp was a man who called himself
Harry Crawford. He was a man of perhaps twenty-five years, tall, rather
slender, with a clear face and laughing blue eyes. Nothing in his
appearance indicated the desperado; and yet we had long known him as one
of the Morton gang. This man now took up his residence in camp; and we
soon discovered that he was evidently the killer. The first afternoon he
picked some sort of a petty quarrel with Thompson over a purchase, but
cooled down instantly when unexpectedly confronted by a half dozen
miners who came in at the opportune moment. A few days afterward in the
slack time of the afternoon Thompson, while drinking at the bar of the
Empire and conversing with a friend, was approached by a well-known
sodden hanger-on of the saloons.

"What 'n hell you fellows talking about?"