Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/520

392 if they would release him he would leave the United States just as soon as he could get away. I have seen men die in various ways, but I never saw a man die as cowardly as this man Slade. When he found they were determined he begged and plead for them to let him live until he could see his wife; he said it was for a business affair. They did not wait for anything, but as soon as they were ready they kicked the box from under him, thus ending the life of another of the worst men that ever lived.

The awful life of this man is another story that would be too long to give here.

It seemed as though as soon as the arrest was made some of Slade's friends had started to inform his wife, from the fact that just as they were carrying the body from the gallows to the hotel she was seen coming across the hill as fast as her horse could carry her. I was told afterward that had she only got there before the hanging took place he never would have hanged, for parties that knew her said that before she would have seen him hanged she would have shot him herself. I was standing in the hotel where the body lay when she came in. She stood silently looking at the corpse for a few minutes, and then turning to the crowd that was standing around, said: "Will some one tell me who did this?" No one answering her, she repeated the question, and finally the third time she repeated the question at the top of her voice. At this I turned and walked out, and that was the last time I ever saw her. This was the last hanging we had that winter and spring.