I—“When you take the coat please take the papers from the pocket and
leave them in the road.”
More conversation, and then:
He—“Pick up your coat and walk straight down the middle of the road; no
bad breaks, now, or by —— I will kill you.”
And though I was never a Populist, I walked that night down the “middle
of the road.”
* * * * *
One day I passed where two strange roughs were evidently critisizing
some new comer who they thought was claiming honors which did not belong
to him. I heard one of them say contemptuously: “Calls himself the
Deadwood Kid! Why, he’s no more the Deadwood Kid than I am. Why, the
Deadwood Kid has killed half a dozen men, an’ I don’t believe that
‘_moke_’ ever killed anybody!”
* * * * *
Early one morning I heard a saloonkeeper talking to his friend,
evidently about some row he had had the day or night before. He said,
“Well, no; I don’t think I was too drunk. Well, I was just about like I
am now; and if he had got the best of me I wouldn’t have said a word.
But my own opinion is, I would have gone through him p-r-o-p-e-r-l-y.”
* * * * *
The next day after the notorious ex-convict and desperado, Wesley
Harden, was killed on San Antonio street by a worse man than himself,
who was a constable or something, people, though not sorry at Harden’s
taking off, were shocked at the manner of it, but feared to condemn the
act, because no one knew who would be the next victim. I was passing
along the street, and a merchant friend called to me and said, seriously
and in a low tone of voice, “What do YOU think about this killing of
Harden?” I placed my hand at the side of my mouth and whispered, “I’ll
tell you if you say nothing about it. I have just been down to the
undertakers and I saw Harden, and I think—I think he’s dead!” I believe
my friend kept my secret.
* * * * *
Some years ago my friend, Mr. Park Pitman, now (1900) the efficient
clerk of El Paso County, was a candidate for a county office on the
Democratic ticket, and was the only candidate of his party
defeated—possibly because he was the best man on that ticket. Soon
thereafter, I was a candidate for a city office on the Republican
ticket, and was the only Republican defeated (whether we voted for each
other or not is nobody’s business). Soon after my defeat, I met Pitman
with a party of friends, and I said to him: “Let us mingle our tears.”
He replied, “I am writing a book which is to be entitled, ‘Bleeding
Inwardly,’ I will compliment you with a copy.”
* * * * *
On my return from Washington City, in 1897, my friend, Zack White,
congratulated me upon my appointment as United States Consul at
Chihuahua, Mexico, and I told him I had been surprised at receiving so
many congratulations and that I believed most of them sincere. He
replied, “They are _all_ sincere. It’s like this; half of the people of
this town are your friends, and, like me, they are glad of your success,
and the other half are glad because you are going away. _It’s
unanimous._”
I think a man who makes an “even break” among the people of El Paso does
fairly well, and I “let it go at that.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The North American Review, November, 1889.