Adventure Magazine Cover — page 191: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Camp-Fire recognized the saddles as belonging to Magruder. They escaped to San Francisco, were pursued by Beachy and brought back to Lewiston. Page had no hand in the actual killing and was let go after turning state’s evidence. The others were hanged. Page was shot two years later by Albert Igo. "THE Payette Valley Committee was organized in the Winter of 1864-65 to clean up the horse- thieves and counterfeiters of gold-dust. The Ben Riply of my story is patterned after John X. Beidler, a small, slight, frail man, yet the most daring and active of the Montana vigilants, and universally known as ‘*X”., W. J. McConnell, a Payette gardener, found his stolen horse in Boise City and after identifying it was taxed more than the animal was worth by the court hearing his claim. The crowd jeered him when he was quitting the court room and he told them, “‘The next one who steals a horse from me is my Injun.”” Evidently the gang didn’t believe it. A few days later he and his imme- diate neighbors lost $2,000 worth of stock. McCon- nell pursued, caught up with four, shot three dead out of their saddles, captured the leader in a box canon near La Grande and shot him after securing names of men in the organization. An item in the Idaho Statesman (April 22, 1866) in part says: “For more than two years this territory has been ridden and ruled by organized bands of men, who have made highway and private robbery, burglary and murder when necessary, their profession. Jurors and the court officials are terrified. The villains’ own tools are sometimes elected to office. The express and stage companies practise secrecy to avoid robberies. It is known that bandits are in their offices daily agd are on their stages. Merchants conceal the time of their departure when leaving town.” ‘THE climax of evil came in Boise County in July, 1865, when Sumner Pinkham was killed as told in my story. The first grand jury failed to indict. The case was resubmitted. Kingley, a Methodist minister, called the first meeting of those who wished the law enforced. The organization resulting was patterned after the Payette Committee. The first meetings were held in an underground warehouse. The citizens voted to hang Patterson. Sheriff James T. Crutcher was sheriff at the time and rallied the rough element. .Threats to burn the town were made, and the case was allowed to go to trial. After a long delay Patterson was acquitted. He fled to Walla Walla and was killed by Tom Donovan, night- watchman in a hotel. Donovan was tried and acquitted. It was said that the killing was by order of the committee. Bowen, who was Crutcher’s predecessor in office, I continued in office a bit as he was the willing tool of the lawless. Jem Helm did not develop as I expected when beginning the story. I intended to pattern him after Boone Helm, a mon- ster, who was hanged ‘with the Henry Plummer outfit at Virginia City after a long record of the most atrocious crimes, including that of killing and eating his companions when lost in the mountains. HE greatest discovery of *63 resulted from a search for the famous “‘Lost Diggings,”’ In early Spring 29 men started from Placerville and crossed the Snake near the mouth of the Boise River and camped on a stream to the south called Reynolds’ Creek. A. J. Miner and W. L. Wade scouted to the 181 west, ascended the divide anc. discovered evidences of a large river—:. e., lana formations. They followed a creek toward the unknown river and found Discovery Bar, 6 miles below the site of Boonville. They named the tributary Jordan Creek after Michael Jordan. Up to that time the Owyhee River was supposed to head in Oregon. This was the beginning of the wonderful Owyhee mines, perhaps far surpassing the never-located lost gold diggings. AMONG the books consulted in building up the story are various U. S. bulletins on geological surveys; “‘Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite’’; Bancroft’s “History of Idaho;” Bancroft’s ‘‘Popu- lar Tribunals;’”’ excerpts from early Idaho press; magazine and newspaper miscellany. The liberties I have taken with the historical background are very slight and taken solely to permit continuit of plot.—HucH PENDEXTER. | To the Editor: If thought desirable, because of possible descendants, the names of officers who embezzled, given on page 1, may be omitted. Their crimes and identity are matters of history and record, but I am always slow to rub it into any inno- cent relations. I leave it entirely to your judgment. —PENDEXTER. 3 INE mind an argument as far as I’m concerned; all I want to know is that if I’m not bitten that’s one thing more I can’t die from. An extract from a letter written by E. E. Harriman to an “‘Ask Ad- venture” correspondent who wanted to know something about snake-bite: I have known a full-grown man in perfect health to die from rattlesnake-bite. I have known horses, cows and dogs to die from the same thing. But I have known a girl to be bitten and live—be- cause her father cut the wound and sucked it for a long time. : I have knowna boy to die from the sting of a white- faced hornet. Ic caught him directly in a large vein, and the poison reached his heart very quickly. Ihave’ known a man to die from the bite of a black spider, but the bite came in a peculiarly vulnerable spot. You can’t tell—always—just what the result will be of such poison. Much depends upon the con- dition 6f the blood. If it is heated beyond normal the poison is more virulent in its action. I was once stung on my upper lip by a white-faced hornet and very nearly died from the effects. I was only nine years old and had been running a long dis- tance. I ran on a half mile farther and pitched on my nose, unconscious. They saved my life with some difficulty. : No man has the right to say this and that will surely happen in case of snake-bite. It may turn out the other way. But when a big fat rattler can kill a horse by biting him in the nose, I shall go on pro- tecting my legs against them. I saw a man teasing a husky rattler one day. He laughed at me and said the fangs had been ex- tracted. I passed on. A few minéites later the rat- tler got him close to the artery at the base of the thumb. Its fangs had grown again, and they buried him two days later. Don’t monkey with a rattler on the strength of any man’s skepticism. Go NOOLK S (© iin