In general the wildest and most
desperate of the old-time adventurers, those coming from the
West, had located in the Idaho camps, and might be expected in
Montana at any time. In contrast to these, the men lately out
from the States were of a different type, many of them sober,
most of them law-abiding, men who had come out to better their
fortunes and not merely to drop into the wild and licentious life
of a placercamp. Law and order always did prevail eventually in
any mining community. In the case of Montana, law and order
arrived almost synchronously with lawlessness and desperadoism.
Law and order had not long to wait before the arrival of the
notorious Henry Plummer and his band from Florence. Plummer was
already known as a bad man, but was not yet recognized as the
leader of that secret association of robbers and murderers which
had terrorized the Idaho camps. He celebrated his arrival in
Bannack by killing a man named Cleveland. He was acquitted in the
miners' court that tried him, on the usual plea of self-defense.
He was a man of considerable personal address.
The same tribunal soon assembled once more to try three other
murderers, Moore, Reeves, and Mitchell, with the agreement that
the men should have a jury and should be provided with counsel.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84