Lynch Laws

Tonight I am in a beautiful place like a Dutch farm -large, warm, bright, clean, with abundance of clean food, and a clean, cold little bedroom to myself.  But it is very hard to write, for two free-tongued, noisy Irishwomen, who keep a miners boarding house in South Park, and are going to winter quarters in a freight wagon, are telling the most fearful stories of violence, vigilance committees, Lynch law, and “stringing,” that I ever heard.  It turns one’s blood cold only to think that where I travel in perfect security, only a short time ago men were being shot like skunks.  At the mining towns up above this nobody is thought anything of who has not killed a man — i.e.  in a certain set.  These women had a boarder, only fifteen, who thought he could not be anything till he had shot somebody, and they gave an absurd account of the lad dodging about with a revolver, and not getting up courage enough to insult any one, till at last he hid himself in the stable and shot the first Chinaman who entered.  Things up there are just in that initial state which desperadoes love.  A man accidentally shoves another in a saloon, or says a rough word at meals, and the challenge, “first finger on the trigger,” warrants either in shooting the other at any subsequent time without the formality of a duel.  Nearly all the shooting affrays are from the most trivial causes in saloons and bar-rooms.  The deeper quarrels, arising from jealousy or revenge, are few, and are usually about some woman not worth fighting for.  At Alma and Fairplay vigilance committees have been lately formed, and when men act outrageously and make themselves generally obnoxious they receive a letter with a drawing of a tree, a man hanging from it, and a coffin below, on which is written “Forewarned.”  They “git” in a few hours.  When I said I spent last night at Hall’s Gulch there was quiet a chorus of exclamations.  My host there, they all said, would be “strung” before long.  Did I know that a man was “strung” there yesterday?  Had I not seen him hanging?  He was on the big tree by the house, they said, Certainly, had I known what a ghastly burden that the tree had bore, I would have encountered the ice and gloom of the gulch rather than have slept there.  They then told me a horrid tale of crime and violence.  This man had even shocked the morals of the Alma crowd, and had a notice served on him by the vigilantes, which had the desired effect, and he migrated to Hall’s Gulch.  As the tale runs, the Hall’s Gulch miners were resolved either not to have a groggery or to limit the number of such places, and when this ruffian set one up he was “forewarned.”  It seems, however, to have been merely a pretext for getting rid of him, for it was hardly a crime of which even Lynch law could take cognisance.  He was overpowered by numbers, and, with circumstances of great horror, was tried and strung on that tree within an hour.

I left the place this morning at ten, and have had a very pleasant day, for the hills shut out the hot sun.  I only rode twenty-two miles, for the difficulty of riding on ice was great, and there is no blacksmith within thirty-five miles of Hall’s Gulch.  I met two freighters just after I left, who gave me the unwelcome news that there were thirty miles of ice between that and Denver.  “You’ll have a tough trip,” they said.  The road runs up and down hill, walled in along with a rushing river by high mountains.  The scenery is very grand, but I hate being shut into these deep gorges, and always expect to see some startling object moving among the tress.  I met no one the whole day after passing the teams except two men with a “pack-jack.”  Birdie hates jacks, and rears and shies as soon as she sees one.  It was a bad road, one shelving sheet of ice, and awfully lonely, and between the peril of the mare breaking her leg on the ice and that of being crushed by windfalls of timber, I had to look out all day.  Towards sunset I came to a cabin where they “keep travelers,” but the woman looked so vinegar-faced that I preferred to ride four miles farther, up a beautiful road winding along a sunny gulch filled with silver spruce, bluer and more silvery than any I have yet seen, and then crossed a divide, from which the view in all the ecstasy of sunset color was perfectly glorious.  It was enjoyment also in itself to get out of the deep chasm in which I had been immured all day.  There is a train of twelve freight wagons here, each wagon with six horses, but the teamsters carry their own camping blankets and sleep either in their wagons or on the floor, so the house is not crowded.  It is a pleasant two story log-house, not only chinked but lined with planed timber.  Each room has a great open chimney with logs burning in it; there are pretty engravings on the walls, and baskets full of creepers hanging from the ceiling.  This is the first settler’s house I have been in in which the ornamental has had any place.  There is a door to each room, the oak chairs are bright with rubbing, and the floor, though unplaned.  is so clean that one might eat off it.  The table is clean and abundant, and the mother and daughters, though they do all the work, look as trim as if they did none, and actually laugh heartily.  The ranchman neither allows drink to be brought into the house nor to be drunk outside, and on this condition only he “keeps travelers.”  The freighters come in to supper quite well washed, and though twelve of them slept in the kitchen, by nine o’clock there was not a sound.  This freighting business is most profitable I think that the charge is three cents per pound from Denver to South Park, and there much of the freight is transferred to “pack-jacks” and carried up to the mines.  A railroad, however, is contemplated.  I breakfasted with the family after the freight train left, and instead of sitting down to gobble up the remains of a meal, they had a fresh tablecloth and hot food.  The buckets are all polished oak, with polished brass bands; the kitchen utensils are bright as rubbing can make them; and, more wonderful still, the girls black their boots.  Blacking usually is an unused luxury, and frequently is not kept in houses.  My boots have only been blacked once during the last two months.

I.L.B.