Читать книгу The Overland Trail онлайн

49 страница из 56

The first murder of a white man came from claim jumping; for titles were to a hundred and sixty acres with “squatters’ rights” till survey could be made. Ruffians used to come in, defiant of law, and jump a claim by planting a whisky bottle upside down at the four corners, just as, in stage days, in defiance of law, they would drive their wagons with a whisky bottle on the end of a pole and crossbones drawn on a flag. They proclaimed themselves land pirates and gloried in it. The first time a jumper tried tricks on a squatter’s right, he was ducked in the river. Three duckings usually cured the habit. Still, white vagabonds would run off stock and sell it to the Pawnees, or steal firearms from lonely settlement cabins and trade them to the Indians. The first policy was to pay the Indians to arrest the thieves, when the culprit would have his beard or head half shaved and be given thirty-nine lashes on the bare back. Still, no white man wanted the dirty job of flogging a human skunk. So the emigrants hired a Madagascar negro; and it is said he did his job very thoroughly. But the attacks and threats against women alone in cabins while their men were on the trail were a graver crime that had to be stopped. They would enter a cabin whetting their hunting knives against high boots and bid the wife jump to cook a meal, or hand over spare cash, or give up her absent husband’s firearms, and then if drunk or emboldened by the woman’s fear—worse was likely to follow. Where two blackguards guilty of this had been thoroughly identified, the self-called jury pronounced sentence of death; but no one wanted the dirty job of executing the sentence, or the memory that if half a dozen executioners fired simultaneously, no man would know which bullet caused the death. Again the frontier carried out law in its own way. The men weighed about the same. They were not blindfolded to spare their feelings. Two poles were erected. A crossbeam connected the tops. The criminals were placed on props. The drop noose was fastened to each neck so it would tighten and strangle—then the prop knocked from their feet. Each man’s weight strangled and broke his partner’s neck. Where the bullies had not succeeded in terrorizing a settler’s wife but had been perhaps cordially received with a pot of lye, the rascals were given so far to outrun punishment, then a vigilante committee fired at the racing heels. These methods were very effective in stopping crimes. The methods had to be drastic till law could be established and proper courts with military protection set up.