Читать книгу Vigilante Days and Ways. The pioneers of the Rockies; the makers and making of Montana and Idaho онлайн

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One day the following Spring, Patterson entered a barber’s shop for the purpose of getting shaved. Removing his coat, he seated himself in the barber’s chair. A man by the name of Donahue arose from a chair opposite, and, advancing towards him, said:

“Ferd, you and I can’t both live in this community. You have threatened me.” As Patterson sprung to his feet, Donahue shot him. Staggering to the street, he started towards the saloon where he had left his pistol, and was followed by Donahue, who continued to fire at him, and he fell dead across the threshold of the saloon, thus verifying in his own case the fatalistic belief of his class, “He died with his boots on.”

The only incident of Patterson’s trial worthy of note was the following: One of the attorneys who had been employed for a purpose disconnected with the management of the trial, insisted upon making an argument to the jury. This annoyed his colleagues, and disgusted Patterson’s friends, but professional etiquette upon the part of the lawyers, and a certain indefinable delicacy from which even the worst of men are not wholly estranged, prevented all interference, and the advocate launched out into a speech of great length, filled with indiscreet assertions, slipshod arguments, and ridiculous appeals, at each of which, as they came up, one of the shrewder counsel for the defendant, seated beside his client, filled almost to bursting with indignation, would whisper in his ear the ominous words,