It is charitable to believe that Henry Plummer came to Bannack intending to reform, and live an honest and useful life. His deportment justified that opinion. His criminal career was known only to two or three persons as criminal as himself. If he could have been relieved of the fear of exposure and of the necessity of associating with his old comrades in crime, it is not improbable that his better nature would have triumphed. He possessed great executive ability, a power over men that was remarkable, a fine person, polished address, and prescient knowledge of his fellows—all of which were mellowed by the advantages of a good early education. With all the concerns of a mining camp experience had made him familiar, and for some weeks after his arrival in Bannack he was oftener applied to for counsel and advice than any other resident. Cool and dispassionate, he evinced on these occasions a power of analysis that seldom failed of conviction. He speedily became a general favorite. We can better imagine than describe the mixed nature of those feelings, which, fired with ambitious designs and virtuous purposes, beheld the way to their fulfilment darkened by a retrospect of unparalleled atrocity. So true it is that the worst men are the last to admit to themselves the magnitude of their offences, that even Plummer, stained with the guilt of repeated murders and seductions, a very monster of iniquity, believed that his restoration to the pursuits and honors of virtuous association could be established but for a possible exposure by some of his guilty partners. He knew their watchful eyes were upon him; that they were ready to follow him as leader or crush him as a traitor.

Of no one was he in greater dread than his sworn enemy, Cleveland. This man, who made no secret of his own guilty purposes, had frequently uttered threats against the life of Plummer, and never lost an opportunity publicly to denounce him. Their feud was irreconcilable. Cleveland had incurred suspicion as the murderer of a young man by the name of George Evans, and was regarded generally as a desperado of the vilest character. It was no credit to Plummer that he came in his company to Bannack. But their previous criminal connection was as yet unrevealed.

A few days after the disappearance of Evans, a number of citizens were seated in general conversation around the fire in a saloon kept by Mr. Goodrich. Among the number were Plummer, Jeff Perkins, and Augustus Moore. Suddenly the door was violently opened and Cleveland entered. With an air of assumed authority he proclaimed himself “chief,” adding with an oath that he knew all the scoundrels from the “other side” and intended to get even with some of them. The covert threat which these words revealed did not escape the notice of Plummer, but Cleveland upon the instant charged Perkins with having violated a promise to pay some money which the latter owed him in the lower country. Perkins assured him it had been paid. “If it has,” said Cleveland, “it is all right,” but as if to signify his distrust of Perkins’s statement, he commenced handling his pistol and reiterating the charges. To prevent Cleveland from carrying into execution his apparent design of shooting Perkins, Plummer fixed his eyes sternly upon him and in a calm tone told him to behave himself, that Perkins had paid the debt and he ought to be satisfied.

Quiet was restored for the moment and Perkins slipped off, intending to return with his pistols and shoot Cleveland on sight. Here the difficulty would have ended had not Cleveland, in an evil moment, in a defiant and threatening manner, with mingled profanity and epithet, declared that he did not fear any of them. Filled with rage, Plummer sprang to his feet, drew his pistol, and exclaiming, “I am tired of this,” followed up the expression with a couple of rapid shots, the last of which struck Cleveland below the belt. He fell on his knees. Grasping wildly for his pistol, he appealed to Plummer not to shoot him while he was down. “No,” said Plummer, whose blood was now up; “get up.” Cleveland staggered to his feet, only to receive two more shots, the second of which entered below the eye. He fell to the floor, and Plummer, sheathing his pistol, turned to leave the saloon. At the door he was met by George Ives and Charley Reeves, each of whom, pistol in hand, was coming to take part in the affray. Each seizing an arm, they escorted Plummer down the street, meanwhile suggesting with great expletive emphasis a variety of surmises as to the possible effect of the quarrel upon the public.

Hank Crawford and Harry Phleger, two respectable citizens, hastened to the aid of the dying desperado, whom they conveyed to Crawford’s lodgings. His bed being poorly furnished Cleveland sent him to Plummer’s cabin to get a pair of blankets belonging to him. The interview, between Crawford and Plummer on this occasion showed that the mind of the latter was ill at ease. Like Macbeth’s dread of Banquo, so he felt that, while Cleveland lived,—

In the brief colloquy which took place between them, Plummer asked Crawford no less than three times what Jack had said about him. His past career of crime was all before him. Crawford as often replied, “Nothing.”

“’Tis well he did not,” at length responded Plummer, “for if he had I would kill him in his bed.”

Crawford then told him that, in reply to several questions asked him, Cleveland had said,

“Poor Jack has got no friends. He has got it [meaning his death-wound] and I guess he can stand it.”

Crawford left with the impression that Plummer still thought Cleveland had exposed him, and was careful afterwards to go armed, as he felt that his own life was in danger. Cleveland lingered in great agony for three hours, and was decently buried by Crawford. Soon after he had been removed to Crawford’s cabin, Plummer sent a man known as “Dock,” a cook, into the cabin as a spy, where he remained until Cleveland died. He said that the only reply Phleger received to repeated questions concerning the difficulty between him and Plummer was, “It makes no difference to you.” The secret, if secret there was, died with him.

No immediate investigation was made of the circumstances of this affray. It was thought by many that Plummer merely anticipated Cleveland’s intention by firing first. Shooting of pistols and duelling were so common as of themselves to excite no attention. Many bloody encounters took place of which no record has been preserved, and which at the time were regarded as very proper settlements of difficulties between the parties.

A few incidents as illustrative of the customs of a mining camp will not be out of place in this immediate connection. On one occasion during the winter a quarrel sprung up between George Ives and George Carrhart in the main street. After a long wordy war interlarded with much profanity and various opprobrious epithets, Ives ran into a near saloon for his pistol, exclaiming, “I will shoot you.” Carrhart followed him and both reappeared at the door of the saloon a moment thereafter, each armed with a revolver. Facing each other upon the instant, both parties raised their pistols and fired without effect. After a second fire with no better effect, both parties walked rapidly backwards till they were widely separated, at the same time firing upon each other. Ives having emptied his revolver, stood perfectly still while Carrhart took deliberate aim and shot him in the groin, the ball passing through his body, inflicting a severe wound. Soon afterwards they reconciled their difficulties, and Ives lived with Carrhart on his ranche the remainder of the winter.

Many of the early emigrants arrived at Bannack so late in the fall that they could provide themselves with no better shelter from the weather during the winter than was afforded by their wagons. Of this number were Dr. Biddle and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Short, and their hired man from Minnesota. While seated around their camp-fire one dismal afternoon, engaged in conversation with Mr. J. M. Castner, a bullet whizzed so near the ear of Castner that he felt its sting for several days. Castner ascertained that it was fired by one Cy. Skinner, a rough, who excused himself with the plea that he thought they were Indians, and by way of amends invited Dr. Biddle and Castner to drink with him. Castner had the good taste to decline.

The very composition of the society of Bannack at the time was such as to excite suspicion in all minds. Outside of their immediate acquaintances, men knew not whom to trust. They were in the midst of a people which had come from all parts of this country and from many of the nations of the Old World. Laws which could not be executed were no better than none. A people, however disposed to the preservation of order and punishment of crimes, was powerless for either so long as every man distrusted his neighbor. The robbers, united by a bond of sympathetic atrocity, assumed the right to control the affairs of the camp by the bloody code. No one was safe. The miner fortunate enough to accumulate a few thousands, the merchant whose business gave evidence of success, the saloon-keeper whose patronage was supposed to be productive, were all marked as victims by these lawless adventurers. If one of them needed clothing, ammunition, or food, he obtained it on a credit which no one dared refuse, and settled it by threatening to shoot the person bold enough to ask for payment. Such a condition of society, as all foresaw, must sooner or later terminate in disaster to the lovers of law and order or to the villains who depredated upon them. Which were the stronger? The roughs knew their power, but their antagonists, separately hedged about by suspicion as indiscriminate as it was inflexible, knew not how to establish confidence in each other upon which to base an effective opposition. Meantime the carnival of crime was progressing. Scarcely a day passed unsignalled by outrage or murder. The numerous tenants of the little graveyard had all died by violence. People walked the streets in fear.

This suspense was at last broken by a murder of unprovoked, heartless atrocity, which the people felt it would be more criminal in them to overlook than it was in the perpetrators to commit. In January, 1863, that notorious scoundrel, Charley Reeves, bought a squaw from the Sheep Eater tribe of Bannack. She soon fled from him to her friends to escape his abuse. The tepee was located on an elevation south of that portion of the town known as “Yankee Flat,” a few rods in rear of the street. Reeves went after her. Finding her deaf to persuasion, he employed violence to force her return to his camp. An old chief interfered and thrust Reeves unceremoniously from the tepee. Burning with resentment, Reeves and Moore fired into the tepee the next evening, wounding one of the Indians. They then returned to town, where they were joined by William Mitchell, with whom they counter-marched, each firing into the tepee, and this time killing the old chief, a lame Indian, a papoose, and a Frenchman by the name of Cazette, who had come to the tepee to learn the cause of the first shot. Two other persons who had been influenced by similar curiosity were badly wounded. When the murderers were afterwards told that they had killed white men, Moore with a profusion of profane appellations said “they had no business there.”