Nathaniel Pitt Langford

Vigilante Days and Ways: the Pioneers of the Rockies, the Makers and Making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming Nathaniel Pitt Langford

IT is stated, on good authority, that soon after the first appearance of Schiller's drama of "The Robbers" a number of young men, charmed with the character of Charles De Moor, formed a band, and went to the forests of Bohemia to engage in brigand life. I have no fear that such will be the influence of this volume. It deals in facts. Robber life as delineated by the vivid fancy of Schiller, and robber life as it existed in our mining regions, were as widely separated as fiction and truth. No one can read this record of events, and escape the conviction that an honest, laborious, and well-meaning life, whether successful or not, is preferable to all the temporary enjoyments of a life of recklessness and crime. The truth of the adage that "Crime carries with it its own punishment" has never received a more powerful vindication than at the tribunals erected by the people of the North-West mines for their own protection. No sadder commentary could have stained our civilization than to permit the numerous and bloody crimes committed in the early history of this portion of our country to go unwhipped of justice. And the fact that they were promptly and thoroughly dealt with stands among the earliest and noblest characteristics of a people which derived their ideas of right and of self-protection from that spirit of the law that flows spontaneously from our free institutions.