“It’s all right, Langford. That’s the way to talk it to outsiders.”
Soon after this, in a conversation with Mr. Samuel T. Hauser, I informed him of the recommendation of the League. Hauser replied,
“Whoever lives to see the gang of highwaymen now infesting the country broken up, will find that Henry Plummer is at the head of it.”
Amazed at the expression of an opinion so much stronger than my own, I at once decided to reject the advice of the League, rather than incur the responsibility of recommending so dangerous a person for the office. Plummer heard of it, and lost no time in asking an explanation, affecting to believe that I had promised to recommend him. We sat down upon an ox-shoeing frame, and talked over the whole matter. He had his pistol in his belt. I was unarmed. He said many provoking things, and used many oaths and epithets, in his attempt to provoke a quarrel, but all to no purpose. Finding that no excuse would be given him for a resort to violence, he arose, and as we parted, said,
“Langford, you’ll be sorry for this before the matter ends. I’ve always been your friend, but from this time on, I’m your enemy; and when I say this, I mean it in more ways than one.”
These were the closing words of our last conversation. We met afterwards, but never spoke.
During that fall I was engaged in purchasing lumber at Bannack to sell at Virginia City, where no sawmills had yet been put in operation. The business required frequent trips between the two places; and the ride of seventy miles through a lonely country, whose surface alternated with cañons, ravines, foothills, and mountains, afforded such ample opportunity for secret robbery and murder, that it required considerable ingenuity to throw the villains off the track. With the threat of Plummer hanging over me to be executed upon the first favorable opportunity, my position was by no means an enviable one. I would send forward the loaded teams, which were four days on the trip, and on the morning of the fourth would follow, mounted on a good horse, and arrive in Virginia City the same evening. On my arrival my horse was immediately put in charge of a rancher, or person who made the care of horses a specialty. He would send it with a herd to a convenient grass range, where it would feed in the care of herders night and day until wanted. Then it was brought into town and delivered at the office of the rancher. The order for a horse was given the night before it was wanted, in order to have the animal ready the following morning.