my billet on the hospital ship araguaya was very comfortable and my duties agreeable, but every time we reached port on the canadian side of the atlantic i had an impulse to desert the ship and become a stowaway on the hospital-train bound for british columbia. it was there my wife and boy lived and i hadn't seen them for three years. however i got the chance at last to go without breaking regulations, for when i requested it, leave was readily granted me to stay ashore over one round-trip of the boat. this was supplemented by my taking the place of an absent conducting officer on the western train. so my transportation cost me nothing, except the congenial task of making myself generally useful to the returning soldiers.
we had crossed the prairies, dropping many of our crowd at way points, and were climbing slowly along after supper up through a lonely stretch of mountains, when someone in the car where i was "visiting" gave it as his opinion that this would be a good piece of road on which to stage a train-robbery. this, of course, led to the mention of gun-men that they had known or heard of, men of the same ilk as jesse james and bill miner. i contributed the story of soapy smith, the man who pulled off the most remarkably prolonged hold-up of which i have ever read. in the most approved dime-novel style he terrorized a town, not for a few days or weeks, but for six months.
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"you'll have to see the spot where soapy died." the skagway man who said this was rather proud of the celebrity which the bandit had brought to the place. i had come by the steamboat the nine hundred miles north from vancouver, and was forced to spend a day in skagway before going over the white pass on my way to dawson. a resident of the town was taking me around showing me the sights of this mushroom camp. it was humming with life and packed with people. the rush to the goldfields was then at its height. i judged by my friend's tone that he expected me to be deeply impressed with this particular sight. so down to the sea we went and out on the wharf. as we walked down he outlined the story of smith's career in the camp. on the pier he showed me a dark stain, covering about a square foot, made by the life-blood of the man who for half-a-year forced skagway to pay him tribute in hard cash. he was the leader of a group of men who robbed and cheated in wholesale style, and when it was necessary, in getting their victim's money, did not stop at murder. no one had attempted successfully to interfere with him. reputable merchants were all intimidated into handing him their "life-insurance premiums" whenever he asked for them. his reputation as a "killer" was such that on the fourth of july, when good americans celebrate their freedom, he rode at the head of the procession on a white horse! very few complained loudly enough for soapy to hear. without question his nerve is to be admired. i have never heard or read in the annals of the west anything to equal his record in that alaskan port. desperadoes have ridden into towns, "shot them up," took what they wanted and got away with it. but this man and his gang lived openly in a town of several thousands and in the most brazen fashion ran the place for months, although he was known as a crook, gunman, and leader of a gang of thugs. skagway, it is true, was simply an eddy in a stream running into the gold-fields. in their mad haste to get on and over the pass people wouldn't take time to straighten out the morals of the camp. the soapy smith business was especially uninviting as something to mix into. "it isn't my funeral," they would say, "and i don't want it to be."
jefferson b. smith hailed from the city of st. louis in the u.s.a. he got the nickname he bore because at the beginning of his career of crookedness he used to sell soap to some of the citizens of denver, colorado. there is nothing remarkable about selling soap unless you do it smith's way. in the evenings he and a confederate would set up their "stand" on a suitable downtown street. all he needed was a high box for a "pulpit" and a smaller box behind it to stand on. this with a flaring torch giving an uneven light, some cakes of cheap soap, a couple of five-dollar bills and some change, completed the outfit. a little clever "spieling," kept up more or less all evening, and the usual crowd would gather out of curiosity. he would show them an unwrapped piece of soap all the while extolling its great merits as a cleanser. to show how disinterested he was in introducing this superior article that only needed to be known to become popular, he would say he was going to wrap a five-dollar-bill in with some of these cakes of soap. he would sell the soap at fifty cents each piece, and everyone that bought stood to get the soap and make four dollars and fifty cents in cash out of the deal. further if they watched him carefully they would see him actually put the five-dollar bill in when he wrapped up the soap, although he wouldn't guarantee that it would always be found there when the purchaser unwrapped his package. of course he deceived them simply by clever sleight-of-hand. rarely would any money be found, but people liked to be fooled if it is done the right way. to get them "biting" he might let one of the bills go to a confederate who was seemingly just one of the crowd. it was a money-making business as a rule for there were ordinarily quite a number of "easy-marks" around. they got the soap anyway. so came the name "soapy."
well, it was the same old clever, crooked game in other bigger and bolder forms that he now worked in skagway, with the gun-play in addition. when the steamboat city of seattle came into port there on january 17th, 1898, soapy and his "merrie-men" were among the passengers. he was a slight built man, only five feet seven inches tall, very dark complexioned with a full beard and moustache. he wore a round stetson hat with a hard brim. he soon established headquarters in the "kentucky saloon" and "jeff smith's parlors." these were liquor saloons, not providing board or lodging, and running crooked gambling games in their rear, a fruitful source of revenue to smith's card-sharpers. then he and his confederates got busy on all sorts of other schemes to steal people's money. he had at least thirty followers, and there wasn't a dishonest trick known to the underworld of those days that some of them couldn't work. they wore masonic, oddfellow, elk and other fraternity emblems that might help in working "confidence-games." they opened up information bureaus where newcomers could be conveniently sized-up and robbed then or later on. one member who was very successful in luring victims was old man tripp. he had grey hair, a long white beard and a benevolent countenance. it seemed impossible to suspect him of criminal intent. smith had most of the gambling-joints paying him a big percentage. he even had men clever at the old, old "shell-game" running it in the fine weather at relay points on the trail.
one of his favorite stunts for a while at first was to recruit for the spanish-american war which was just then stirring the fighting blood of americans. while the would-be soldier was stripped, having a fake medical examination, his clothing was looted of whatever money or valuables it might contain.
a rather amusing incident occurred during smith's regime in connection with the efforts of a sky pilot to raise some money at skagway to build a church in a little place along the coast called dyea. the parson came to skagway in a rowboat one morning and started out with his subscription list. one of the first he tackled by chance and unknown to himself was the notorious bandit. smith heartily endorsed the proposition and headed the list with one hundred dollars which he paid over in cash to the clergyman. then he took the latter gentleman along to the principal merchants, hotel-men and gamblers and saw to it that they all gave handsome donations. at the close of the day the visitor decided to make for home. he was happy in the possession of over $2,000 in cash for his new church, thinking too what a splendid fellow this mr. smith was. on the way to the beach he was "held up" by one of mr. smith's lieutenants and relieved of all the money he had collected. he could get no redress.
other occurrences, such as the smothering of the negro-wench in order to steal the few hundred dollars she had earned by washing, were despicable and worthy only of the meanest type of criminal.
naturally there were many shooting scrapes in connection with the operations of the gang, and some killings, but nothing was done to end it. not only was no move made to interfere with soapy, but almost everyone refrained from speaking against him openly for reasons easy to understand. of course there were men in skagway who hotly resented the hold this outlaw had on the town, and were doing what they could to bring public sentiment to efficient action against him. one of these, a canadian, was the editor of a local news sheet. in later years he became governor of alaska. his name was strong and it suited him, for he wasn't lacking in strength of character. one day, after his paper had appeared with an editorial making a scarcely-veiled attack on soapy and his gang, he was met and stopped on the street by smith accompanied by a tough named mike daley. they were loud and boisterous in accusing strong of having offered personal insult to them in his newspaper. they demanded a retraction and apology and evidently meant to force a street-fight. strong refused to withdraw his statement and declared that he intended to stand by his editorial. the loud quarrelling tones of the two desperadoes attracted the attention of two friends of strong's, named d. c. stephens and allen, who happened to be walking down the same street. they hurried to the aid of their friend who at the risk of his life still refused to back down. the sight of reinforcements spoiled smith's game and he and daley went on without accomplishing their sinister purpose.
there was another man who did not hesitate to say anywhere, and in most forcible terms what he thought of these criminals. this man was frank reid, a land-surveyor. he was fearless, and too quick with a gun for these crooks to attempt to silence. but he got very little open support and could do nothing single-handed.
of course things couldn't go on like this. in the spring matters reached a climax. word had at last got into the klondike that it wasn't safe to come out by way of skagway with your gold, that you were likely to be relieved of your "poke" by desperadoes. this news commenced to turn out-going gold-laden traffic down the yukon and out by way of st. michaels. the skagway merchants saw "the goose that laid the golden eggs" flying away, and it put them at last into a ferment of anger at the cause of it. this led to the formation of a vigilance committee of which reid was the moving spirit.
finally a nanaimo man named stewart, waiting for the steamboat on his way home from the klondike, had $3,000.00 in nuggets stolen from him by one of soapy's confidence men who had offered to turn it into currency. it was all he had and he made such a fuss that the whole town knew about his loss. he reported it to the u.s. deputy-marshal, a man named taylor who was in smith's pay. he got no satisfaction. the vigilance committee then took it up, and made it a "casus belli" against soapy. they attempted to hold a secret meeting in a private hall but smith and his confederates managed to break in on them. they then adjourned to sylvester's wharf. at the land-end of the pier frank reid and a man named murphy were posted to stop anyone approaching who was not a member of the committee. smith heard of this move and set off on the war-path down the main street towards the water-front. he carried a loaded .30-.30 winchester rifle and as he went down the road he called on everyone to put up their hands. there were hundreds of men there but soapy got a completely unanimous "vote" as he passed along, until he reached reid and in him he met a man who called his bluff. reid ordered him to stop and fired at him, but his revolver, a .45 colt, failed to go off. he then grabbed the muzzle of smith's gun and shoved it up in the air before he could shoot. smith in the struggle backed away hanging on to his rifle, and while the gun was thus lowered and pointed momentarily at reid's groin he fired. reid fell to the ground but instantly fired at smith again. this time the revolver responded and smith dropped shot through the heart. he bled to death in a few minutes where he lay. this was the evening of july 8th, three days after the celebration already mentioned in which the gunman had taken the leading part. so the wharf was stained, and so ended the life of a man with a career of which the last six months were unique in the history of the wild west.
their leader gone, the break-up of his followers was quick and easy. after caring for reid the committee split up into armed groups of five or six men each. some guarded the exits from the town, others closed the dance-halls, saloons, and gambling places. every cabin was searched. smith was killed on friday and by sunday the lot were rounded up and jailed. the captures included the five most dangerous members of the gang, old man tripp, slim jim, bowers, mike daly, and scar-faced charlie. it was indeed hard for any of them to escape. in front was the sea and behind the mountains with only one passable trail through them over into the yukon territory. they were all deported on out-going steamers. most of them got long terms in penetentiary. before the shooting a few of them who saw danger ahead straggled over into canada by way of the white pass but they changed into "model citizens" when they came under the surveillance of the mounted police.
smith was buried with scant ceremony and no mourners. frank reid lingered for two weeks when he also died. the whole place turned out at his funeral to do honor to his bravery in ridding the town of the pestilential group of criminals who had been in control so long.
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