Many jarring and discordant incidents disfigured this flattering foreground in Slade’s border life, but there was only one which gave it a sanguine hue. That in all its parts, and from the very first, has been so tortured and perverted in the telling, that persons perfectly familiar with all its details do not hesitate to pronounce every published version a falsehood. I have the narrative from truthful men, personally familiar with all the facts. Among the ranchemen with whom Slade early commenced to deal was one Jules Reni, a Canadian Frenchman. He was a representative man of his class, and that class embraced nearly all the people scattered along the road. They regarded him as their leader and adviser, and he was proud of the position. He espoused their quarrels with outsiders, and reconciled all differences occurring among themselves. In this way, he exercised the power of a chief over the class, and maintained a rustic dignity, which commanded respect within the sphere of its influence. Jules and Slade had frequent collisions, which generally originated in some real or supposed encroachment by the latter upon the dignity or importance of the former. They always arose from trivial causes, and were forgotten by Slade as soon as over; but Jules treasured them up until the account against his rival became too heavy to be borne. A serious quarrel, in which threats were exchanged, was the consequence. If Slade had treasured up any vicious memory of this difficulty, no evidence of it was apparent when he afterwards met Jules. They accosted each other with usual courtesy, and soon fell into a friendly conversation, in which others standing by participated. Both were seated at the time on the fence fronting the station. At length Jules left and entered his house, and a moment afterwards Slade followed. Slade was unarmed. He had gone but a few rods, when one of the men he had just left, in a tone of alarm, cried to him, “Look out, Slade, Jules is going to shoot you!” As Slade turned to obey the summons, he received the bullet from Jules’s revolver. Five shots from the pistol were fired in instant succession, and then Jules, who was standing in the door of his cabin, took a shotgun which was within reach, and emptied its contents into the body of Slade, who was facing him when he fell. Slade was carried into the station, and placed in a bunk, with bullets and buckshot to the number of thirteen lodged in his person. No one who witnessed the attack supposed he could survive an hour. Jules was so well satisfied that he was slain, that in a short time afterwards he said to some person near, in the hearing of Slade, “When he is dead, you can put him in one of these dry-goods boxes, and bury him.” Slade rose in his bunk, and glaring out upon Jules, who was standing in front of the station, exclaimed with an oath, “I shall live long enough to wear one of your ears on my watch-guard. You needn’t trouble yourself about my burial.”