Publisher's Synopsis
In the mid 1800s Jack Slade was the West's best know badman. The name Slade was seldom uttered without the word "notorious" attached to it as a danger sign. And nearly every Overland Trail journal of the time repeats the story of Slade cutting off the ears of the founder of Julesburg, Colorado, Jules Beni, and carrying them in his pocket as a charm. His reputation was so colorful and outrageous during his lifetime that newspapers from coast to coast carried stories of Jack Slade, the efficient yet deadly superintendent of the Overland Stage Line and the Pony Express.The strange thing is that a man who was such a legend in the 1860s has been all but forgotten. Mark Twain, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Sir Richard Burton all wrote about Slade and his exploits. Twain wrote that while having breakfast at Slade's stage station, Slade offered him the last of a pot of coffee. Though Twain wanted it, he declined because he was "afraid that Slade had not killed anybody that morning and might be need
