The Wichita Daily Eagle

OWED HIS LIFE

TO STEWART.

How a Senator, When a Rising Young Lawyer, Saved a Man from the Noose.

Senator Stewart dug gold by daylight and read law by firelight. He was admitted to the bar and practiced. But his profession didn't prevent him from going into mining operations. There were few mining camps from 1850 to 1865 in which "Sage Brush Bill" Stewart, as he was called, was not a familiar figure. He has a great reputation as a traveler. He has been all over the world. It is said that he can climb a mountain now quicker and easier than nine men out of ten, without limitation as to age.

Senator Wilbur F. Sanders, of Montana, made a reputation in the days of Virginia Gulch by hanging bad men. He was the legal adviser and executive officer of the vigilantes. Senator Stewart never hung a man, but he saved several when he thought the vigilantes were too hasty in their action.

One day, while riding his law circuit, in '53 or '54, Stewart approached a mining camp where preparations were being made for an execution. As he dismounted in front of the hotel, with his law library in a pair of saddle bags thrown across his arm, he saw a crowd away off. The signs were plain enough to his practiced eye. In front of the hotel a little bit of a Texan desperado named Jack Watson was standing. He had come out to the mines with Jack Hayes' party. He wouldn't weigh more than 120 pounds. But he was all grit. There was a look of disgust upon his face. He was gazing down the road toward the mob. Stewart inquired what the trouble was about. Watson said the man to be hung was a stranger, an Englishman, who had come into camp and had stopped all night. Some money had been stolen,