About this platform every man living in and about Hurley's Gulch, excepting Si Brill and Collins, had gathered, even Frank Shirley, weak and wicked, could not resist the temptation to see his cruel work completed.
The ropes were made ready and the condemned men were told they could pray for five minutes.
Instead of kneeling down both turned their faces to the setting sun, and in all that crowd no one was calmer than they.
Suddenly the painful stillness was broken by a cry that came from the westward and the crowd, as one man turned in that direction.
There, like a silhouette against the red face of the setting sun, they saw a lithe figure, in the picturesque garb of a Ute Indian bounding toward them.
"It is Ulna!" some one shouted, "Ulna coming from the direction of the great cañon!"
"Hold! hold! hold! for your lives!"
This was shouted by a dozen stalwart horsemen, Collins and Si Brill in the lead, who came galloping to the place of execution from the east.
As these men flung themselves from their saddles, Ulna, with compressed lips and flashing eyes bounded through the crowd.
At a glance he took in the situation, and then in a voice that rang clear and high as a bugle blast along the cliffs he called out: