Gathering an idea of the situation in an instant, Cook and Allen were off for the jail. That institution was half a mile distant, but they ran every step of the way, and rushed in just in time to find one of the guards at the jail untying the other.
“Just got loose,” he muttered. “They came in, about twenty of ’em, with guns and pistols, overpowered us, took us completely by surprise, tied us here, got the keys, marched into White’s room. There was one big man in the crowd. He looked seven feet high. Why, he just went up to White—White’s a little fellow, you know—and he seemed to be moaning and crying, and he just picked him right up—he had gone to bed—and said: ‘Come to me arms, me baby,’ and carried him out, his bare feet dangling down to the big man’s knees. Oh, it was awful, sir. I guess they hung him.”
Recovering himself somewhat, the speaker explained briefly all he knew about the transaction. He said that his name was Redfield, and that he was the jailer, and that he was sleeping in the jail, having retired about 10 o’clock p. m. He was awakened by the assistant jailer, A. W. Briggs, who told him there was a mob outside. Redfield went to the door and asked, “Who’s there?” when a voice replied, “Zach Allen, the sheriff; let us in.” Not doubting but that the voice he had heard was Mr. Allen’s, and supposing that he had a prisoner, Mr. Redfield turned the key of the door and opened it, when a number of men rushed in dressed in calico and masked, and in a moment the jail was in possession of the mob. Their first act was to bind Redfield and his assistant, hand and foot; leaving them gagged and helpless on the floor. One of the men stooped over and hissed in the ear of Briggs:
“Lie still and you shan’t be hurt, but give the alarm and I’ll blow your brains out!”
After leaving Redfield and Briggs, the mob started for White’s cell, the key of which they seemed to find without any trouble. They walked White out with his shackles on. When the miserable man reached the front entrance, and fully comprehended the terrible fate soon to be visited upon him, he turned around and desired time to pray, but this request was sternly denied. He was picked up by one of the party and taken out in the darkness, the stern avengers closed around him in a solid mass, the word “forward” was given, and that was the last ever seen of White alive.
The officers listened to this narrative with impatience, and when it had been finished, asked to know the way the mob had gone. The man pointed in the direction of a telegraph pole a hundred yards away, and Cook and Allen started towards it.
The sight which met their gaze is described in the full-page cut accompanying this chapter. The gentleman who hangs limp from the telegraph pole, with his bare toes reaching for terra firma, is the late Mr. White. The vigilantes have done their work and have departed. They are nowhere to be seen. White is gone beyond the hope of recovery, and nothing is left but to cut him down and bury him.
But White was not unaccompanied to his last resting place. His jail guard, Briggs, followed close upon his heels. He had lived to confirm Mr. Redfield’s story of the jail delivery, as above related. He was subject to heart disease. The excitement had been too much for him, and the next morning he fell to the floor a corpse.
So there were two burials in Pueblo the next day, and people said of one death, “It was deserved;” of the other, “It was an accident; poor fellow!” Such, in brief, were the public funeral orations passed upon the two. There was a sigh for one. There was no sigh for the other. So passes the world away. It is the fortune of the detective to see death as well as life sharply contrasted at times.
When Cook returned to Denver he found that Larnigan had disappeared. He had received the news from Pueblo. He took the hint and left, and has never since been seen in Colorado.