“Sartinly, Kidd,” returned the person called Nick Robbins. “Go ahead an’ string the cuss up. I know yer wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with the thing ef yer thought he didn’t desarve it.”
With this, the stranger with the bandaged eye turned and descended to the ground, still dragging his gun after him. Wapawah, the Wyandott, followed him, and the two withdrew to a spot apart from the crowd, where they might talk unheard.
A few of the settlers went forward to shake the hand of the young convict, and bid him a last farewell. Among these were three persons who attracted considerable attention—a man and two women. They were Mr. Moreland, his wife and daughter. Mr. Moreland was one of the first men of the settlement, a sensible, industrious and stout-hearted pioneer, who knew well why God had given him health and a pair of strong arms, and who acted accordingly. He had a wife of the same disposition, kind, charitable and self-sacrificing, and their daughter resembled them both. In point of beauty, Isabel Moreland certainly had no superior in all Kentucky, and in those days real beauty was not so scarce as in this age of fashion and folly. She was the betrothed of Russell Trafford, and people had said they would make an excellent match, but that was all over now, and here stood the young man under the gallows, on the eve of a felon’s death, while his affianced wife wept bitterly as he bid her a final adieu.
This affecting scene over, Russell Trafford was asked if he had any thing to say before dying. He replied that he desired a very brief hearing, and then stepped to the edge of the scaffold to speak. He was strangely calm and collected, and his voice was clear, steady and distinct. He said:
“Friends and former friends: it affords me extreme happiness to know that there are those among you who still have faith in my innocence, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. On the heads of such I invoke the blessing of God as I die. For you who believe me guilty I bear no malice, nor even reproach, but trust that a just Heaven will undeceive you after I am gone, and bring the true offender to the retribution he deserves. I am ready to die.”
He stepped back as he made this last declaration, and the old ranger immediately placed the death-cap over his head.
It is not necessary to inflict upon the reader a detailed account of the sickening scene which followed. Sufficient to say, that Russell Trafford was hung before the eyes of his former friends and the grieved maiden who had promised to become his wife. The body of the young man was lowered from the gallows, and placed in the coffin that awaited it, which was nothing more than a rude pine box constructed for this purpose. Old Kirby Kidd, the Wyandott Indian, and their friend, Nick Robbins, volunteered to take the corpse in custody until the morrow, and protect it from the enraged mob, who, it was feared, not being satisfied with the murderer’s death, would further vent its wrath upon the dead body.
On the following day a grave was dug in a pretty glade just outside of the settlement, and burial services were performed.