But his appeal was drowned in the cries of the excited crowd, "Hang the horse-thieves! string 'em up."
Each of the four victims was dragged by a force which he couldn't resist to the place of execution.
Richard Dewey was pale, but his expression was stern and contemptuous, as if he regarded the party of miners as fools or lunatics.
"Was this to be the end?" he asked himself. "Just as the prospect of happiness was opening before him, just as he was to be reunited to the object of his affection, was he to fall a victim to the fury of a mob?"
Jake Bradley perhaps took the matter more philosophically than either of the other three. He had less to live for, and his attachment to life was not therefore so strong. Still, to be hanged as a thief was not a pleasant way to leave life, and that was what he thought of most. Again, his sympathy was excited in behalf of the boy Ben, whom he had come to love as if he were his own son. He could not bear to think of the boy's young life being extinguished in so shocking a manner.
"This is rough, Ben," he managed to say as the two, side by side, were hurried along by the vindictive crowd.
Ben's face was pale and his heart was full of sorrow and awe with the prospect of a shameful death rising before him. Life was sweet to him, and it seemed hard to lose it.
"Yes it is," answered Ben, faltering. "Can't something be done?"
Jake Bradley shook his head mournfully. "I am afraid not," he said. "I'd like to shoot one of those lyin' scoundrels" (referring to Bill Mosely and his companion) "before I am swung off. To think their word should cost us our lives! It's a burnin' shame!"
Ki Sing looked the image of terror as he too was forced forward by a couple of strong miners. His feet refused to do their office, and he was literally dragged forward, his feet trailing along the ground. He was indeed a ludicrous figure, if anything connected with such a tragedy can be considered ludicrous. Probably it was not so much death that Ki Sing feared, for with his race life is held cheap, but Chinamen shrink from violence, particularly that of a brutal character. They are ready with their knives, but other violence is not common among them.