When all the formalities and last requests were over, the order was given to the guard,
“Men, do your duty.”
The click of a hundred gun-locks was heard, as the guard levelled their weapons upon the crowd, and the box flew from under the murderer’s feet, as he swung “in the night breeze, facing the pale moon, that lighted up the scene of retributive justice.” The crowd of rescuers fled in terror at the click of the guns.
“He is dead,” said the judge, who was standing near him. “His neck is broken.”
Henry Spivey, the juror who voted against the conviction of Ives, was a thoroughly honest and conscientious man. He was not satisfied that the evidence showed Ives to be guilty of the murder of Tiebalt, and as this was the specific charge against him, he could not vote against his conscience. He said that if Ives had been tried as a road agent, he would have voted for his conviction.
The highest praise is due to Colonel Sanders for the fearlessness and energy he displayed in the conduct of this trial; for it furnished an example which was not lost upon the law and order men in all their subsequent efforts to rid the Territory of the ruffians.
CHAPTER XXXI
RESULT OF IVES’S EXECUTION
The confederates of Ives spared no efforts, while his trial was in progress, to save him. When intimidation failed, they appealed to sympathy; and when that proved unavailing, it was their intention, by a desperate onslaught at the last moment, to attempt a forcible rescue. They were deterred from this by the rapid clicking of the gun-locks at the moment of the execution. All through the weary hours of the trial, their hopes were encouraged with the belief that Plummer, their chief, would come, and demand the custody of Ives; and if refused, obtain it by a writ of habeas corpus, in the name of the civil authorities of the Territory. But if he obeyed the summons of Clubfoot George, which is at best problematical, he acted no conspicuous part. A saloon-keeper by the name of Clinton was very positive that he saw him drink at his bar a few moments before the execution, and that he immediately went out to lead the “forlorn hope” of the roughs. Some other person was probably mistaken for the robber chief, as he was not recognized by any others of the crowd present at the time. In fact he had enough to do to make provision for his own safety; for Rumor, with her thousand tongues, had carried the intelligence of the arrest of Ives to Bannack, before the arrival there of Clubfoot George. He found the people wild with excitement over a version of the arrest, which Plummer himself had already circulated, coupled with a statement that a Vigilance Committee had been formed at Virginia City, a number of the best citizens hanged, and that from three hundred to five hundred armed men were on the march to Bannack, with the intention of hanging him, Ned Ray, Buck Stinson, George Crisman, A. J. McDonald, Thomas Pitt, and others. This anticipatory announcement was made with the hope that by mingling the respectable names of Crisman, McDonald, and Pitt, with those of Stinson, Ray, and his own, he might divert, or at least divide, the attention which would otherwise inculpate only the real villains. It produced a momentary sensation, but failed of effect.
George Ives was no common desperado. Born of respectable parents, he was reared at Ives’s Grove, Racine County, Wisconsin. The foreground of his life was blameless; and it was not until he came to the West that he developed into the moral monster we have seen. His career as a miner in California, in 1857–58, though wild and reckless, was unstained by crime. No accusation of dishonesty was made against him, until after his employment as a herder of government mules belonging to the military post at Walla Walla, in Washington Territory. The heavy storms of that latitude, often destructive to herds in the mountains, afforded him opportunity from time to time, by reporting the fatality to the herd in his charge greater than it was, to obtain for himself quite a large number of animals. The deception was not discovered until after his departure. He was by turns a gambler and a rowdy in all the mining settlements on Salmon River. His downward course, once commenced, was very rapid. On one occasion he surprised the man who had employed him as a herder, by riding into a saloon kept by him at Elk City. After the man had seized the horse by the bridle, Ives drew and cocked his pistol to shoot him, but was prevented by a fortunate recognition of his old employer. He apologized, and withdrew; and on several occasions afterwards, proffered him the gray horse he rode as a present, which the gentleman, convinced that Ives had stolen the animal, as often declined to accept. He was only twenty-seven years of age at the close of his bloody career in Montana. His appearance was prepossessing. In stature nearly six feet, with light complexion, neatly shaven face, and lively blue eyes, no one would ever have suspected him of dishonesty, much less of murder, and cold-blooded heartlessness. And yet, probably, few men of his age had ever been guilty of so many fiendish crimes.
George Hilderman was fortunate in being put upon trial immediately after the execution of Ives. Ten days later he would have been hanged upon the same evidence. It was proved that he knew of the murder of Tiebalt, and of the murder of the unknown man near Cold Spring ranche, neither of which he had divulged. He had even concealed the stolen mules, and knew the persons engaged in the stage robberies, and was found guilty upon general principles, but recommended to mercy. Upon being informed of the verdict, he dropped upon his knees, and exclaimed,