“My God! is it so!”
He then made a statement confirming all that Long John had testified to concerning Ives.
The people commiserated his hapless condition. He was an old man, weak, somewhat imbecile. They concluded that his silence had been enforced by the threats of Ives and his associates, and that, as there was no proof implicating him directly with robbery or murder, they would sentence him to banishment from the Territory. Ten days were given him in which to leave. Glad to escape with his life, he applied to Plummer for assistance. Plummer advised him to remain; but the old man took wiser counsel from his fears. He decided to go. Plummer gave him a pony and provisions, and he left Montana forever.
Hilderman was possessed of a coarse humor, which he had lost no opportunity to demonstrate, while a sojourner at Bannack. It made him quite a favorite with the miners, until they became suspicious of his villainous propensities. He was also a notorious “bummer,” and was oftener indebted to his humor, which was always at command, than his pocket, which was generally empty, for something to eat. In width, his mouth was a deformity, and the double row of huge teeth firmly set in his strong jaws gave to his countenance an animal expression truly repulsive. He was the original of the story of “The Great American Pie-biter.” This feat of spreading his jaws so as to bite through seven of Kustar’s dried-apple pies, had been frequently performed by him, in satisfaction of the wager he was ever on hand to make of his ability to do it. On one occasion, however, he was destined to be defeated. A miner, who had been victimized by him, arranged with Kustar, the proprietor of the Bannack Bakery, to have two of the pies inserted in the pile without removing the tin plates in which they had been baked, the edges of which were concealed by the overlapping crusts. Hilderman approached the pile, and spreading his enormous mouth, soon spanned it with his teeth. The crunch which followed, arrested by the metal, was unsuccessful. He could not understand it, but, despite the vice-like pressure, the jaws would not close. The trick not being discovered, he paid the wager, declaring that Kustar made the toughest pie-crust he had ever met with.
Long John purchased his freedom by his testimony, and nothing appearing against “Tex” at the time, he also was released.
The execution of Ives had a terrifying effect upon the ruffian horde, though a few of them put a bold face upon the matter and were as loud in their threats as ever. The prominent actors in that drama were singled out for slaughter, but no serious instance of personal assault occurred. The ruffians felt secure, as long as they were unknown, and the only revelation yet made was insufficient to implicate any of them with the numerous murders and robberies that had been committed. Facts had appeared upon the trial, making it probable that Carter was accessory to the murder of Tiebalt. The assassination of Dillingham was unavenged. Either of these causes, in the excited state of the public mind, was sufficient to remind the people that the work they had to perform was but just begun. If what they had done was right, it would be wrong to permit others equally guilty to escape. Carter, Stinson, and Lyons must be punished.
This spontaneity of thought brought a few of the citizens of Virginia and Nevada into consultation the day following the execution; and before the close of the succeeding day, a league was entered into, in which all classes of the community united, for the punishment of crime and the protection of the people. Before the organization of this committee was completed, a fresh impulse was given to the public indignation on receipt of intelligence that Lloyd Magruder, a merchant of Elk City, and the independent Democratic candidate for Congress, who had been trading in Virginia City during the fall, had, while on his return to his home, with four others, been cruelly murdered and robbed by a number of the gang, in the Bitter Root Mountains. Full particulars of this terrible tragedy will be given in the two following chapters.
Magruder was very popular with the people of Virginia City. The committee went to work immediately. Twenty-four of them, well mounted, and provisioned for a long ride, started in pursuit of Carter. That villain, accompanied by William Bunton, Graves, and several others, in anticipation of arrest, left as soon as the trial of Ives was over, for the west side of the range. The pursuers followed on his trail as rapidly as possible, into the Deer Lodge Valley. While riding down the valley, the vanguard of the scouts met Erastus Yager, who from the redness of his hair and whiskers was familiarly called “Red.” He informed them that Carter and his companions were lying drunk at Cottonwood (since Deer Lodge City), and that they avowed themselves good for at least thirty of any men that might be sent to arrest them.
The party had suffered severely from the wintry blasts and storms, especially while crossing the divide; and they were glad that both strategy and comfort favored their detention for the next twenty hours at the ranche of John Smith, seventeen miles above Cottonwood. At three o’clock in the afternoon of the next day, they left for Cottonwood, expecting to surprise and capture the fugitive without difficulty. How great was their disappointment, to find that both he and his companions had fled. A distant camp-fire in the mountains at a later hour convinced them that further pursuit at that time would end in failure. They learned upon inquiry that the ruffians had received a message from Virginia City, warning them of the approach of the Vigilantes. And this intelligence was afterwards confirmed by a letter which was found at their camping ground, the writing of which was recognized as that of one George Brown, who was supposed to belong to the gang. It afterwards transpired that “Red,” or Yager, was the messenger who brought this letter, and that he had killed two horses on the expedition. Disappointed in the object of their search, the scouts now determined to return by way of Beaverhead Rock, and, if possible, arrest both Brown and “Red” for their criminal interference.
Their sufferings from exposure to the keen December storms were intense. Arriving at Beaverhead, they camped in the willows, without shelter or fire, except such as could be enkindled with green willows. Some of their animals strayed to a cañon to escape the severity of the storm. After remaining in camp at this place for two days, they ascertained that “Red” was at Rattlesnake, twenty miles distant. A small party of volunteers started immediately to arrest him, while the others, en route to Virginia City, stopped at Dempsey’s to await their return.