“Aha!” said one citizen to another, “those rascals scent the game and are preparing to leave. If they do, that will be the last of them.”
“We can block that game,” was the rejoinder.
Several members of the Vigilance Committee met on the spur of the moment and adopted measures for the immediate arrest and execution of the three robbers. Stinson and Ray were arrested without opposition,—one at Mr. Toland’s cabin, and the other, stretched at the time upon a gaming table, in a saloon. The party detailed to arrest Plummer found him at his cabin, in the act of washing his face. When informed that he was wanted he manifested great unconcern, and proceeded quietly to wipe his face and hands.
“I’ll be with you in a moment, ready to go wherever you wish,” he said to the leader of the Vigilantes. Tossing down the towel and smoothing his shirt-sleeves, he advanced towards a chair on which his coat was lying, carelessly remarking: “I’ll be ready as soon as I can put on my coat.”
One of the party, discovering the muzzle of his pistol protruding beneath the coat, stepped quickly forward, saying as he did so, “I’ll hand your coat to you.”
At the same moment he secured the pistol, which being observed by Plummer, he turned deathly pale, but still maintained sufficient composure to converse in his usual calm, measured tone. The fortunate discovery of the pistol defeated the desperate measures which a desperate man would have employed to save his life. With his expertness in the use of that weapon, he would doubtless have slain some or all of his captors. He was marched to a point where, as designated before the capture, he joined Stinson and Ray, and thence the three were conducted under a formidable escort to the gallows. This structure, roughly framed of the trunks of three small pines, stood in a dismal spot three hundred yards from the centre of the town. It had been erected the previous season by Plummer, who, as sheriff, had hanged thereon one John Horan, who had been convicted of the murder of Keeley. Terrible must have been its appearance as it loomed up in the bright starlight, the only object visible to the gaze of the guilty men, on that long waste of ghastly snow. A negro boy came up to the gallows with ropes before the arrival of the cavalcade. All the way, Ray and Stinson filled the air with curses. Plummer, on the contrary, first begged for his life, and, finding that unavailing, resorted to argument, and sought to persuade his captors of his innocence.
“It is useless,” said one of the Vigilantes, “for you to beg for your life; that affair is settled, and cannot be altered. You are to be hanged. You cannot feel harder about it than I do; but I cannot help it if I would.”
“Do not answer me so,” persisted the now humbled and abject suppliant, “but do with me anything else you please. Cut off my ears, and cut out my tongue, and strip me naked this freezing night, and let me go. I beg you to spare my life. I want to live for my wife,—my poor absent wife. I wish to see my sister-in-law. I want time to settle my business affairs. Oh, God!” Falling upon his knees, the tears streaming from his eyes, and with his utterance choked with sobs, he continued,
“I am too wicked to die. I cannot go blood-stained and unforgiven into the presence of the Eternal. Only spare me, and I will leave the country forever.”
To all these, and many more petitions in the same vein, the only answer was an assurance that his pleadings were all in vain, and that he must die. Meantime, Stinson and Ray discharged volley after volley of oaths and epithets at the Vigilantes, employing all the offensive language of their copious vocabulary. At length the ropes were declared to be in readiness, and the stern command was given, “Bring up Ned Ray.”