“O mein Gott!. Will I be murdered?”
A bystander who had witnessed the meeting, and saw that John, who had expected an easy victory, was paralyzed with fear, called to him,
“Turn your artillery loose!”
Forbes was tried for this crime, and acquitted. He was afterwards convicted of crime of some kind in Carson City, and imprisoned. On New Year’s day he succeeded in removing his handcuffs, broke jail, and went to the sheriff’s house, as he said upon entering, “to make a New Year’s call.” The officer returned him to prison. From this time, his career of crime knew no impediment.
On his first arrival in the mountains he corresponded for some of the California and Nevada papers. His letters were highly interesting. His true name was Edward Richardson.
To return to Stinson and Lyons. After the demonstrations of joy at Forbes’s escape had subsided, the people remembered that there was an execution on the tapis. Drawing up a wagon in front of the building where the criminals were confined, they ordered them to get in. They obeyed, followed by several of their friends, who took seats beside them. Lyons became almost uproarious in his appeals for mercy. The women, of whom there were many, began to cry, begging earnestly for the lives of the criminals. Smith, their lawyer, joined his petitions to those of the women, and the entire crowd began to give way under this pressure of sympathy. Meantime the wagon was drawn slowly towards the place of execution. When the excitement was at its highest pitch, a man demanded in a loud tone that the people should listen to a letter which Lyons had written to his mother. This document, which had been prepared by some person for the occasion, was now read. It was filled with expressions of love for the aged mother, regret for the crime, repentance, acknowledgments of misspent life, and strong promises of amendment, if only life could be spared a little longer. Every sentence elicited fresh grief from the women, who now became perfectly clamorous in their calls for mercy to the prisoners. After the letter was read, some one cried out, in derision,
“Give him a horse, and let him go to his mother.”
Another immediately moved that they take a vote upon that proposition. Sheriff Todd, whose duty it was only to carry out the sentence of the court, consented to this, and the question was submitted to ayes and noes. Both parties claimed the victory. It was then agreed that those in favor of hanging should go up, and those opposed, down the side of a neighboring hill. Neither party being satisfied, as a final test, four men were selected, and those who wished the sentence enforced were to pass between two of them, and those who opposed, between the other two. The votes for liberty were increased to meet the occasion, by a second passage of as many as were necessary to carry the question. An Irish miner, while the voting was in progress, exclaimed in a loud voice, as a negro passed through the acquittal bureau,
“Bedad, there’s a bloody nagur that’s voted three times.”
But this vote, dishonest as it was, settled the question; for Jack Gallagher, pistol in hand, shouted,