Later in the day, while intoxicated, Luce called Bunton a coward, in the presence of his brother, Sam Bunton. The latter whipped him severely on the spot. Three days later, Luce carried the express to Salt Lake City, Sam Bunton following four or five days thereafter. Luce met him at the Salt Lake House.
“We had,” said he, addressing him, “a little difficulty in Bannack, and now we’ll settle it.”
“It’s already settled,” said Bunton.
“You’re a liar,” replied Luce, and drawing his knife cut Bunton’s throat, killing him on the spot. Luce was arrested, tried, and found guilty of murder. By the Territorial statute of Utah, he was authorized to choose the mode of his execution, from the three forms of hanging, shooting, or beheading. His choice was to be shot, and he was executed in that manner.
Bill Bunton and Sam Bunton were natives of Ohio. Their parents moved to Andrew County, Missouri, in 1839, and thence to Oregon in 1842, when they were respectively sixteen and fourteen years old. The father was a rough, drinking, quarrelsome man, clever, but uneducated.
CHAPTER XXV
LEROY SOUTHMAYD
Early in the afternoon of a cold day late in November, 1863, Leroy Southmayd, Captain Moore, and a discharged driver known as “Billy,” took passage in Oliver’s coach at Virginia City, for Bannack. A ruffian equally well known by the cognomens of “Old Tex” and “Jim Crow” stood near, watching the departing vehicle. As Moore’s eyes alighted upon him, he said to Southmayd,
“I am sorry to see that rascal watching us; he belongs to the gang. It bodes us no good.”
“Oh,” replied Southmayd, laughing, “I think there’s no danger. Robbery has ‘played out.’ These fellows are beginning to understand that the people will hold them accountable for their villainies.”
Little more was said about it, the conversation turning to more congenial topics. About three o’clock, the coach, which had made slow progress, drove up in front of Lorrain’s, eleven miles from town. While Tom Caldwell, the driver, was changing horses, George Ives and Steve Marshland rode up, dismounted, and asked if they could procure a change of horses. Having ascertained that they could not do so, they ordered feed for those they had been riding, Ives in the meantime carefully avoiding Southmayd. The company fell into a desultory conversation, which Ives abruptly terminated by remarking that he had heard from Old Tex.