I climbed up on the box beside Tom; I threw my arms around his neck, although the feel of that ugly noose against my flesh made me shudder.
"This man is innocent—he is my sweetheart," I kept shouting. "You must let him go."
I hugged Tom Bigelow, I kissed him, I wept over him—I did everything I could imagine a woman doing when the man she loves is about to be hung before her eyes.
"If you hang him you'll have to hang me, too," I screamed between my heart-rending sobs.
The crowd was amazed. Lynchings were no uncommon occurrence in that region, but nothing like this had ever happened before.
The cooler heads in the crowd began to have their say. "Take that noose off his neck and lock them both up," some one shouted.
The Sheriff put handcuffs on us and led us away. My ruse had succeeded. Tom Bigelow's life was saved!
Tom and I were lodged in jail, indicted by the Grand Jury and held without bail for trial. Of course, I was innocent of any share in the robbery, but, as the authorities believed my story that I was Tom's sweetheart, they thought I must know more about it than I admitted.
It was while we were confined in the jail at Mount Sterling that I had an opportunity to see for myself how it feels to face a desperate lynching mob. That was one of the most horrid nightmares I ever experienced.
One of our fellow inmates in the jail was a man named Murphy Logan, who was awaiting trial for the murder of his father. He was a sullen, weak-minded fellow, who had several killings to his discredit. The general opinion was that he belonged in an insane asylum.