The Jury were absent, deliberating on their verdict, but little less than half an hour, and on their return, twenty-three made a report that Ives was proven guilty; but one member—Henry Spivey—declined to give in any finding, for unknown reasons.
The crisis of the affair had now arrived. A motion was made, “That the report of the committee be received, and it discharged from further consideration of that case,” which Mr. Thurmond opposed; but upon explanation, deferred pressing his objections until the motion should be made to adopt the report, and to accept the verdict of the Committee as the judgment of the people there assembled; and thus the first formal motion passed without opposition.
Before this, some of the crowd were clamorous for an adjournment, and now Ives’ friends renewed the attempt; but it met with signal failure.
Another motion, “That the assembly adopt as their verdict the report of the Committee,” was made, and called forth the irrepressible and indefatigable Thurmond and Col. J. M. Wood; but it carried, there being probably not more than one hundred votes against it.
Here it was supposed by many that the proceedings would end for the present, and that the Court would adjourn until the morrow, as it was already dark. Col. Sanders, however, mounted the wagon, and, having recited that Ives had been declared a murderer and a robber by the people there assembled, moved, “That George Ives be forthwith hung by the neck until he is dead”—a bold and business-like movement which excited feeble opposition, was carried before the defendant seemed to realize the situation; but a friend or two and some old acquaintances having gained admission to the circle within which Ives was guarded, to bid him farewell, awakened him to a sense of the condition in which he was placed, and culprit and counsel sought to defer the execution. Some of his ardent counsel shed tears, of which lachrymose effusions it is well to say no more than that they were copious. The vision of a long and scaly creature, inhabiting the Nile, rises before us in connection with this aqueous sympathy for an assassin. Quite a number of his old chums were, as Petroleum V. Nasby says: “Weeping profoosly.” Then came moving efforts to have the matter postponed until the coming morning, Ives giving assurances, upon his honor, that no attempt at rescue or escape would be made; but already, Davis and Hereford were seeking a favorable spot for the execution.
Our Legislative Assembly seem to have forgotten that Mr. A. B. Davis had any of these arduous labors to perform but none who were present will ever forget the fearless activity which he displayed all through those trials. A differently constituted body may yet sit in Montana, and vote him his five hundred dollars.
The appeals made by Ives and Thurmond for a delay of the execution, were such as human weakness cannot well resist. It is most painful to be compelled to deny even a day’s brief space, during which the criminal may write to mother and sister, and receive for himself such religious consolation as the most hardened desire, under such circumstances; but that body of men had come there deeply moved by repeated murders and robberies, and meant “business.” The history of former trials was there more freshly and more deeply impressed upon the minds of men than it is now, and the result of indecision was before their eyes. The most touching appeal from Ives, as he held the hand of Col. Sanders, lost its force when met by the witheringly sarcastic request of one of the crowd, “Ask him how long a time he gave the Dutchman.” Letters were dictated by him and written by Thurmond. His will was made, in which the lawyers and his chums in iniquity were about equally remembered, to the entire exclusion of his mother and sisters, in Wisconsin. Whether or not it was a time for tears, it was assuredly a time of tears; but neither weakness nor remorse moistened the eyes of Ives. He seemed neither haughty nor yet subdued; in fact, he was exactly imperturbable. From a place not more than ten yards from where he sat during the trial, he was led to execution.
The prisoner had repeatedly declared that he would never “Die in his boots,” and he asked the sergeant of the guard for a pair of moccasins, which were given to him; but after a while, he seemed to be chilled, and requested that his boots might again be put on. Thus, George Ives “Died in his boots.”
During the whole trial, the doubting, trembling, desperate friends of Ives exhausted human ingenuity to devise methods for his escape, trying intimidation, weak appeals to sympathy, and ever and anon exhibiting their abiding faith in “Nice, sharp quillets of the law.” All the time, the roughs awaited with a suspense of hourly increasing painfulness, the arrival of their boasted chief, who had so long and so successfully sustained the three inimical characters of friend of their clan, friend of the people, and guardian of the laws.
Not more anxiously did the Great Captain at Waterloo, sigh for “Night or Blucher,” than did they for Plummer. But, relying upon him, they deferred all other expedients; and when the dreaded end came, as come it must, they felt that the tide in the affairs of villains had not been taken at its flood, and, not without a struggle, they yielded to the inevitable logic of events, and because they could not help it they gave their loved companion to the gallows.