Frank Parish requested to have a handkerchief tied over his face. His own black neck-tie, fastened in the Road Agents knot, was taken from his throat and dropped over his face like a veil. He seemed serious and quiet, but refused to confess anything more; and was launched into eternity. A bystander asked the guard who adjusted the rope, “Did you not feel for the poor man as you put the rope round his neck?” The Vigilanter, whose friend had been slaughtered by the Road Agents, regarded his interrogator with a stern look, and answered slowly, “Yes! I felt for his left ear!”
Haze Lyons seemed to expect a second deliverance from death, up to the last moment; looking right and left at the swaying bodies of the desperadoes, his countenance evidently indicating a hope of reprieve. Finding entreaty useless, he sent word to his mistress that she should get her gold watch, which he wore, and requested that his dying regards might be conveyed to her. He expressed a hope that she would see that his body was taken down, and that it was not left to hang too long. Also he charged her to see him decently buried. He died, apparently without pain. The bodies, after hanging for about two hours, were cut down, and carried to the street, in front of the house, where their friends found them, and took them away for burial. They sleep on Cemetery Hill, awaiting, not the justice of man, but the judgment of the last Day.
The man who dug the graves intended for Stinson and Lyons—after their sentence of death, for the murder of Dillingham—received no pay, and the two murderers actually committed an offense revolting to all notions of decency, in those very graves, in derision of their judges, and in contempt for their power. The sexton “pro tem” was in the crowd in front of the gallows where Lyons paid the penalty of his crimes, and said to him, “I dug your grave once for nothing; this time I’ll be paid, you bet.” He received his money.
As Jack Gallagher has not been specially referred to, the following short account of a transaction in which he was engaged, in Virginia City, is here presented:
Near the end of 1863, Jack Gallagher, who had hitherto occupied the position in Montana, of a promising desperado—raised himself to the rank of a “big medicine man,” among the Road Agents, by shooting a blacksmith, named Jack Temple, as fine a man as could be found among the trade. He did not kill him; but his good intentions were credited to him, and he was thenceforth respected as a proved brave. Temple had been shoeing oxen, and came up to Coleman & Lœb’s saloon, to indulge in a “Thomas and Jeremiah,” with some friends. Jack Gallagher was there. A couple of dogs began to fight, and Temple gave one of them a kick, saying to the dog, “Here, I don’t want you to fight here.” Jack said there was not a —— there that should kick that dog, and he was able to whip any man in the room. Temple, who, though not quarrelsome, was as brave as a lion, went up to him and said, “I’m not going to fight in here; but if you want a fight so bad, come into the street, and I’ll give you a ‘lay out;’ I’ll fight you a square fight.” He immediately went to the door. Jack Gallagher, seeing him so nicely planted for a shot, in a narrow door-way, whipped out his pistol, and fired twice at him. The first ball broke his wrist. “You must do better than that,” said Temple, “I can whip you yet.” The words were hardly out of his mouth when the second ball pierced his neck, and he fell. Gallagher would have finished him where he lay, but his friends interfered. The unfortunate man said: “Boys carry me somewhere; I don’t want to die, like a dog, in the street.” He remained, slowly recovering, but suffering considerably, for several weeks, and at the execution of Gallagher, he was walking round town, with his arm in a sling, greatly grieved at the sudden end of his antagonist. “I wish,” said he, “you had let him run till I got well; I would have settled that job myself.”
Bill Hunter and Gallagher robbed a Mormon of a large amount of greenbacks, which he had been foolish enough to display, in a saloon, in Virginia. They followed him down the road, on his way to Salt Lake City, and, it is presumed they murdered him. The money was recognized by several while the thieves were spending it in town. The Mormon was never heard of more. All the robbers whose death has been recorded wore the “Cordon knot” of the band, and nearly all, if not every one of them, shaved to the Road Agent pattern.
These executions were a fatal blow to the power of the band, and, henceforth, the RIGHT was the stronger side. The men of Nevada deserve the thanks of the people of the Territory for their activity, brave conduct and indomitable resolution. Without their aid, the Virginians could never have faced the roughs, or conquered them in their headquarters—their own town. The men of Summit, especially, and “up the Gulch,” generally, were always on hand, looking business, and doing it. Night fell on Virginia; but sleep forsook many an eye; while criminals of all kinds fled for their lives, from the fatal City of the Vigilantes.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DEER LODGE AND HELL GATE SCOUT—CAPTURE AND EXECUTION OF STEPHEN MARSHLAND, BILL BUNTON, CYRUS SKINNER, ALECK CARTER, JOHNNY COOPER, GEORGE SHEARS, ROBERT ZACHARY AND WILLIAM GRAVES, (WHISKEY BILL.)
“He dies and makes no sign;
So bad a death argues a monstrous life.”—Shak.
The operations of the Vigilantes were, at this time, especially, planned with a judgment, and executed with a vigor that never has been surpassed by any body, deliberative or executive. On the 15th of January, 1864, a party of twenty-one men left Nevada, under the command of a citizen whose name and actions remind us of lightning. He was prompt, brave, irresistible, (so wisely did he lay his plans,) and struck where least expected.