The messenger brought with him copies of the confession made by the prisoner, under oath, before the proper person to receive an obligation. The substance of his story was that he was an honest, hard-working miner; that he had just come into the country, by the way of Salt Lake City; that on reaching Virginia City, and while under the influence of liquor, he had fallen into bad company, and was initiated into an organized band of robbers. He gave the names of about a dozen of the members of the gang, and minutely described the signs of recognition, etc. It was evident, from his account that the ceremonies attending the entry into this villainous fraternity were simple and forcible, although not legal. The candidate was placed in the center of a circle formed of desperadoes; one or two revolvers at full cock were presented at his head, and he was then informed that his taking the obligation was to be a purely voluntary act on his part; for that he was at perfect liberty to refuse to do so; ONLY, in that case, that his brains would be blown out without any further ceremony. Though not a man of any education, Silvie could not afford to lose his brains, having only one set, and he therefore consented to proceed, and swore through a long formula, of which, he said he recollected very little, distinctly, except a pledge of secrecy and of fidelity to the band.
On receipt of the intelligence, a captain, with a squad of four or five men, was immediately dispatched to Diamond City, with orders to bring the prisoner to Helena as soon as possible. The party lost but little time in the performance of their duty, and on the following day the chief of the Committee rode out, as previously agreed upon, in company with X (a letter of the alphabet having singular terrors for evil doers in Montana, being calculated to awaken the idea of crime committed and punishment to follow, more than all the rest of the alphabet, even if the enumeration were followed by the repetition of the ten commandments,) and meeting the guard in charge of the prisoner, they accompanied them into town. Silvie was confined in the same cabin in which John Keene past his last night on earth. A strong guard was detailed for the purpose of watching the prisoner, and the Committee being summoned, the case was investigated with all due deliberation; but the Committee were not entirely satisfied that the evidence, though complete, was all of such a reliable character as to justify a conviction; and, therefore, they preferred to adjourn their inquiry, for the production of further testimony. This was accordingly done, and the prisoner was removed to an obscure cabin, in a more remote part of the town, where the members of the Committee would have an opportunity of free access to him and might learn from his own lips what sort of a man they had to deal with.
They were not long in arriving at a satisfactory conclusion on this point. He at first adhered to and repeated his old story and confession; but gaining a little confidence, and thinking there was not much danger to be apprehended from the action of the Committee, he at length denied every word of his former statement, made under oath; said it was all false; that he knew of no such organization as he had told of, and declared that he had been compelled to tell this for his own safety. After being cross questioned pretty thoroughly, he told the truth, stating that he had given a correct statement in the first place; only, that instead of joining the band in Virginia City, he had become acquainted with some of the leaders, on the Columbia River, on the way up from Portland, and that he had accompanied them to Virginia City, M. T., travelling thither by the way of Snake River. (It was on this trip that he committed the murder before described.) This was a fatal admission on the part of the prisoner, as it completed the chain of evidence that linked him with the desperadoes whose crimes have given an unenviable notoriety to the neighborhood of that affluent of the Columbia—the dread of storm-stayed freighters and the grave of so many victims of marauders—Snake River.
Another meeting of the Executive Committee was called during the day, and after due deliberation, the verdict was unanimous that he was a Road Agent, and that he should receive the just reward of his crimes, in the shape of the penalty attached to the commission of highway robbery and murder, by the citizens of Montana. After a long discussion, it was determined that he should be executed on the murderer’s tree, in Dry Gulch, at an hour after midnight. The prison guards were doubled, and no person was allowed to hold converse with the prisoner, except by permission of the officers.
The execution at night was determined upon for many sufficient reasons. A few of them are here stated: It had been abundantly demonstrated that but for the murder of Slater having occurred in open day, and before the eyes of a crowd of witnesses, Keene would have been rescued; and the moral effect produced by a public execution, among the hardened sinners who compose a large part of the audience at such times, is infinitely less than the terror to the guilty, produced by the unannounced but inevitable vengeance which may at any moment be visited upon their own heads. Such a power is dreaded most by those who fear its exercise.
The desire to die game, so common to desperadoes, frequently robs death of half its terrors, if not of all of them, as in the case of Boon Helm, Bunton and others. Confessions are very rarely made at public executions in the mountains; though scarcely ever withheld at private ones. There are also many honest and upright men who have a great objection to be telegraphed over the west as “stranglers,” yet who would cheerfully sacrifice their lives rather than by word or deed become accessory to an unjust sentence. The main question is the guilt of the prisoner. If this is ascertained without doubt, hour and place are mere matters of policy. Private executions are now fast superseding public ones, in civilized communities.
There is not now—and there never has been—one upright citizen in Montana, who has a particle of fear of being hanged by the Vigilance Committee. Concerning those whose conscience tells them that they are in danger, it is of little consequence when or where they suffer for the outrages they have committed. One private execution is a more dreaded and wholesome warning to malefactors than one hundred public ones.
If it be urged that public executions are desirable from the notoriety that is ensured to the whole circumstances, it may fairly be answered that the action of Judge, and jury, and counsel is equally desirable, and, indeed, infinitely preferable, when it is effective and impartial, to any administration of justice by Vigilance Committees; but, except in the case of renowned Road Agents and notorious criminals whose names are a by-word, before their arrest, or where the crime is a revolting outrage, witnessed by a large number, the feeling of the community in a new camp is against ANY punishment being given, and the knowledge of this fact is the desperadoes’ chief reliance for escape from the doom he has so often dared, and has yet escaped.
When informed of his sentence the prisoner seemed little affected by it, and evidently did not believe it, but regarded it as a ruse on the part of the Committee to obtain a confession from him. After the shades of night had settled down upon the town of Helena, a minister was invited to take a walk with an officer of the Vigilantes, and proceeded in his company to the cabin where Silvie was confined, and was informed of the object in view in requesting his attendance. He at once communicated the fact to the culprit, who feigned a good deal of repentance, received baptism at his own request, and appeared to pray with great fervor. He seemed to think that he was cheating the Almighty himself, as well as duping the Vigilantes most completely.
At length the hour appointed for the execution arrived, and the matter was arranged so that the prisoner should not know whither he was going until he came to the fatal tree. The Committee were all out of sight, except one man, who led him by the arm to the place of execution, conversing with him in the German tongue, which seemed still further to assure him that it was all a solemn farce, and that he should “come out all right;” but when he found himself standing under the very tree on which Keene was hanged and beheld the dark mass closing in on all sides, each man carrying a revolver in his hand, he began to realize his situation, and begged most piteously for his life, offering to tell anything and everything, if they would only spare him. Being informed that that was “played out,” and that he must die, his manner changed, and he began his confession. He stated that he had been in the business for twelve years, and repeated the story before related, about his being engaged in the perpetration of a dozen murders, and the final atrocity committed by him on Snake River. He stated that it was thought their victim was returning from the mines, and that he had plenty of money, which on an examination of him, after his death, proved to be a mistake.