The Story of the Outlaw by Emerson Hough (read aloud .txt) 📕

after another was added to the list. George Ives, Johnny Cooper, George Carrhart, Hayes Lyons, Cy Skinner, and others of the toughs were now open associates of the leading spirit, Plummer. The condition of lawlessness and terror was such that all the decent men would have gone back to the States, but the same difficulties that had kept them from getting across to Florence now kept them from getting back East. The winter held them prisoners.

Henry Plummer was now elected sheriff for the Bannack mining district, to succeed Crawford, whom he had run out of the country. It seems very difficult to understand how this could have occurred; but it will serve to show the numerical strength of Plummer's party. The latter, now married, professed to have reformed. In reality, he was deeper in deviltry than ever in his life.

The diggings at Gold Creek and Bannack were now eclipsed by the sensational discoveries on the famous Alder Gulch, one of the phenomenal placers of the world, and the most productive ever known in America. The stampede was fast and furious to these new diggings. In ten days the gulch was staked out for twelve miles, and the cabins of the miners were occupied for all of that distance, and scattered over a long, low flat, whose vegetation was quickly swept away. The new camp that sprung up on one end of this bar was called Virginia City. It need not be said that among the first settlers there were the outlaws earlier mentioned, with several others: Jack Gallagher, Buck Stinson, Ned Ray, and others, these three named being "deputies" of "Sheriff" Plummer. A sort of court was formed for trying disputed mining claims. Charley Forbes was clerk of this court, and incidentally one of Plummer's band! This clerk and these deputies killed one Dillingham, whom they suspected of informing a friend of a robbery planned to make away with him on the trail from Bannack to Virginia City. They were "tried" by the court and freed. Hayes Lyons admitted privately that Plummer had told him to kill the informer Dillingham. The invariable plan of this bloodthirsty man was to destroy unfavorable testimony by means of death.

The unceasing flood of gold from the seemingly exhaustless gulch caused three or four more little camps or towns to spring up; but Virginia City now took the palm for frontier reputation in hardness. Ten millions in "dust" was washed out in one year. Every one had gold, sacks and cans of it. The wild license of the place was unspeakably vitiating. Fights with weapons were incessant. Rude dance halls and saloons were crowded with truculent, armed men in search of trouble. Churches and schools were unknown. Tents, log cabins, and brush shanties made the residences. "Hacks rattled to and fro between the several towns, freighted with drunken and rowdy humanity of both sexes. Citizens of acknowledged respectability often walked, more often perhaps rode side by side on horseback, with noted courtesans, in open day, through the crowded streets, and seemingly suffered no harm in reputation. Pistols flashed, bowie-knives flourished, oaths filled the air. This was indeed the reign of unbridled license, and men who at first regarded it with disgust and terror, by constant exposure soon learned to become part of it, and to forget that they had ever been aught else. Judges, lawyers, doctors, even clergymen, could not claim exemption."

This was in 1863. At that time, the nearest capitals were Olympia, on Puget Sound; Yankton, two thousand miles away; and Lewiston, seven hundred miles away. What machinery of the law was there to hinder Plummer and his men? What better field than this one, literally overflowing with gold, could they have asked for their operations? And what better chief than Plummer?

His next effort was to be appointed deputy United States marshal, and he received the indorsement of the leading men of Bannack. Plummer afterward tried several times to kill Nathaniel P. Langford, who caused his defeat, but was unsuccessful in getting the opportunity he sought.

From Bannack to Salt Lake City was about five hundred miles. Mails by this time came in from Salt Lake City, which was the supply point. If a man wanted to send out gold to his people in the States, it had to go over this long trail across the wild regions. There was no mail service, and no express office nearer than Salt Lake. Merchants sent out their funds by private messenger. Every such journey was a risk of death. Plummer had clerks in every institution that was making money, and these kept him posted as to the times when shipments of dust were about to be made; they also told him when any well-staked miner was going out to the States. Plummer's men were posted all along these mountain trails. No one will ever know how many men were killed in all on the Salt Lake trail.

There was a stage also between Bannack and Virginia City, and this was regarded as a legitimate and regular booty producer by the gang. Whenever a rich passenger took stage, a confederate at the place put a mark on the vehicle so that it could be read at the next stop. At this point there was sure to be others of the gang, who attended to further details. Sometimes two or three thousand dollars would be taken from a single passenger. A stage often carried fifteen or twenty thousand dollars in dust. Plummer knew when and where and how each stage was robbed, but in his capacity as sheriff covered up the traces of all his associates.

The robbers who did the work were usually masked, and although suspicions were rife and mutterings began to grow louder, there was no actual evidence against Plummer until one day he held up a young man by name of Tilden, who voiced his belief that he knew the man who had held him up. Further evidence was soon to follow. A pack-train, bound for Salt Lake, had no less than eighty thousand dollars in dust in its charge, and Plummer had sent out Dutch John and Steve Marshland to hold up the train. The freighters were too plucky, and both the bandits were wounded, and so marked, although for the time they escaped. George Ives also was recognized by one or two victims and began to be watched on account of his numerous open murders.

At length, the dead body of a young man named Tiebalt was found in a thicket near Alder Gulch, under circumstances showing a revolting murder. At last the slumbering spirit of the Vigilantes began to awaken. Two dozen men of the camp went out and arrested Long John, George Ives, Alex Carter, Whiskey Bill, Bob Zachary, and Johnny Cooper. These men were surprised in their camp, and among their long list of weapons were some that had been taken from men who had been robbed or murdered. These weapons were identified by friends. Old Tex was another man taken in charge, and George Hilderman yet another. All these men wanted a "jury trial," and wanted it at Virginia City, where Plummer would have official influence enough to get his associates released! The captors, however, were men from Nevada, the other leading camp in Alder Gulch, and they took their prisoners there.

At once a Plummer man hastened out on horseback to get the chief on the ground, riding all night across the mountains to Bannack to carry the news that the citizens had at last rebelled against anarchy, robbery, and murder. On the following morning, two thousand men had gathered at Nevada City, and had resolved to try the outlaws. As there was rivalry between Virginia and Nevada camps, a jury was made up of twenty-four men, twelve from each camp. The miners' court, most dread of all tribunals, was in session.

Some forms of the law were observed. Long John was allowed to turn state's evidence. He swore that George Ives had killed Tiebalt, and declared that he shot him while Tiebalt was on his knees praying, after he had been told that he must die. Then a rope was put around his neck and he was dragged to a place of concealment in the thicket where the body was found. Tiebalt was not dead while so dragged, for his hands were found full of grass and twigs which he had clutched. Ives was condemned to death, and the law and order men were strong enough to suppress the armed disturbance at once started by his friends, none of whom could realize that the patient citizens were at last taking the law into their own hands. A scaffold was improvised and Ives was hung,—the first of the Plummer gang to meet retribution. The others then in custody were allowed to go under milder sentences.

The Vigilantes now organized with vigor and determination. One bit of testimony was added to another, and one man now dared to voice his suspicions to another. Twenty-five determined men set out to secure others of the gang now known to have been united in this long brotherhood. Some of these men were now fleeing the country, warned by the fate of Ives; but the Vigilantes took Red Yager and Buck Stinson and Ned Ray, two of them Plummer's deputies, as well as another confederate named Brown. The party stopped at the Lorain Ranch, near a cottonwood grove, and tried their prisoners without going into town. Red Yager confessed in full before he was hung, and it was on his testimony that the whole secret league of robbers was exposed and eventually brought to justice. He gave the following list:

Henry Plummer was chief of the gang; Bill Bunton, stool-pigeon and second in command; George Brown, secretary; Sam Bunton, roadster; Cyrus Skinner, fence, spy and roadster; George Shears, horse thief and roadster; Frank Parish, horse thief and roadster; Bill Hunter, telegraph man and roadster; Ned Ray, council-room keeper at Bannack City; George Ives, Stephen Marshland, Dutch John (Wagner), Alex Carter, Whiskey Bill (Graves), Johnny Cooper, Buck Stinson, Mexican Frank, Bob Zachary, Boone Helm, Clubfoot George (Lane), Billy Terwilliger, Gad Moore, were roadsters.

The noose was now tightening around the neck of the outlaw, Henry Plummer, whose adroitness had so long stood him in good stead. The honest miners found that their sheriff was the leader of the outlaws! His doom was said then and there, with that of all these others.

A party of the Virginia City law and order men slipped over to Bannack, Henry Plummer's home. In a few hours the news had spread of what had happened at the other camps, and a branch organization of the Vigilantes was formed for Bannack. Stinson and Ray were now arrested, and then Plummer himself, the chief, the brains of all this long-secret band of marauders. He was surprised with his coat and arms off, and taken prisoner. A few moments later, he was facing a scaffold, where, as sheriff, he had lately hung a man. The law had no delays. No court could quibble here. Not all Plummer's wealth could save him now, nor all his intellect and cool audacity.

An agony of remorse and fear now came upon the outlaw chief. He fell upon his knees, called upon God to save him, begged, pleaded, wept like a child, declared that he was too wicked to die thus soon and unprepared. It was useless. The full proof of all his many crimes was laid before him.

Ray, writhing and cursing, was the first to be hanged. He got his finger under the rope around his neck and died hard, but