Mudgett knew that _The Fly_ was in the area seeking his hiding place, and throughout the night he and his crew oiled and tested their rifles at their camp site on the bank of the river. They also test-fired their small artillery piece, a gun 8 feet long with a bore of 1¼ inches which fired fifteen 16-ounce slugs of lead. They had long poles for fending off a boarding party, 3-foot-long clubs, and baskets filled with stones the size of a man’s fist. The poles were to be used first to prevent anyone boarding the _Black Snake_. If this did not succeed, then the crew were to use the clubs and stones. As a last resort, they were to defend themselves with the guns. At daybreak on August 3, a lookout came racing to the camp to warn the smugglers that _The Fly_ was moving up the Onion River. Within a few minutes the revenue cutter came into view and closed on the _Black Snake_. Mudgett shouted at Lieutenant Farrington: “I’ll blow the first man through who lays his hand on the _Snake_!” Farrington coolly ignored the warning. He leaped from _The Fly_ onto the _Black Snake_ and ordered Sergeant Johnson to come aboard with six men and commandeer the outlaw craft. “You’ll never get out of this river alive,” shouted Mudgett as he turned and ran back into the woods to rejoin his men. Farrington sent four soldiers ashore to search for the crew of the _Black Snake_ and then he returned to the helm of the cutter and started downstream with his prize. They had gone about half a mile when the smugglers opened fire from behind an embankment above the river. Farrington ordered Pvt. Elias Drake to take the helm of the cutter, but as Drake reached for the helm a bullet tore through his head and killed him instantly. As gunfire raked the cutter, Farrington ordered his men to lie flat in the boat. He grabbed an oar and maneuvered the craft ashore below the smugglers’ hiding place. Then he and his men leaped ashore and started to move against the smugglers. They had advanced only a few yards when the attackers fired the blunderbuss artillery piece. Two men fell dead under the hail of lead, and Farrington was badly wounded. Sergeant Johnson rallied the men and succeeded in capturing all but two of the _Black Snake_’s crew. They were lodged in jail at Burlington, and later the two smugglers who escaped were rounded up. Cyrus B. Dean, one of the smugglers, was convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged. A crowd of ten thousand gathered in Burlington to witness the execution, and some historians say that Dean was the first man to die of capital punishment in Vermont. Others of the gang, including Mudgett, were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to prison.