"What are you doing--Rangers?" "A' going to hang him, darned quick." "Without even a trial?" I demanded. "We'll jist try him, arterwards." "Then, by God!" I said, "you will have to hang me and try me afterwards, too." As they paused for perhaps half a minute, I continued without giving them a chance to speak. "I believed you chose me your Captain, yet here you are going to hang one of my boys, without letting me say a single word." "Say it darned sharp, then, Cap!" "And give us your orders to run him up with a rope, or put a bullet through his skull, in two minutes," roared out another. As they were again crowding up and one of them had grasped Harvey by the collar, Ben Painter, followed by Arnold, had struggled to my side and thrust him back. "I tell yer," he shouted out, for otherwise he would scarcely have been heard, "Mose is right. He's Captain. We mustn't have any Vigilance Committee business, but do up things square." "We'll take him down to Susanville, and give him a fair trial," added Arnold. "And then yer can hang him, if yer choose to," exclaimed Butch'. "Yer'll only have tu wait twenty-four hours." By this time, the last speaker and Brighton Bill had vigorously thrust their way to my side, and I felt I had a sufficient support to carry my point and save Harvey from the menacing rope and tree which had so lately reared themselves before him. But he also seemed to feel his increased chance of safety, and anxious to improve it, attempted to commence defending himself. When, however, he did so, I cut him short with a fierce whisper, announcing to him that if he uttered "a single word," I would abandon him. The Rangers were in a moment of such wild excitement, that, had he spoken, every effort we might have made would have been useless. Their savage fury would very speedily have settled the question, in spite of us. Even as it was, we had to contend with them for more than an hour, before we had calmed them down sufficiently to listen to our arguments. When this was at last effected, I placed him in the charge of Painter and Brighton Bill, while we buried the man who had been slain through his insane want of judgment. That night we slept in George Laithrop's house, and on the following morning we were no sooner stirring, than it was discovered that while we had been sleeping, Tom Harvey had been awake. In other words, he had made tracks.