“It was just about daylight. They carried him to the horse-market, set him on a table, and tied the rope round one of the lower branches of a big elm-tree. All the time I kept by his side, and when he was getting on the table he asked me to lend him my revolver to shoot one of the jurymen, who had spoken violently against him. When I refused, he asked me to tie the knot so as it wouldn’t slip. ‘It aint no account,’ said I, ‘to talk in that way, Jim; old fellow, you’re bound to die; and if they didn’t hang you I’d shoot you myself.’ ‘Well, then,’ said he, ‘give me hold of the rope, and I’ll show you how little I care for death.’ He seized the cord, pulled himself in an instant out of the reach of the crowd, and sat cross-legged on the bough. Half-a-dozen rifles were raised to bring him down, but reflecting that he could not escape, they forebore to fire. He tied a noose in the rope, put it round his neck, slipped it up till it was pretty tight, and then stood up and addressed the mob. He didn’t say much, except that he hated them all. He cursed the man he shot; he then cursed the world; and last of all he cursed himself; and with a terrible oath he jumped into the air, and with a jerk that shook the tree swung backward and forward over the heads of the crowd.” We are cantering rather ahead of Mr. Coke and his friends, whom we left at Trader’s Point, with a long trail before them. Their councils were already divided. The members of the triumvirate could not agree as to how many of their attendants should be retained. Finally, most of them were paid off and sent back. This was a very painful and arduous part of the journey. On the second day after leaving Major Barrow’s station, they reached Elk Horn ferry. It had been broken up by the Indians, and a raft had to be made, and the baggage taken across piecemeal. “The animals were not so easy to get across. Some of us were obliged to swim the river (which was sixty or seventy yards wide) eight or nine times, taking one horse at a time, or driving two or three by flogging and shouting behind them.” The musquetoes were in the ascendant; the rains heavy and frequent; the Sioux Indians, it was reported, had received from the Pawnees intimation of the movements of the Pale-face band.