Along about two o'clock Val Hatfield curtly commanded Mrs. McCoy to leave the house and to return no more. She pressed for the reason of this order and was told that her husband, Randolph, was known to be at that moment attempting to assemble a crowd to rescue his sons. "Of course, you know," sneered the heartless wretch, "if we are interfered with in the least, them boys of yours will be the first to die." Mrs. McCoy denied the truth of the report, but her protestations were in vain. The two women saw themselves compelled to abandon the utterly useless struggle to save their loved ones and departed. It was the last time they saw them alive. All along throughout their confinement the brothers had shown a brave spirit. Now they lost all hope of rescue as from hour to hour the band of enemies increased until a small army had assembled. Through the open door they saw them sitting or standing in groups. Some were idly playing cards; others singing ribald songs or church hymns, whichever struck their fancy; all of them were drinking heavily. They heard an animated discussion as to the manner of death they should be made to suffer in the event of Ellison Hatfield's death. Some had suggested hanging; then one proposed that they make it a shooting match, with live human beings for a target. The idea was adopted by acclamation. Along in the afternoon of the 9th of August, the third day since the wounding of Ellison Hatfield, the assembled band was suddenly startled and every man brought to his feet by the sounds of a galloping horse. Instinctively they realized they were about to have news of Ellison Hatfield. The stir among their guards had aroused the attention of the prisoners. They easily guessed its portent. It was not necessary to tell them that Ellison Hatfield was dead. His corpse had been brought to the home of Elias Hatfield, who, together with a number of others that had been waiting at the bedside of the dying man, now augmented the Hatfield forces at the old schoolhouse. A mock trial was had and sentence of death passed upon the three McCoy brothers. These helpless, hopeless creatures, tied to one another like cattle about to be delivered to the slaughterhouse, were now jeered, joked and mocked. They were not told yet when they must die, nor where. To keep them in uncertainty would only increase their suffering and that uncertainty lasted to the end. It is nine o'clock at night. They are taken to the river, placed on a flat boat and conveyed to the Kentucky side. Within 125 yards of the road, in a kind of sink or depression, the three doomed brothers are tied to pawpaw bushes.