The murderer, finding life still lingering in the mangled, bleeding body, raised his rifle to finish the bloody work. The youth begged piteously to shoot him no more, that death would claim him in a few moments. Mountains might have been moved by his pleadings, but not the heart of the cowardly assassin. "Dead men tell no tales," he exclaimed, with a smile of derision upon his lips. Slowly he raised the Winchester rifle, placed the muzzle against the boy's head and fired, dropping the eyeballs from their sockets. The murderer then calmly rifled the pockets of Eversole of their contents and retreated, thus adding the crime of robbery to that of murder. Judge Combs, brought to himself, spurred his horse to utmost exertion and dashed like a maniac into Hyden to bring the news. The scene of the crime was within about three hundred yards of a house. Shortly after the shooting one Fields, the owner of the house or cabin, and one Campbell proceeded to the scene of the tragedy. They found the dead in a pool of blood, lying within a few feet of each other. They discovered Eversole's pockets turned inside out. Nick Combs' horse was found, shot, in a little meadow by the side of the road, while Eversole's horse was afterwards caught some miles further down the stream. The news of the tragedy aroused the people to instant action. A force of men was assembled, who started upon the trail of the murderers. The place of ambush was found. It was located exactly sixty-one feet from the point where the bodies had been found, in a dense spruce-pine thicket. Several of the pine bushes had been bent over and the tops tied together, thus forming a complete screen and shelter. Behind this blind or screen they found a considerable depression in the earth, a natural rifle pit. This had been filled with leaves and appeared packed and trodden into the ground. Numerous footprints were plainly visible. Remnants of meals were also found. Everything tended to confirm the theory that the assassins had been there for at least two days before the killing. From this screen the trail was followed up the hill until it divided. One of the trails led to the top of a high ridge, one turned to the right, another to the left. This discovery proved that there had been at least three assassins. When this fact became known the pursuers retreated, seemingly afraid of an ambush. They reasoned that three or more men so desperate as to commit a cold-blooded double murder in the broad-open light of day, almost in sight of human habitation, would and could, in this wild mountain region, successfully fight an even larger force than was at the command of the pursuers. The bodies of Eversole and Combs were conveyed to Hazard in the afternoon and consigned to their graves amid a great concourse of sorrowing people.