Luckily for the two unfortunates, right below the place from which they were lowered, instead of the river running in its regular channel, there was a great eddy, or swirl, where the water had cut a deep hole in the sandy river bed. Here the water was quite deep and had but little movement, except a slow circling motion. In this they swung at anchor, from midnight until broad daylight. The water caused the ropes to shrink and draw until they suffered a great deal where they cut into their wrists, making it an utter impossibility for them to untie the knots, although they worked diligently trying to get them loose in some way. The water was cold and their limbs soon became so numb that they could hardly move either hands or legs. They wore their voices out calling for help. The boys, in lowering them down, had been cunning enough to fasten them far enough apart so they could not aid each other to get loose, and while from the motion of the water they occasionally bumped against one another, they quickly drifted apart, as helpless as if in two strait-jackets. About sunrise, a Mormon boy, belonging to a freighter outfit, which was camped over in town, going out after the horses which had been taken across the river the night before to graze, came whistling down the road to the bridge, and started to cross. As soon as his footfalls were heard on the flooring of the structure, the almost helpless men below roused and began to call as loudly as they were able with their numb lips and jaws chattering like castanets. It took him a minute or two to locate the voices. The lad took one hasty look over the railing of the bridge, and, with a shriek of horror, fled toward town as fast as his feet could carry him. Here he told the first man he met that he had seen two bodies hanging to the bridge, and a crowd was soon on the way to the river, expecting to find the results of a vigilance committee suspended from the stringers. The two men were quickly pulled up on to the bridge and the ropes that bound them like steel bands were cut from their bodies. Both men were so stiff that they had to be carried to town, and the doctor and several men worked over them for more than an hour trying to restore the circulation in their stiffened limbs and almost frozen bodies. The story of their capture set the whole town to laughing, and the more people laughed, the more ridiculous the happening grew. Nor did it lose anything in the telling and soon the entire county was also laughing over the misfortunes of the two peace officers. Jenkins' chief political opponent naturally made the most of it and under such conditions that gentleman was literally laughed into political obscurity.