The jury rose and filed out, and standing off a little distance on the prairie talked together. The tension in the court was relaxed, and there was a hum of conversation. The prisoner whispered to his lawyer inaudibly. Presently the jury filed back into court and sat down. “Gentlemen,” said Captain Sopris, “have you decided on your verdict?” “We have,” answered one who acted as foreman. “Are you unanimous?” again asked the judge. “We are,” was again the answer. “What is your verdict?” There was a breathless hush in the court as the foreman said in clear steady tones: “Guilty of murder in the first degree.” Again you might have heard a pin drop on the prairie grass. I saw the two men with the Winchesters slip on to their saddle-horses and take up their position on the side between the crowd on the prairie and the town. Sopris raised his eyes from the jury to the crowd. “Gentlemen,” he said, “the jury have found the prisoner guilty of murder in the first degree. It is for you, the people, to say what his punishment shall be. Those who are in favour of hanging will say ‘Aye.’” An answering roar of “Aye” went up to the sky above us. “Contrary, ‘No,’” said Sopris. There was a dead silence. Sopris waited to give any friend of the prisoner time to harden his heart and say “No.” None did. “Prisoner,” said the judge, turning to the wretched creature, who was now sobbing and unnerved, “the jury have found you guilty and the people have sentenced you to be hung. You will be hung in fifteen minutes to the nearest tree. If you have anything to say before then, you had better say it.” Then was heard a loud voice from the outskirts of the crowd. It came from a big man, sitting on a horse, with a sixteen-shot Winchester in his hand; two more horsemen, similarly armed, were by him. “Every man come down to the tree,” he said. “Let no man stay back. It’s one and all.” “One and all.” It was the motto, if I remember right, of the New Model Army in its struggle with the Rump, that terrible Cromwellian army that did not shrink from cutting off the head of a king. And indeed I asked myself how far was the court, presided over by Mr. President Bradshaw, which sentenced Charles I, more legal than this people’s court, with Captain Sopris as elected judge? “These Americans,” thought I, “are the real true-bred sons of those old Commonwealth men.” Slowly across the trampled grass the procession moved towards the fatal tree. The sun was sinking fast towards the west, where the great jagged wall of the Rocky Mountains stood dark against the clear sky. Just outside the town, on the edge of the bottom lands of the Platte, grew a big cottonwood tree, its leafless branches spreading wide. Here we halted. I had remounted my pony and, anxious to see the whole thing through, had wedged myself into the middle of the throng. One of the guards stepped up to me, and, holding up his pistol as he laid his hand on my bridle, said: “Get off that horse.”