The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western DesperadoHough, Emerson
History
The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western Desperado
Hough, Emerson
Crime -- West (U.S.); Criminals -- West (U.S.); Outlaws; West (U.S.) -- History
The Vigilantes now organized with vigor and determination. One bit of
testimony was added to another, and one man now dared to voice his
suspicions to another. Twenty-five determined men set out to secure
others of the gang now known to have been united in this long
brotherhood. Some of these men were now fleeing the country, warned by
the fate of Ives; but the Vigilantes took Red Yager and Buck Stinson and
Ned Ray, two of them Plummer's deputies, as well as another confederate
named Brown. The party stopped at the Lorain Ranch, near a cottonwood
grove, and tried their prisoners without going into town. Red Yager
confessed in full before he was hung, and it was on his testimony that
the whole secret league of robbers was exposed and eventually brought to
justice. He gave the following list:
Henry Plummer was chief of the gang; Bill Bunton, stool-pigeon and
second in command; George Brown, secretary; Sam Bunton, roadster; Cyrus
Skinner, fence, spy and roadster; George Shears, horse thief and
roadster; Frank Parish, horse thief and roadster; Bill Hunter, telegraph
man and roadster; Ned Ray, council-room keeper at Bannack City; George
Ives, Stephen Marshland, Dutch John (Wagner), Alex Carter, Whiskey Bill
(Graves), Johnny Cooper, Buck Stinson, Mexican Frank, Bob Zachary, Boone
Helm, Clubfoot George (Lane), Billy Terwilliger, Gad Moore, were
roadsters.
The noose was now tightening around the neck of the outlaw, Henry
Plummer, whose adroitness had so long stood him in good stead. The
honest miners found that their sheriff was the leader of the outlaws!
His doom was said then and there, with that of all these others.
A party of the Virginia City law and order men slipped over to Bannack,
Henry Plummer's home. In a few hours the news had spread of what had
happened at the other camps, and a branch organization of the Vigilantes
was formed for Bannack. Stinson and Ray were now arrested, and then
Plummer himself, the chief, the brains of all this long-secret band of
marauders. He was surprised with his coat and arms off, and taken
prisoner. A few moments later, he was facing a scaffold, where, as
sheriff, he had lately hung a man. The law had no delays. No court could
quibble here. Not all Plummer's wealth could save him now, nor all his
intellect and cool audacity.
An agony of remorse and fear now came upon the outlaw chief. He fell
upon his knees, called upon God to save him, begged, pleaded, wept like
a child, declared that he was too wicked to die thus soon and
unprepared. It was useless. The full proof of all his many crimes was
laid before him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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