Their dread mission of retribution being accomplished, the captain ordered everything to be made ready for their long homeward march, and in due time they arrived at Cottonwood, where they found that X had settled everything relating to Bunton’s affairs. At Big Hole, they made search for Irwin; but he had fled, and has never been taken. Tired and worn, the command reached Nevada, and received the congratulations and thanks of all good men. Like Joshua’s army, though they had been rewarded with success, yet often in that journey over their cold and trackless waste, the setting sun had seen them “Faint, yet pursuing.” CHAPTER XXII. CAPTURE AND EXECUTION OF BILL HUNTER. “Round he throws his baleful eyes, That witness naught but huge destruction and dismay.”--MILTON. At the time of the execution of Boone Helm and his four confederates in crime, Bill Hunter, as before narrated, managed to escape his pursuers and, for a time, to baffle the vengeance of the Vigilantes, by hiding among the rocks and brush by day, and then seeking food at night among the scattered settlements in the vicinity of the Gallatin river. At the time of Barney Hughes’ stampede, the country in the neighborhood became alive with men, and his whereabouts was discovered. Information was received at Virginia that he was living as described about twenty miles above the mouth of the Gallatin. A severe snow storm had driven him to seek refuge in a cabin, near the place of his concealment, and here he was overtaken and captured. A party of four resolute men volunteered for the work, and left Virginia City with a good prospect of fine weather for the trip before them. Crossing the Divide between the Stinkingwater and the Madison, they forded the last named river with some difficulty, the huge cakes of floating ice striking the horses’ flanks and threatening to carry them down. Their camping ground was the frozen earth on its banks; and having built a fire, they laid down to sleep with no shelter but their blankets. Though the weather was intensely cold, the spirits of the party never flagged, and they derived not a little amusement from occurrences which, under other circumstances, would have been regarded as anything but amusing incidents of travel. One of the Vigilantes, determined on securing a good share of heat, lay with his head on the top of a hillock that sloped towards the fire, and, as a natural consequence, gradually slid down, till he woke with his feet in the hot embers. His position was changed with marvellous rapidity, amid the laughter of his comrades. Another of the party had a pair of mammoth socks, into which he thrust his feet loosely. As the sleeper began to feel the cold, he kept pushing his feet into the socks, until he pushed himself out of bed, and woke half frozen. He glanced, with a comic expression, at the cause of his misfortunes, and taking a good warm at the fire, in a more legitimate fashion, he crept back to bed.