Plummer busied himself among the miners to obtain the nomination, and as an evidence not less of the unsteady purpose of this population than of the personal magnetism of this remarkable man, he succeeded. Men, who a few weeks before were clamorous for his execution as a murderer, deceived by the plausibility of his professions, and the smoothness of his eloquence, were now equally urgent for his election to the most important office in the settlement. Such of the number as were unwilling to support him, nominated a good man by the name of Jefferson Durley, but the majority for Plummer decided the election largely in his favor. A marked change immediately took place in his conduct. Soon after he was married to Miss Eliza Bryan, the young lady with whom, as I have related in a former chapter, he contracted an engagement while spending the winter with her brother-in-law, Mr. Vail, at the government farm on Sun River. Whether he honestly intended to reform at this time, or “assumed the thing he was not” for the better concealment of his criminal designs, can never be certainly known. There was much apparent sincerity in his conduct and professions. He forsook the saloons, and was seldom seen in the society of his old associates. His duties were promptly attended to. On one occasion in a conversation with me, of his own seeking, he spoke regretfully of his early life. “I confess,” said he, “that the bad associations which I formed in California and Nevada have adhered to me ever since. I was forced in sheer self-defence, on different occasions, to kill five men there—and of course was undeservedly denounced as a desperado and murderer. This is not true,—and now that I am married and have something to live for, and hold an official position, I will show you that I can be a good man among good men. There is a new life before me, and I want you to believe that I am not unfitted to fill it with credit to myself, and benefit to the community.”