In the Summer of 1869, soon after the completion of the first transcontinental railway, being in New York City, I was requested by Edwin R. Purple, who resided in Bannack in 1862, to call with him upon a sister and brother of Plummer. He learned from them that they had been misled concerning the cause of their brother’s execution by letters which he wrote to them in 1863, in which he told them that he was in constant danger of being hanged because of his attachment to the Union. They honestly believed that his loyalty and patriotism had cost him his life, and they mourned his loss not only as a brother, but as a martyr in the cause of his country. From the moment that they heard of his death, they had determined, if ever opportunity offered, to pursue and punish his murderers, and, with that purpose in view, were about to leave by railroad for Ogden, Utah, and complete the remaining five hundred miles of the trip to Montana by stage coach. The next day, accompanied by Mr. Purple, I had an interview with them, and found them to be well-educated, cultivated people. They were very eager in their desire to find and punish the murderers of their brother, and repeatedly avowed their intention to leave, almost immediately, in pursuit of them. Both Mr. Purple and I used all the plausible arguments we could summon to dissuade them from the undertaking, without revealing any of the causes which led to Plummer’s death. All to no purpose. Finding them resolved, we concluded that, rather than allow them to suffer from the deception they labored under, we would put in their hands Dimsdale’s “Vigilantes,” with the assurance that all it contained relative to their brother was true. We urged them to satisfy themselves, from a perusal of it, of the utter fruitlessness of their contemplated journey. The following day we called upon the brother, who, with a voice broken by sobs and sighs, informed us that his sister was so prostrated with grief at the revelation of her brother’s career that she could not see us. He thanked us for making known to them the terrible history, which otherwise they would have learned under circumstances doubly afflicting, after a long and tedious journey. CHAPTER XXXVI DEATH OF PIZANTHIA