“Kick away, old fellow,” said Boone Helm, calmly surveying the struggles of the dying wretch. “My turn comes next. I’ll be in hell with you in a minute.” Shouting in a loud voice, “Every man for his principles! Hurrah for Jeff Davis! Let her rip,” his body fell with a twang that killed him almost instantly. Frank Parish maintained a serious deportment from the moment of his arrest until his execution. At his request his black necktie was dropped like a veil over his face. He “died and made no sign.” Hayes Lyons was the only one remaining. Looking right and left at the swaying bodies of his companions, his anxious face indicated a hope of pardon. His entreaties were incessant, but when he found them unavailing, he requested that his mistress might have the disposition of his body; that the watch of hers which he wore might be restored to her, and that he might not be left hanging for an unseemly time. He died without a struggle. Two hours after the execution the bodies were cut down, and taken by friends to Cemetery Hill for burial. X. Beidler officiated as adjuster of the ropes at this execution. Jack Gallagher had killed a friend of his. Some time afterwards, when he was relating the circumstances attending the execution, in a mixed crowd, a gentleman present, who was greatly interested in the narrative, and whose sympathy for the ruffians was very apparent, asked, at the close of the narrative, in a lachrymose tone, “Well, now, when you came to hang that poor fellow, didn’t you sympathize with him, didn’t you feel for him?” Beidler regarded the man for a moment with great disgust, and, imitating his tone, replied slowly, “Yes, I did. I felt for him a little, I felt for his left ear.” CHAPTER XXXIX PURSUIT OF ROAD AGENTS The work so well begun was prosecuted with great energy. The ruffians had fled from Virginia City and Bannack, over the range to Deer Lodge and Bitter Root, intending gradually to return to their old haunts in Idaho. The Vigilantes, resolved that they should not escape, took up the pursuit. A company of twenty-one, under the command of a competent leader, left Nevada on the fifteenth of January. Arriving at Big Hole in the evening, they sent a detachment to Clark’s ranche to arrest the bandit Steve Marshland, who was laid up with frozen feet, and the wound which he had received in the breast while attacking Moody’s train. Receiving no response to their repeated raps at the door of the cabin, one of the party entered, and, lighting a wisp of straw, found Marshland in bed. “Hands up, if you please,” said he, pointing his revolver at the head of the prostrate robber, who obeyed the command as well as circumstances would admit. “Are you sick, Steve?” queried the Vigilante. “Yes—very,” faintly responded Marshland. “No one with you?” “No one,—no living thing but the dog.” “What is the matter?” “I’ve got the chills.”