The jury were occupied in their deliberations until after midnight. No doubt was entertained, from the first, of the guilt of the prisoners, but the exciting question was whether they could afford to declare it. They all felt that to do so would be to announce their own death sentence. They knew that the friends of the prisoners fully intended to have life for life. They had sworn it. One of the jurymen said that the prisoners ought never to have been tried by a jury, but in a miners’ court, that he should not be governed in his decision by the merits of the case, but that, as he had a family in the States to whom his obligations were greater than to that community, he should have to vote for acquittal. After much conversation of this sort, which only served to intensify the fears of the jurymen, a vote was taken which resulted as follows: not guilty, 11; guilty, 1; myself, the supposed friend of the roughs, being the only one in favor of the death penalty. It was apparent that further deliberation would not change this decision, and the jury compromised by agreeing to a sentence of banishment, and a confiscation of the property of the prisoners for the benefit of those they had wounded. The court met the ensuing morning, when the verdict, under seal, was handed to the judge. He opened and returned it to the foreman, with a request that he read it aloud. An expression of blank astonishment sat upon the face of every person in the room, which was followed by open demonstrations of general dissatisfaction, by all but the roughs, who, accustomed to outrages and long immunity, hailed it as a fresh concession to their bloody and lawless authority. Mitchell returned to Bannack after a few days’ absence, which was seemingly regarded as a full expiation of his sentence. A miners’ court met soon after his return, and in view of the fact that his sentence was not enforced, revoked the sentence of Moore and Reeves, who again rejoined their fellow-miscreants. Thus the first scene in the drama, which had been ushered in by such a bloody prologue, terminated in the broadest farce.