The trial of Moore and Reeves was one of the earliest instances in the Territory where the lovers of law and order on one side, and the criminal element on the other, were brought into open, public antagonism. No one knew at that time which of the two was the stronger. The roughs had full confidence in their power to run the affairs of the Territory in their own way, and while the trial was progressing sought, by brandishing their revolvers in the court-room, by much loud-mouthed profanity, and by frequent interruptions and threats of vengeance directed against the judge and jury, to intimidate and terrify all who were concerned in conducting the proceedings, and arrest them in their purpose. The life of Judge Hoyt, the acting magistrate of the occasion, was often threatened; but he not only manifested no fear, but was all the more active and efficient in the discharge of the duties of his difficult position. Being the central figure in the court, his calmness and firmness inspired all the other persons engaged in the prosecution with courage equal to the occasion, while it daunted the roughs and probably prevented bloodshed. Professor Thomas J. Dimsdale, in his account of this trial, says: “To the delivery of this unfortunate verdict may be attributed the ascendency of the roughs. They thought the people were afraid of them. The pretext of the prisoners that the Indians had killed some whites, friends of theirs, in 1849, while going to California, was accepted by the majority of the jurors as some sort of justification:—but the truth is, they were afraid of their lives, and, it must be confessed, not without apparent reason.” Mr. Rheem, who defended the prisoners, says: “My conscience has more than once pricked me for interposing between the rogues and the halter, but I never believed till the last hour of their trial that they would escape hanging.” CHAPTER XVII CRAWFORD AND PHLEGER The banishment of Moore and Reeves was regarded by the roughs as an encroachment upon the system they had adopted for the government of the country. Long impunity had fostered in them the belief that the citizens would not dare to question their power to do as they pleased. They held a meeting, and it was quietly agreed among them that every active participant in the late trial should be slain. The victims were selected, the work deliberately planned, and each man allotted his part in its performance. This wholesale scheme of vengeance was to be effected secretly, or by provoking those at whom it was aimed into sudden quarrel, and shooting them in assumed self-defence. Any course more culpable would afford the assassin small chance of escaping the vengeance of the law-abiding citizens.