Retribution followed rapidly upon the heels of disclosure. The organization of the Vigilantes of Nevada and Virginia City was effected as quietly as possible, but it embraced nearly every good citizen in Alder Gulch. Men who before the execution of Ives were seemingly indifferent to the bloody acts of the desperadoes, and even questioned the expediency of that procedure, were now eager for the speedy destruction of the entire band. Every man whose name appeared on the list furnished by Yager (“Red”) was marked for early examination, and, if found guilty, for condign punishment. The miners forsook their work in the gulch to engage in the pursuit and capture of the ruffians, regardless alike of their personal interests, the freezing weather of a severe winter, and the utter desolation of a country but partially explored, immense in extent, destitute of roads, and unfurnished even by nature with any protection against exposure.

The crisis demanded speedy action. The delay of a day or even an hour might enable the leading ruffians to escape, and thus defeat the force of a great and efficient example. The ruffians themselves had taken the alarm. Many of them were on their return to Walla Walla, and others were making preparations for leaving. It was of special importance to the object in hand, that Plummer, the chief of the robber band, should be the first to suffer. That individual, ignorant of the disclosures that had been made by Yager, was at Bannack, quietly preparing for an early departure from the Territory. Calm and placid in outward seeming, his conduct bore evidence that he was all terror within. He was too familiar with the extreme phases of character not to suspect that he had possibly been betrayed by some of the number that had been captured, though much too polite and sagacious to manifest by his deportment the presence of any such suspicion. But he was constantly on the alert. Not a beat in the pulse of the community escaped his notice. Not a strange face that he did not closely scan, nor a gathering occur whose details escaped him. The language of looks and signs and movements was as familiar to him as that of words, and in it he read plainly and unmistakably that his reign of deception was at an end. The people had found him out, and he knew it. His only mistake was that he delayed action until it was too late.

At a late hour of the same night that Dutch John was examined, four Vigilantes arrived at Bannack from Virginia City, with intelligence of the organization at that place, asking the coÖperation of the citizens of Bannack, and ordering the immediate execution of Plummer, Stinson, and Ray. A hurried meeting was held, and the Sabbath daylight dawned upon a branch organization at Bannack. The day wore on unmarked by any noticeable event until late in the afternoon. Three horses were then brought into town, which were recognized as belonging to the three murderers.

“Aha!” said one citizen to another, “those rascals scent the game and are preparing to leave. If they do, that will be the last of them.”

“We can block that game,” was the rejoinder.

Several members of the Vigilance Committee met on the spur of the moment and adopted measures for the immediate arrest and execution of the three robbers. Stinson and Ray were arrested without opposition,—one at Mr. Toland’s cabin, and the other, stretched at the time upon a gaming table, in a saloon. The party detailed to arrest Plummer found him at his cabin, in the act of washing his face. When informed that he was wanted he manifested great unconcern, and proceeded quietly to wipe his face and hands.

“I’ll be with you in a moment, ready to go wherever you wish,” he said to the leader of the Vigilantes. Tossing down the towel and smoothing his shirt-sleeves, he advanced towards a chair on which his coat was lying, carelessly remarking: “I’ll be ready as soon as I can put on my coat.”

One of the party, discovering the muzzle of his pistol protruding beneath the coat, stepped quickly forward, saying as he did so, “I’ll hand your coat to you.”

At the same moment he secured the pistol, which being observed by Plummer, he turned deathly pale, but still maintained sufficient composure to converse in his usual calm, measured tone. The fortunate discovery of the pistol defeated the desperate measures which a desperate man would have employed to save his life. With his expertness in the use of that weapon, he would doubtless have slain some or all of his captors. He was marched to a point where, as designated before the capture, he joined Stinson and Ray, and thence the three were conducted under a formidable escort to the gallows. This structure, roughly framed of the trunks of three small pines, stood in a dismal spot three hundred yards from the centre of the town. It had been erected the previous season by Plummer, who, as sheriff, had hanged thereon one John Horan, who had been convicted of the murder of Keeley. Terrible must have been its appearance as it loomed up in the bright starlight, the only object visible to the gaze of the guilty men, on that long waste of ghastly snow. A negro boy came up to the gallows with ropes before the arrival of the cavalcade. All the way, Ray and Stinson filled the air with curses. Plummer, on the contrary, first begged for his life, and, finding that unavailing, resorted to argument, and sought to persuade his captors of his innocence.

“It is useless,” said one of the Vigilantes, “for you to beg for your life; that affair is settled, and cannot be altered. You are to be hanged. You cannot feel harder about it than I do; but I cannot help it if I would.”

“Do not answer me so,” persisted the now humbled and abject suppliant, “but do with me anything else you please. Cut off my ears, and cut out my tongue, and strip me naked this freezing night, and let me go. I beg you to spare my life. I want to live for my wife,—my poor absent wife. I wish to see my sister-in-law. I want time to settle my business affairs. Oh, God!” Falling upon his knees, the tears streaming from his eyes, and with his utterance choked with sobs, he continued,

“I am too wicked to die. I cannot go blood-stained and unforgiven into the presence of the Eternal. Only spare me, and I will leave the country forever.”

To all these, and many more petitions in the same vein, the only answer was an assurance that his pleadings were all in vain, and that he must die. Meantime, Stinson and Ray discharged volley after volley of oaths and epithets at the Vigilantes, employing all the offensive language of their copious vocabulary. At length the ropes were declared to be in readiness, and the stern command was given, “Bring up Ned Ray.”

Struggling wildly in the hands of his executioners, the wretched man was strung up, the rope itself arresting his curse before it was half uttered. Being loosely pinioned, he thrust his fingers under the noose, and, by a sudden twist of his head, the knot slipped under his chin.

“There goes poor Ned Ray,” whined Stinson, who a moment later was dangling in the death-agony by his side. As Stinson was being hoisted, he exclaimed, “I’ll confess.”

Plummer immediately remarked, “We’ve done enough already, twice over, to send us to hell.”

Plummer’s time had come. “Bring him up,” was the stern order. No one stirred. Stinson and Ray were common villains; but Plummer, steeped as he was in infamy, was a man of intellect, polished, genial, affable. There was something terrible in the idea of hanging such a man. Plummer himself had ceased all importunity. The crisis of self-abasement had passed, hope fled with it, and he was now composedly awaiting his fate. As one of the Vigilantes approached him, he met with the request,

“Give a man time to pray.”

“Certainly,” replied the Vigilante, “but say your prayers up there,” at the same time pointing to the cross-beam of the gallows-frame.

The guilty man uttered no more prayers. Standing, erect under the gallows, he took off his necktie, and, throwing it over his shoulder to a young man who had boarded with him, he said,

“Keep that to remember me by,” and, turning to the Vigilantes, he said, “Now, men, as a last favor, let me beg that you will give me a good drop.”

The fatal noose being adjusted, several of the strongest of the Vigilantes lifted the frame of the unhappy criminal as high as they could reach, when, letting it suddenly fall, he died quickly, without a struggle.

The weather was intensely cold. A large number of persons had followed the cavalcade, but were stopped by a guard some distance from the gallows. The Vigilantes surrounded the bodies until satisfied that the hangman’s noose had completed their work, when they formed and marched back to the town. The bodies were afterwards buried by the friends of the criminals.

Buck Stinson was born near Greencastle, Indiana. His parents removed to Andrew County, Missouri, when he was about fourteen years of age. He was a bright and very studious boy, was devoted to his books, which he read almost constantly, and gave promise of genius; and many who knew him predicted for him a brilliant and honorable future. His family was highly respectable.

Henry Plummer was born in the State of Connecticut, and was in the twenty-seventh year of his age at the time of his death. His wife, who had gone to her former home in the States three months previous to his execution, was entirely ignorant of the guilty life he was leading, and for some time after his death believed that he had fallen a victim to a conspiracy. She was, however, fully undeceived, and the little retrospect which her married life with him afforded, convinced her of his infamy.

Many of the citizens of Montana doubted whether the name by which he was known was his true one; but its genuineness has been established in many ways, and, among others, by the following incident, which I here relate as well to illustrate the subtlety of Plummer, as to show the standing and character of his family relations.

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.