The moderate speaker, already referred to, tried to turn the tide by an appeal for delay. "Wait till morning," he said. "This charge may not be true. Let us not commit an injustice."

 

But his appeal was drowned in the cries of the excited crowd, "Hang the horse-thieves! string 'em up."

 

Each of the four victims was dragged by a force which he couldn't resist to the place of execution.

 

Richard Dewey was pale, but his expression was stern and contemptuous, as if he regarded the party of miners as fools or lunatics.

 

"Was this to be the end?" he asked himself. "Just as the prospect of happiness was opening before him, just as he was to be reunited to the object of his affection, was he to fall a victim to the fury of a mob?"

 

Jake Bradley perhaps took the matter more philosophically than either of the other three. He had less to live for, and his attachment to life was not therefore so strong. Still, to be hanged as a thief was not a pleasant way to leave life, and that was what he thought of most. Again, his sympathy was excited in behalf of the boy Ben, whom he had come to love as if he were his own son. He could not bear to think of the boy's young life being extinguished in so shocking a manner.

 

"This is rough, Ben," he managed to say as the two, side by side, were hurried along by the vindictive crowd.

 

Ben's face was pale and his heart was full of sorrow and awe with the prospect of a shameful death rising before him. Life was sweet to him, and it seemed hard to lose it.

 

"Yes it is," answered Ben, faltering. "Can't something be done?"

 

Jake Bradley shook his head mournfully. "I am afraid not," he said. "I'd like to shoot one of those lyin' scoundrels" (referring to Bill Mosely and his companion) "before I am swung off. To think their word should cost us our lives! It's a burnin' shame!"

 

Ki Sing looked the image of terror as he too was forced forward by a couple of strong miners. His feet refused to do their office, and he was literally dragged forward, his feet trailing along the ground. He was indeed a ludicrous figure, if anything connected with such a tragedy can be considered ludicrous. Probably it was not so much death that Ki Sing feared, for with his race life is held cheap, but Chinamen shrink from violence, particularly that of a brutal character. They are ready with their knives, but other violence is not common among them.

 

Bill Mosely and Tom Hadley followed in the rear of the crowd. They would have liked to improve the time by stealing away with the mustangs which they coveted, but even in this hour of public excitement they knew it would not be safe, and the act might arouse suspicion.

 

While Mosely felt gratified that the men he hated were likely to be put out of the way, there was in his heart a sensation of fear, and he involuntarily shuddered when he reflected that if justice were done he would he in the place of these men who were about to suffer a shameful death. Moreover, he knew that some day it were far from improbable that he himself would be figuring in a similar scene as a chief actor, or rather chief victim. So, though he exulted, he also trembled.

 

Meanwhile the place of execution had been reached. Then it was discovered that one important accessory to the contemplated tragedy was lacking--a rope. So one of the party was sent to the hotel for a rope, being instructed by Jim Brown where to find it.

 

It seemed the last chance for an appeal, and, hopeless as it seemed, Richard Dewey resolved to improve it. "Gentlemen," he said in a solemn tone, "I call God to witness that you are about to put to death four innocent men."

 

"Enough of that!" said Jim Brown, roughly, "We don't want to h............