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Page Eighteen

tion become that the Vigilante Com-
mittee (and there were five hundred
members) had held a session the day
before, and had calmly come to the
conclusion that the time had come to
execute six of the community’s worst
criminals.

So the word was passed, and when
the sleeping population (or at least
those who happened to be in bed)
awoke in daylight, they found Vir-
ginia City ringed around by a cordon
of five hundred armed miners. No
one could leave. Then in grim-lipped
couples, the Vigilantes sought out the
accused and briefly told them they
were to die, giving each man an out-
line of his misdeeds.

While there’s still time, let’s study
these condemned men:

Starting from the left there was
Jack Gallagher; six foot, broad-
shouldered, with the air of a dandy.
He wore an army officer’s cavalry
greatcoat with a fur collar. He hailed
from Texas. Those who won from
him in a poker game, were usually
found dead, and penniless in a nearby
gulch.

Next to Gallagher was George
Lane (club-foot George), a rougher
type who had difficulty in trying to
accommodate his misshapen foot to
the box’s small area. Lane was busy
passing some coarse remarks to an
old friend in the crowd, which were
greeted with a few guffaws. Lane was
a horse thief, who turned “road
agent” and had been spotted as the
man who held up the Carson City
stage.

Next was Frank Parrish. Dressed
like most of the miners in a dirty
flannel shirt, moleskin pants and calf-
high leather boots, Parrish had an
ugly look, as he peered at the crowd
from under jutting brows. At least
three murders had been laid at his
door.

Next, Hayes Lyons, burly and scar-
faced. He nearly escaped this mo-
mentous morning of his life by
climbing down the canyon walls near
town, hand over hand with finger
tip grip. He was found by the
Vigilantes in a shack five miles away.
Accused of two murders, he admitted
them.

The only man who did escape this
round-up was Bill Hunter.

In the night’s dark, he crawled
along a deep ditch which took him
between two vigilante sentinels, to
freedom.

And the last of the quintette was
Boone Helm, a raw-boned Kentuckian
with deep set smouldering eyes.
There was almost a touch of insanity
in those eyes, as he glared at the sea
of faces. A product of the backwoods
and the plains, Helm seemed to be
more animal than man. Probably the

most dangerous criminal the west had
seen. Helm had not only killed men—
he had eaten them!

After all preparations were com-
pleted the crowd began to get restive.
There were yells of impatience.

“Come on, jump them off!”

“Swing them.”

But Gallagher wanted a drink of
whiskey, and there was an argument
as to whether he should have it.
Eventually a tumblerful of snakehead
whiskey was pressed to his lips. He
complained that the rope was too
tight and he couldn’t get his head
back.

Biedler, the volunteer rope expert,
stepped forward and loosened the
noose. The whiskey-glass emptied, the
rope was re-adjusted and all was
ready.

A row of five men stood in the
rear of the roofless room, each with a
cord in his hand. The cords were
tied to each box. At a nod from the
chairman of the vigilante group the
cord on the ‘first box was yanked,
and Gallagher was pitching and
squirming, his feet just clear of the
ground.

Club-foot George anticipated his
end by jumping off his box.

And so it goes; either pitched off
by human agency, or jumping of their
own volition, one by one the des-
peradoes met their end. As Boone
Helm saw his neighbor pitch to his
doom, the Kentucky outlaw yelled,
“Every man for his principles! Hurrah
for Jeff Davis! Let her rip!” and
launched himself to eternity.

Crude as the scene may appear to
modern eyes, it was the pioneer’s
answer to murder and robbery, in
territories where no man-made law

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