d
the rest of him Indian, who had robbed a territorial post-office and
incidentally murdered the postmaster thereof. Wherefore this half-breed
was under sentence to expiate his greater misdeed on a given date,
between the hours of sunrise and sunset, and after a duly prescribed
manner, namely: by being hanged by the neck until he was dead.

At once a difficulty and a complication arose. The warden of the
penitentiary at Chickaloosa was perfectly agreeable to the idea of
keeping and caring for those felonious wards of the government who were
put in his custody to serve terms of imprisonment, holding that such
disciplinary measures fell within the scope of his sworn duty. But when
it came to the issue of hanging any one of them, he drew the line most
firmly. As he pointed out, he was not a government agent. He derived
his authority and drew his salary not from Washington, D. C., but from a
State capital several hundreds of miles removed from Washington.
Moreover, he was a zealous believer in the principle of State
sovereignty. As a soldier of the late Southern Confederacy, he had
fought four years to establish that doctrine. Conceded, that the cause
for which he fought had been defeated; nevertheless his views upon the
subject remained fixed and permanent. He had plenty of disagreeable jobs
to do without stringing up bad men for Uncle Sam; such was the attitude
the warden took. The sheriff of the county of which Chickaloosa was the
county-seat, likewise refused to have a hand in the impending affair,
holding it--and perhaps very properly--to be no direct concern of his,
either officially or personally.

Now the government very much wanted the hybrid hanged. The government
had been put to considerable trouble and no small expense to catch him
and try him and convict him and transport him to the place where he was
at present confined. Day and date for the execution of the law's
judgment having been fixed, a scandal and possibly a legal tangle would
ensue were there delay in the premises. It was reported that a full
pardon had been offered to a long-term convict on condition that he
carry out the court's mandate upon the body of the condemned mongrel,
and that he had refused, even though the price were freedom for
himself.

In this serious emergency, a volunteer in the person of Tobias Dramm
came forward. Until then he had been an inconspicuous unit in the life
of the community. He was a live-stock dealer on a small scale