dispositions to be made of certain bits of stolen property:
to give a watch to this one, a ring to another, and so on. Once the
priest stopped and said:

"My son, let the things of this earth go, and turn your attention toward
those of heaven."

Delaney paid no attention to this admonition. The whole six then began
delivering farewell messages to those in the crowd. Key pulled a watch
from his pocket and said:

"Two minutes more to talk."

Delaney said cheerfully:

"Well, good by, b'ys; if I've hurted any of y ez, I hope ye'll forgive
me. Shpake up, now, any of yez that I've hurted, and say yell forgive
me."

We called upon Marion Friend, whose throat Delaney had tried to cut three
weeks before while robbing him of forty dollars, to come forward, but
Friend was not in a forgiving mood, and refused with an oath.

Key said:

"Time's up!" put the watch back in his pocket and raised his hand like an
officer commanding a gun. Harris and Payne laid hold of the ropes to the
supports of the planks. Each of the six hangmen tied a condemned man's
hands, pulled a meal sack down over his head, placed the noose around his
neck, drew it up tolerably close, and sprang to the ground. The priest
began praying aloud.

Key dropped his hand. Payne and Harris snatched the supports out with a
single jerk. The planks fell with a clatter. Five of the bodies swung
around dizzily in the air. The sixth that of "Mosby," a large, powerful,
raw-boned man, one of the worst in the lot, and who, among other crimes,
had killed Limber Jim's brother-broke the rope, and fell with a thud to
the ground. Some of the men ran forward, examined the body, and decided
that he still lived. The rope was cut off his neck, the meal sack
removed, and water thrown in his face until consciousness returned.
At the first instant he thought he was in eternity. He gasped out:

"Where am I? Am I in the other world?"

Limber Jim muttered that they would soon show him where he was, and went
on grimly fixing up the scaffold anew. "Mosby" soon realized what had
happened, and the unrelenting purpose of the Regulator Chiefs. Then he
began to beg piteously for his life, saying:

"O for God's sake, do not put me up there again! God has spared my life
once. He meant that you should be merciful to me."

Limber Jim deigned him no reply. When the scaffold was rearranged, and a
stout rope had replaced the broken one, he pulled the meal sack once more
o