next full purse.

The Road Agents came to the new city from Bannack increased in strength
and boldness. Long impunity had made them scarcely anxious to conceal
their connection with the band. Life and property were nowhere secure.
Spies in Virginia announced to confederates on the road every ounce of
treasure that left the city, and sometimes reports came back of
robberies of the coaches, sometimes of murder of the travellers, and
still more frequently the poor victim was never heard of after his
departure. There were no laws or courts, except the miners' courts, and
these were powerless. Self-protection demanded vigorous measures, and a
few good men of Bannack and Virginia met together and formed a Vigilance
Committee, similar in all respects to that which has had such a
beneficent influence in the growth of California. It was, of course,
secret, and composed of a mere handful. It must be secret, for the Road
Agents had so overawed the people that few dared acknowledge themselves
as champions of law and order. They had threatened, and they had the
power to crush such an organization at its inception, by taking the
lives of its members. But moving stealthily and unknown, the little
organization grew. Whenever a good man and true was found, he became a
link of the chain. At last it tried its power over a notorious desperado
named Ives, by calling a public trial of the miners. It was a citizens'
trial, but the Vigilantes were the leading spirits. Ives confronted his
accusers boldly, relying on the promised aid of his confederates. They
lay in wait to offer it, but the criminal was too infamous for just men
to hesitate which side to take, and the cowards, as always in such
cases, though probably a numerical majority, dared not meet the issue.
Ives was hanged without any attempt at rescue.

The proceedings thus vigorously commenced were as vigorously continued.
The Road Agents still trusted their power, and the contest was not
settled. The Vigilantes settled it soon and forever. One morning their
pickets barred every point of egress from Virginia. A secret trial had
been held and six well-known robbers sentenced to death. Five of them
were one by one found in the city. The quickness of their captors had
foiled their attempts at escape or resistance, and their impotent rage
at seeing every point guarded sternly by armed Vigilantes knew no
bounds. They were all executed together at noon. It was a sickening
scene,--five men,