aid good-by to a
friend or two, and asked his executioners to "give him a good drop." He
seemed to fear suffering, he who had caused so much suffering. To oblige
him, the men lifted his body high up and let it fall, and he died with
little struggle.

To cut short a long story of bloody justice, it may be added that of the
men named as guilty by Yager every one was arrested, tried, and hung by
the Vigilantes. Plummer for some time must have dreaded detection, for
he tried to cover up his guilt by writing back home to the States that
he was in danger of being hanged on account of his Union sympathies. His
family would not believe his guilt, and looked on him as a martyr. They
sent out a brother and sister to look into the matter, but these too
found proof which left them no chance to doubt. The whole ghastly
revelation of a misspent life lay before them. Even Plummer's wife, whom
he loved very much and who was a good woman, was at last convinced of
what at first she could not believe. Plummer had been able to conceal
from even his wife the least suspicion that he was not an honorable man.
His wife was east in the States at the time of his death.

Plummer went under his true name. George Ives was a Wisconsin boy from
near Racine. Both he and Plummer were twenty-seven years of age when
killed, but they had compressed much evil into so short a span. Plummer
himself was a master of men, a brave and cool spirit, an expert with
weapons, and in all not a bad specimen of the bad man at his worst. He
was a murderer, but after all was not enough a murderer. No outlaw of
later years so closely resembled the great outlaw, John A. Murrell, as
did Henry Plummer, but the latter differed in one regard:--he spared
victims, who later arose to accuse him.

The frontier has produced few bloodier records than Plummer's. He was
principal or accessory, as has been stated, in more than one hundred
murders, not to mention innumerable robberies and thefts. His life was
lived out in scenes typical of the early Western frontier. The madness
of adventure in new wild fields, the lust of gold and its unparalleled
abundance drove to crime men who might have been respected and of note
in proper ranks of life and in other surroundings.

Chapter VIII

Boone Helm--_A Murderer, Cannibal, and Robber_--_A Typical Specimen of
Absolute Human Depravity_.

Henry Plummer was what might be called a good instance of the gentleman
desperado, if such a t