e up when the wounded buffalo falls. There was talk of a
vigilance committee and of lynching.

But when the stout, resolute sheriff led the man in chains down the
trail through the deep snow, and turned him over to the officer in
charge of a little squad of soldiers at the other side of the valley, no
man interfered further. Indeed, Dosson and Emens were too anxious about
the promised reward to make any demonstration against this man's life
now. He was worth to them a thousand dollars.

A lawyer reading this, will smile here at the loose way in which the law
was administered there in the outer edge of the world at that time. Here
is a sheriff, with a warrant in his pocket, made returnable to a
magistrate. The sheriff arrests the man on this warrant and takes him
directly to the military authorities, which have been so long seeking
him, utterly unconscious that he is doing aught but the proper thing.
And yet, after all, it was the shortest and best course to take.

I shall not forget the face of the prisoner as we stood beside the trail
in the snow, while he was led past down the mouth of the canyon toward
the other side of the valley. It was grand!

Some strangers, standing in the street, spoke of the majesty of the
man's bearing. They openly dared to admire his lifted face, and to speak
with derision of his captors as the party passed on. This made the low
element, out of which mobs are always created, a little bit timid.
Possibly it was this that saved the prisoner. But most likely it was the
resolute face of the honest sheriff. For, say what you will, there is
nothing so cowardly as a mob. Throw what romance you please over the
actions of the Vigilantes of California, they were murderers--coarse,
cowardly and brutal; murderers, legally and morally, every one of them.
It is to be admitted that they did good work at first. But their
example, followed even down to this day, has been fruitful of the
darkest crimes.

When Forty-nine awoke next morning from his long drunken slumber, the
children were not there. Dosson called, arrayed in his best; but Carrie
was not to be seen. Forty-nine could give no account of her. This day of
triumph for Dosson did not yield him so much as he had all the night
before fancied. He was furious.

Forty-nine, as usual, after a spree, meekly took up his pick, after a
breakfast on a piece of bread and the drawings of coffee grounds that
had been thrice boiled over, and stumbled away towa