them no longer.

So I gave what color I could to the lawless act of justice, partly to
save my waning authority, partly to save them the consequences of
executing a prisoner who might give valuable information to the
authorities in Albany.

I ordered Elerson to hold the prisoner and adjust the noose; Murphy and
Mount to the rope's end. Then I said: "Prisoner, this field-court finds
you guilty of murder and orders your execution. Have you anything to say
before sentence is carried out?"

The wretch did not believe we were in earnest. I nodded to Elerson, who
drew the noose tight; the prisoner's knees gave way, and he screamed;
but Mount and Murphy jerked him up, and the rope strangled the screech
in his throat.

Sickened, I bent my head, striving to count the seconds as he hung
twisting and quivering under the maple limb.

Would he never die? Would those spasms never end?

"Shtep back, sorr, if ye plaze, sorr," said Murphy, gently. "Sure, sorr,
ye're as white as a sheet. Walk away quiet-like; ye're not used to such
things, sorr."

I was not, indeed; I had never seen a man done to death in cold blood.
Yet I fought off the sickening faintness that clutched at my heart; and
at last the dangling thing hung limp and relaxed, turning slowly round
and round in mid-air.

Mount nodded to Murphy and fell to digging with a sharpened stick.
Elerson quietly lighted his pipe and aided him, while Murphy shaved off
a white square of bark on the maple-tree under the slow-turning body,
and I wrote with the juice of an elderberry:

"Daniel Redstock, a child murderer, executed by American Riflemen for
his crimes, under order of George Ormond, Colonel of Rangers, August 19,
1777. Renegades and Outlaws take warning!"

When Mount and Elerson had finished the shallow grave, they laid the
scalps of the murdered in the hole, stamped down the earth, and covered
it with sticks and branches lest a prowling outlaw or Seneca disinter
the remains and reap a ghastly reward for their redemption from General
the Hon. Barry St. Leger, Commander of the British, Hessians, Loyal
Colonials, and Indians, in camp before Fort Stanwix.

As we left that dreadful spot, and before I could interfere to prevent
them, the three riflemen emptied their pieces into the swinging
corpse--a useless, foolish, and savage performance, and I said
so sharply.

They were very docile and contrite and obedient now, explaining that it
was a customary safeguard, as ha