Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/454

342 mense crowd of people in the streets, so we pushed on te see what the excitement was.

When near the crowd we met three or four men on horseback riding, up the street. We asked what was causing the excitement. One of them replied: "Oh. nothing, only they are going to hang a man down there in a few minutes."

This being the first opportunity I had ever had to see a man hung, we stayed and saw it through. We rode up to the edge of the crowd, which was about forty yards from the scaffold where the hanging was to take place, and had been there but a few moments when we saw the sheriff coming with the prisoner, having a very strong guard of some two hundred men all well armed. As soon as the prisoner stepped on to the platform some one handed him a chair to sit down in.

The sheriff turned to the prisoner and said: "Mr. Gordon if you have anything to say, now you have the opportunity. I will give you all the time necessary to say what you wish."

The prisoner rose to his feet and brushed his hair back, apparently cool, but the moment he commenced to talk I could see the tears begin to trickle down his cheeks.

I thought it a most pitful sight. He did not talk long, but briefly thanked his friends for their kindness towards him during his confinement, and said: "Gentlemen, I think you did very wrong in holding out the idea to me that I would come clear, when you knew very well that there was no show whatever for me, " and took his seat.