Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/667

Rh to Ashland, saying: "The Chronicle man has not found a man yet that he could trust the dispatches with."

The reporter had told Mr. Miller that he would pay one hundred dollars for carrying the dispatch, and in case he was first to the office, he would also pay one hundred dollars more in addition to that. From there to Jacksonville it was one hundred miles and a wagon road all the way, while to Ashland it was but eighty miles, of which sixty miles was only a trail. This I had passed once in company with J. N. T. Miller. I was introduced to the reporter by Col. Miller, with whom I soon made arrangements to carry his dispatches. He asked me how long it would take me to ride to Ashland. I told him I thought it would take about eight hours with my three horses. He said if I went to Ashland I would have no competition on the trail as the other riders were both going to Jacksonville.

The day before the hanging was to take place I hired a young man to take two of my horses and go out on the trail, instructing him to leave one of them picketed out at Cold Springs, and the other one to take to Bald Mountain, which was thirty miles from Ashland. At this place I wanted Black Bess, and he was to stay there with her until I came and to return, get my other horse, and meet me at Jacksonville.

When the time arrived for the hanging and the prisoners were led to the scaffold, each dispatch carrier was mounted and standing on the outer edge of the crowd, ready at the moment he received the dispatch to be off at once. When the four Indians were led upon the scaffold to meet their doom, each of them were asked,