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Show LOYALTY. 67 time, a commission as deputy to execute the warrant. I was then at Buckskin Joe, in Park county, and mounting my horse rode with all speed over the range twenty miles to Gold Run, which I reached just as the crowd of nearly a thousand miners had gathered to see the execution. "Under a pine tree two graves had been dug, and beside them was placed a wagon upon which the two condemned criminals were standing with ropes noosed about their necks and fastened to a limb of the tree above, looking down upon their open graves, and waiting the signal when the wagon should be drawn from under them. A hollow square of men, with loaded rifles, inclosed the wagon. " I jumped upon a pine log and harangued the crowd, urging them to allow the prisoners a trial in the Territorial courts. The people feared an escape and were inflexible. The crisis had come. Suddenly breaking through the guard, and leaping upon the wagon, I claimed the criminals as my prisoners. "Instantly every rifle of the guard was leveled at me. Snatching the warrant from my pocket I held it up, showing the seal and the American eagle on the corner, and commenced in a loud voice to read the formal printed mandate of the warrant. 'The President of the United States to the Marshal of Colorado, greeting: You are hereby commanded to take the bodies of-' I got no farther with the reading than this, for those words were no sooner uttered than a voice in the crowd shouted: ' Boys, we can't resist the President of the United States. Hurrah for Abe Lincoln!' The crowd echoed the cheer, 'Hurrah for Abe Lincoln !' A serio-comic mixture of the sublime and the |