Part 12

That evening just after the candles were lighted, Judge Bartlett, Tom Bradford, Doctor Chase, and Issachar Noe, the last of whom was postmaster, met in the little rectangular space behind the rude rack of letter-boxes in Noe's store, to formulate plans for their trip on the morrow to Ike Podgett's cabin, the bloody story concerning it having been imparted to Noe and the Doctor when Bartlett and Bradford came down-town that afternoon, immediately after their interview with Jack.

A little after daylight next morning the four prominent citizens of Whooping Hollow who had secretly met at the postoffice the previous evening were well on the trail to Podgett's. They had only twenty-three miles to go, but the zig-zag up to the crest of the divide was so rocky, rough and precipitous that they were compelled to "wind" their horses every few rods; consequently the trip was so fatiguing to both men and animals that they did not arrive there until nearly noon.

Podgett's cabin, one of the better class, roomy, and adorned with a veranda, was situated in the most God-forsaken looking region imaginable. There was not a tree, bush, or any vegetation, not even a cactus, in sight. It was hidden among great water-worn columns of lava, which so completely enveloped it in their ominous shadows that only late in the afternoon the sun's lingering rays, low down in the west, entered the gloomy cañon in which the isolated cabin was located.

"God in Israel!" said Issachar Noe--a favorite expression of his when excited--"how can a man content himself in such a spot as this? I wouldn't live here for a hundred dollars an hour," he continued, as he surveyed the dismal surroundings of the barren and repulsive place.

"Some men love solitude," said the Doctor, as if in response to Noe's comments. "I know many natures among my acquaintances in the East who could be perfectly happy in such a sequestered spot as this. To them, solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and"--

"Great Cæsar!" interrupted Tom Bradford, destroying at once the thread of the Doctor's philosophy. "See those wolves!" at the same moment pointing with his "quirt" to half a dozen or more of that large gray mountain species that were scampering over the angular lava bowlders up the cañon in the rear of the cabin. These animals had not before been observed, because the party from town had seated themselves on the trail immediately in front of the hut, upon their arrival at the place. They had not ventured any nearer, in accordance with the agreement made at the conference held in Tom Bradford's room that neither the party nor Jack was to investigate alone, but together.

In a few moments the cause of the wolves' hasty retreat made its appearance in the shape of the one-eyed tailless dog Jupe, slowly shambling around a curve in the trail, closely followed by the gaunt, angular figure of Jack, seated on his mule. As he approached, the party from Whooping Hollow, who were reclining on the rocks scattered on the trail, rose, while Jack, dismounting, hitched his animal to a bowlder, and saluting all with a "Howdy, gents," he joined them. Then without further talk at that moment, they proceeded to the rear of Ike Podgett's cabin, piloted by Jack. They soon arrived at the spot he had told Bradford and Bartlett of, but the moment he cast his eyes on the place he exclaimed:

"Great heavens! ther wolves hev been hyar!"

The earth was torn up, and lying on the edge of the shallow grave, sure enough, were a human leg and foot--the same described by Jack, which he had reinterred, but which the wolves had again dragged out of the hole.

"Well, I'm ----!" ejaculated old Sam Bartlett, as he contemplated the horrid spectacle, and he vigorously mopped his bald head--out of which the perspiration now oozed in great beads--with an enormous red bandana.

"There's no question about that leg and foot," said the Doctor, as he stooped and picked up the ghastly objects to examine them more closely. "They're human--no getting over that, but whether they belonged to Jemuel Knaggs, of course I can't say." Pulling them out of the soft dirt, he found clinging to the end of the femur a piece of cloth of some kind, which the instant Tom Bradford saw he took in his hands, held it up, and exclaimed:

"Well, this is the last straw that breaks the camel's back for me!" All could see that it was the fragment of a blue flannel shirt, its broad collar, with the buttonhole, torn apart.

"A piece of Jemuel Knagg's shirt, or I'm a liar," solemnly said Issachar Noe, as he gazed on the bit of telltale garment. "He always wore that kind," continued Noe. "I sent to St. Louis for them myself for him; that is a part of one of them."

The astounded party, upon this confirmation of Podgett's guilt, looked at each other in silence for a few seconds, when Bartlett, breaking the awful stillness, said:

"Gentlemen, I've seen enough here! Let's go and examine the cabin--which we've got a right to do now, as law-abiding citizens, after such damnable revelations outside of it!"

On entering the cabin, effected by the colossal Jack making a sort of a side-lurch against the door, which immediately flew off its hinges at his first essay, they discovered in the corner of the room used as a kitchen a spot where the dirt floor seemed to yield a little to the pressure of their feet as they walked over it, appearing as if it had been disturbed quite recently. Searching for some implement with which to examine the suspicious corner more closely, they at last found a spade hanging on a peg in the wall of another apartment, evidently the sleeping-room. Here and there were evidences of a woman's occupancy. Under the bed a No. 1 pair of shoes tantalizingly obtruded. On the bed itself a corset was lying, where it had apparently been hastily thrown off by its petite owner; and suspended from some hooks in the logs forming the side of the building were several skirts and other portions of female apparel. For a moment, but only for a moment, these things, so rare in the mining-camps of that period, nearly diverted from their mission the stern and honest men who had entered there, so sweetly suggestive were the articles of mother, sister, or perhaps wife, so far away, and bright visions crowded thick upon their brains. It was soon dispelled, however, as the realization of the actual present forced itself upon them; so, taking down the spade from its place, they returned to the kitchen, and Jack, who had volunteered, commenced to dig.

He had not excavated to a depth of more than two feet when he unearthed the mutilated fragments of another human body! Hereupon he rested from his labor for a moment; then stooped down and pulled something out of the hole, his hands trembling violently as he laid the object on the floor, and exclaiming as he rose up:

"This hyar gits me, by ----!"

Every one was now almost uncontrollably excited, and if Podgett had at that instant entered his own door he would have been annihilated by the infuriated men without a chance to explain, for just as Jack gave vent to his words he had lifted out of the hole a head, to which was still attached a long red beard. He recognized it at once, and that fact was the cause of his excitement.

"God in Israel!" said Issachar Noe vehemently, as he got down on his knees to view the ghastly object more closely. "That's Tom Jackson's head, and he's only been missing about two months!"

"That's so," solemnly replied old Sam Bartlett. "That's poor Tom's beard, sure enough!"

For more than three hours the now determined men worked inside and outside the cabin that they now knew had such a bloody record. At the end of that time, when they ceased their horrid labor from sheer exhaustion, they had discovered the remains of twelve human bodies, among which was that of a baby's, which sorely puzzled them to account for. Many of the remains, where the head was not too much decayed, they recognized as once citizens of Whooping Hollow who had ridden out from it never to return.

Charred fragments of skeletons, too, were found hidden in holes in the rocks, and it was reasonably supposed that many other victims than those whose bones they had brought to light must have been murdered by the demon Podgett, and their bodies left in the mountains just where he had killed them, to be devoured by the wolves.

Putting portions of several remains in a sack, including the ghastly head of Tom Jackson, they induced Jack--towards whom their manner had entirely changed--to pack the repulsive-looking burden on the back of his mule, and they all returned to town.

The result of their horrible experience was disclosed to several of the most reputable people of the place, who that same evening met with them in the postoffice, in "secret session," to devise plans for Podgett's arrest before he had an opportunity to revisit his cabin. It was conceded that he would come to town first with the hunting party that he had gone out with, which would return in three or four days at farthest, and it was resolved to secure him the moment he made his appearance. To this duty they appointed the now worthy Jack and one Bart Kennedy.

On the afternoon of the fourth day after the meeting, Podgett rode unsuspiciously into town with his companions, and the instant he alighted from his mule found himself locked in Jack's vise-like embrace, who with others had been anxiously watching for his coming. He was at once secured in a little log building, and carefully guarded by two plucky Irish miners who had volunteered their services, for by this time all the law-abiding element of Whooping Hollow had become acquainted with the sickening discoveries at the wretch's cabin.

Podgett thus safely under bolt and bar, a committee was sent over to Sandy Bar to interview his Mexican wife or mistress, whose people lived somewhere in the mountains near there, as it was learned that she had gone home. They found her with her father, a widower, who could speak nothing but Spanish, nor could she speak English at all. But Isaacher Noe, one of the party, understood and conversed in the language like a native; so no interpreter was necessary.

The girl was very young, very pretty, but apparently too youthful for either wife or mother. From her some startling disclosures were elicited. She had witnessed a number of murders at the cabin, but had been afraid to say a word, because Podgett swore that he would kill her if she did. But when he dashed her baby's brains out in the most cruel and atrocious manner, right before her eyes, less than two months ago, she made up her mind that she would expose his bloody life as soon as she could find a safe opportunity. She had run away from him the night he went off hunting, and came to her father's, declaring that she would die before she would go back and consort again with such a monster.

When the committee returned to Whooping Hollow, and had submitted their report, threats were freely and openly made by the exasperated miners that they would take Podgett out of the improvised jail and hang him at once. But better counsel prevailed, and it was finally agreed upon at an open-air meeting held that afternoon that he should have a fair trial, as had always been customary in dealing with criminals since the establishment of the camp. The prisoner would be allowed to select a jury of twelve men himself--but it must be composed of the most reputable citizens only; a judge should be elected by the crowd, he to appoint some one competent to prosecute, and another to defend.

As soon as the preliminaries were agreed to by the now excited mob, George Burton's general outfitting store was selected for the court-room, and the trial set for eight o'clock the same evening. In that community no such thing as the law's delay was brooked; the citizens of Whooping Hollow believing in swift, stern justice on all occasions.

Long before the hour appointed for the trial the crowd began to collect, and by half-past seven the little room selected was packed to its utmost capacity. On the outside of the building, compelled to remain in the street, was an indignant, determined mob, numbering more than three times as many as were inside, surging backward and forward, making night hideous with their yells, blasphemous remarks of impatience, and muttered threats of "getting even with him," "having his heart's blood," etc. Both outside and inside of that rough log building was gathered as motley and as hard-looking a crowd as ever got together in the mountains anywhere. It was a strange admixture of ignorance, manhood, vice, virtue, and villainy. Some of the truest men that ever lived stood there; and some were there, too, as deeply dyed in crime, if the truth were known about them, as Podgett himself. Miners, merchants, gamblers and Mexicans were mixed up promiscuously; but their determined faces and show of revolvers spoke more eloquently than language, that "there wasn't going to be any fooling in the matter."

The dingy-looking room improvised for the purpose of the court was lighted by half a dozen tallow candles, which shed a dim, sallow haziness over the piles of bacon, picks, shovels, canned fruits, and other miners' goods stored there, and upon the hard-visaged men who had assembled there to mete out that justice which they believed had been already too long delayed. The red flames of a blazing fire, made of dry pine-knots, nearly as combustible as powder, occasionally shot up the throat of the huge chimney built diagonally across one corner of the room, whenever a fresh armful was thrown on by the two boys appointed to that office for the time being. When the flames had exhausted themselves, and only the embers glowed on the black hearth, a glimmering and a confused mist seemed to diffuse itself over the brindled crowd, while the fitful rays of the unsnuffed candles threw weird shadows on the whitewashed walls like ghosts, as if the spirits of the murderer's victims had come to be phantom witnesses of his agony and despair.

Old Sam Bartlett, as usual, was chosen judge without a dissenting voice. A pile of bacon, packed in gunny-sacks and elevated four or five feet above the floor, on which Bartlett, with his legs dangling over the side, sat, constituted the official bench. The jury, composed of the best men in town, sat on the right of the judge, on boxes, nail-kegs, sacks, or anything that came handy. Ike Podgett, the miserable man for whom all this strange proceeding was instituted, crouching on the dirt-begrimed floor between his two determined guards, rivets his eyes on the resolute men before him, distracted alternately by hope and despair; for he now feels the enormity of his guilt, and knows in his cowardly heart that he deserves death right there, without the least show of mercy.

Tom Bradford was appointed to prosecute the case, and a young man--Enoch Green, who had been graduated from the law school of Yale two or three years before--was appointed to defend Podgett. In a few pithy sentences Judge Bartlett explained the object of the gathering, and reviewed the terrible crimes that had been traced to the accused's den in the lonely cañon. He pointed to the ghastly remains and charred fragments of human skeletons piled upon a rude table in front of the jury, which he told them, in wonderfully impressive language, had been dug up, in his own presence, inside of Podgett's cabin and found among the rocks in the vicinity of the accursed place. The indignant old man grew almost eloquent in his recitation of the prisoner's damnable deeds, and a deathlike stillness pervaded the crowd as the words fell hot and earnestly from his lips, only broken now and then by the convulsive click of a revolver as the excited feelings of some pugnacious individual intensified under the judge's burning remarks. But for his admonition of their promise to give the miserable wretch Podgett a trial, in all probability the proceedings would have been ended before Bartlett closed his remarks.

Tom Bradford, in his argument as the legally constituted prosecutor, merely reiterated in a measure what the judge had so forcibly expressed, but he scathed Podgett in a fearful manner, working up a more exasperated feeling, if that were possible, than existed before; and when he had finished his address he called his witnesses.

The Doctor was first to testify; but he confined his evidence to the character of the charred bones, settling beyond the question of possibility that they were human.

Willow Gulch Jack then appeared, and upon him all eyes were concentrated as he related to the jury the simple story. He described accurately, with a dead coal taken from the fireplace, on the top of a cracker-box, the location of the cabin, its surroundings, and the position in which the several bodies were found, particularly that of Jemuel Knaggs, a piece of whose blue shirt and curious collar-button he exhibited, the latter being recognized by nearly every man present. He made a graphic if not artistic sketch with his rude pencil, and its effect upon the jury and spectators was manifested by expressions addressed to Podgett more emphatic than elegant.

Issachar Noe was the next and last witness called for the prosecution. He related in an impressive and convincing manner, as chairman of the committee, the interview with the young wife or mistress of Podgett, which was received by his listeners with that faith in its accuracy comparable to the high character of the man.

Then young Green, the counsel appointed for the defense, though he had not a single particle of evidence to offer, and convinced of the deep villainy of his brutal and inhuman client, felt it incumbent to make an appeal in his behalf. This he did so eloquently, and built up hypotheses so rapidly, that some of the rougher element, afraid that his efforts might be effectual, became rather demonstrative, and crowded around him in a somewhat threatening manner. They were quieted, however, by a few positive words from old Tom. It was rather a decided but not particularly pleasant compliment to the youth's forensic ability!

When the defense had closed its wonderfully ingenious argument, the judge made another of his significant addresses in his charge to the jury, and a little after midnight he submitted the case to them.

An awful silence prevailed for a few moments while the twelve men put their heads together and consulted in a low tone without leaving their seats. Presently they all rose, and their spokesman, turning to the judge, uttered only one word: "GUILTY."

Then, at a sign from stern old Sam, who immediately came down from his pile of bacon, the two determined-faced miners, with Podgett between them almost paralyzed with fear, walked out into the night, followed by the crowd, who fired off their pistols, and made the very hills tremble with their demoniacal yells.

The early morning sun, as its rays entered the narrow valley, shone upon the lifeless body of Podgett, where, suspended by the neck from the limb of a huge oak tree on the main street of Whooping Hollow, it slowly oscillated at the sport of the warm south breeze.

THE WOOING OF AH-KEY-NES-TOU.

At a period late in the twenties, the Mandans, one of the most intelligent tribes of Indians on the continent, were almost swept out of existence by the smallpox. The story comes down to us in the form of a tradition among other savages, but it is nevertheless true, as there are a few old trappers yet living who remember all the particulars of the event.

The Mandans resided in the vicinity of the mouth of the Yellowstone, where their villages were permanent for untold centuries, and at the time of the visitation of the fell disease which nearly annihilated them they comprised about three thousand families.

Shortly after sunrise, one morning in June, 1828, a young white man was reclining idly on one of the grassy knolls overlooking the village, the great river, and the vast prairie stretching westwardly from its bank. He was intently watching certain movements in the town, where the warriors were preparing for a grand hunt. In the distance, the buffalo could be seen grazing in immense herds, whose presence was the cause of the commotion among the Indians. Soon he saw hundreds of warriors, armed with bows, their quivers filled with arrows, emerge from the shadow of their lodges, and in a long line ride out toward the unsuspecting animals so peacefully feeding. The old men and squaws alone remained in the village, and they were gathered in anxious groups, applauding the husbands, sons and lovers as they went proudly forth to battle for that subsistence which was their only dependence when the snows of winter filled the now sunny valley.

A few moments after the warriors had disappeared in the purple morning mist of the prairies, a bevy of lightly dressed dusky maidens, in all their savage beauty, wandered toward the sandy margin of the Yellowstone to indulge in their favorite amusement of swimming in its clear sparkling tide,--for that stream in summer, like a great brook, ripples and babbles over the rounded quartz pebbles which compose its bed, with as rhythmical a flow as the tiniest rivulet in the recesses of the mountains.

It was this group of Indian maidens that now attracted the gaze of the young stranger; one among them particularly, not yet seventeen, but more beautiful than the others, walked like some society queen on the beach at Newport. In a few moments she purposely separated herself from the rest and directed her steps toward the mound on which the young man was lying. He smiled when he saw her evident intention, and a flush of pride swept over his bronzed cheeks as he came down to the base of the elevation to await her approach.

The young girl thus seeking the intruder was the affianced bride of "In-ne-cose" (The Iron Horn), principal chief of the Mandans--old enough to be her grandfather. She, the handsome Indian maiden, was known as "Ah-key-nes-tou" (The Red Rose), and was the pride of the Mandan nation.

The young man, who had with impatience waited for her coming all the morning, was of course an American; an incipient doctor who had enlisted in the service of the great Fur Company a year before, whose agency was at the junction of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, near the Mandan village. He had imagined himself in love many times in St. Louis, where was his home, but was now satisfied that he had really never felt the tender passion until he saw Ah-key-nes-tou at the general store one day, some months before the story of their fate commences.

When he discovered that the beautiful girl was destined to be the fifth wife of the old chief In-ne-cose--a cross, ugly Indian, and moreover not a full-blooded Mandan--he took pity on her, loved her more than ever, and resolved to win her for himself. Ah-key-nes-tou had often admitted to the "White Medicine," as the band of Mandans called the youthful doctor, that she had a decided predilection for him; that she could never love the old chief; but as her father had been paid for her by the present of two horses, she felt bound to the bargain according to Indian usage.

The doctor in a dozen interviews had told Ah-key-nes-tou of his deep love; that he was willing to leave his home forever for her sake, and, marrying her, would become an adopted son of the tribe. But poor "Ah-key," as her white admirer always called her, considered herself in honor bound to become the wife of In-ne-cose; consequently both the youth and the maiden were perfectly miserable.

In a few moments the doctor and Ah-key met at the foot of the mound, where, without speaking, they seated themselves on the grass with which the ground was covered. After looking at her silently for some time, he took the maiden's hand and said: