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Updated: July 19, 2025
At midnight several cloaked forms emerged, walking rapidly up the street. Then the California fire engine bell began to toll. James King of William, a local banker, leaving Vigilante quarters almost collided with Broderick. "What does that mean?" the latter asked; he pointed to the tolling bell. "It means," King answered, solemnly, "that Jenkins is condemned to death.
Nevertheless the few who, hurrying to the scene, had occasion to pass near the Vigilante headquarters, found the silent square guarded on all sides by a triple line of armed men. The side-streets also were filled with them. They stood in the exact alignment their constant drill had made possible, with bayonets fixed, staring straight ahead. Three thousand were under arms.
Had they known of that fact, it is to be doubted whether they would have felt any great disappointment over his escape, or any deep animosity at all. The outcome of his efforts had been clarifying. The bark was bound for the Sandwich Islands. Morrell's dispositions for flight at a moment's notice had been made long since; in fact, since the first days of Vigilante activity.
The meadow larks became hundreds, the song sparrows trilled, distant cocks crowed, and a dog barked exuberantly far away. Keith stirred and looked about him. Objects were already becoming dimly visible. Suddenly something attracted his attention. He held his head sideways, listening. Faintly down the little land breeze came the sound of a bell. It was the Vigilante tocsin.
Neither of them made any comment just then, but as they turned away Rowlett murmured, as though to himself: "Of course, any feller kin eat peanuts." All that afternoon Cal Maggard lay hidden in the thicket overlooking his front door and, as a volunteer co-sentinel, Bas Rowlett lay in a "laurel-hell" watching from the rear, but their vigilante was unrewarded.
Those were thrilling words to Jake, as was attested by his emotion, and they surely made Lenore's knees knock together. She had heard many stories from her father of that famous old vigilante band, secret, making the law where there was no law. "Oh, I might have expected that of dad!" she murmured. "Wal, it's sure the trick out here. An' your father's the man to deal it.
"Was any one shot?" queried Andy. "Not in the daytime. Nobody killed by this Citizens' Protective League, as they call themselves. They just rounded up all the suspicious men an' herded them on to thet cattle-train an' carried them off. It was at night when the vigilantes worked masked an' secret an' sure bloody. Jest like the old vigilante days! ... An' you can gamble they ain't through yet."
I left the saloon, dismissed the hack, and walked to my own quarters, ruminating on the common saying that, "white man is mighty uncertain." Thence on Governor Foote was a red-hot "Vigilante."
Only two men were killed in this war, and the non-resident cattle men who undertook to be ultra-Western and do a little vigilante work for themselves among the rustlers found that they were not fit for the task. They were very glad indeed to get themselves arrested and under cover, more especially in the protection of the military.
"There is nothing else to do," agreed Ashe at last. An officer was sent to negotiate. "We will deliver up the armoury if you will agree not to give us over to the mob," he told the committee. "We hold, and intend to hold, the mob under absolute control. We have nothing in common with mobs," was Coleman's reply. The doors were then thrown open, and a company of the Vigilante troops marched in.
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