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Orders were issued for the Vigilante police to arrest certain men and to warn certain others to leave town immediately. A choice haul was made of the lesser lights of the ward-heelers and chief politicians. A very good sample was the notorious Yankee Sullivan, an ex-prize-fighter, ward-heeler, ballot-box stuffer, and shoulder-striker.
"Yes, yes but you're a Vigilante, and they're after you and all your friends. Your house is guarded and the town is alive with deputies. Please go before it's too late." "How do you know this?" he asked, gravely. "I overheard them plotting." "Who?" "Uncle Arthur and Mr. McNamara."
It was supposed that the wound would prove fatal, and at once the Committee sounded the call for general assembly. The city went into two hostile camps, Terry and his friend, Dr. Ashe, taking refuge in the armory where the "Law and Order" faction kept their arms. The members of the Vigilante Committee besieged this place, and presently took charge of Terry and Ashe, as prisoners.
Some of the minor offenders brought in by the Vigilante police were by the Executive Committee turned over to the regular law courts. Every one of such cases was promptly convicted by those courts! This did not look much like disbanding, nor did any opportunity for wholesale arrest of the anarchists seem imminent. The leaders of the Law and Order faction were at last aroused.
Sansome was not naturally a valiant adventurer; but he had an exceedingly touchy vanity, which, with a little coddling, answered nearly as well. Morrell took the confident attitude that, of course, Sansome was not afraid; therefore Sansome was ashamed to be afraid. "For the moment," said the Englishman, "she's carried away by the glamour of this Vigilante movement. They seem to her strong men.
With this armed backing three times the Vigilante force could be quickly subdued. As it was all legal, it could not fail. Harrison took the writ of habeas corpus and proceeded to San Francisco. He presented himself at headquarters, produced his writ, and had himself announced to the Executive Committee then in session. "Tell him to go to hell!" growled someone.
They disembarked, greeted the horde of friends who had come to meet them, marched to Fort Gunnybags, looked it over, thrust their hands in their pockets, and walked peacefully away to the nearest barrooms! Wise men. By now the Vigilante dispositions were so complete that in the mere interest of examining so sudden yet so thorough an organization, a paragraph or so may profitably be spent on it.
Terry favored him with a half-concealed scowl; Howard with an open sneer; Jones with deprecating hostility. Baker smiled. The Governor, who seemed each day to grow more nervous and irritable, held out his hand. "Well, well, Sherman," he greeted, "glad to see you." Then his brow knit in a kind of puzzled provocation. "What's that Vigilante Committee doing here with you?" Terry grunted and spat.
The good men of the state began to prepare for a general movement of purification and the installation of an actual law. The great Vigilante movement of 1856 was the result. The immediate cause of this last organization was the murder of James King, editor of the Bulletin, by James P. Casey.
Before I realized my companion's intention, we were seated beside the miner. He was still muttering maledictions on the head of the Irish policeman. "The scoundrel!" He dug his stick into the gravel path. "Had the nerve to arrest me! Me, who strung up Jenkins in the first Vigilante Committee, and Casey and Cora in the second." "You must have come here in early days," remarked the Bostonian.
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