ite shroud
of feathery snowflakes, as if pitying nature had tried to hide from the
offended face of Heaven the cruel deed which her mountain-children had
committed.

I have heard no one approve of this affair. It seems to have been
carried on entirely by the more reckless part of the community. There
is no doubt, however, that they seriously _thought_ they were doing
right, for many of them are kind and sensible men. They firmly believed
that such an example was absolutely necessary for the protection of
this community. Probably the recent case of Little John rendered this
last sentence more severe than it otherwise would have been. The
Squire, of course, could do nothing (as in criminal cases the _people_
utterly refuse to acknowledge his authority) but protest against the
whole of the proceedings, which he did in the usual legal manner.

If William Brown had committed a murder, or had even attacked a man for
his money; if he had been a quarrelsome, fighting character,
endangering lives in his excitement,--it would have been a very
different affair. But, with the exception of the crime for which he
perished (he _said_ it was his first, and there is no reason to doubt
the truth of his assertion), he was a harmless, quiet, inoffensive
person.

You must not confound this miners' judgment with the doings of the
noble Vigilance Committee of San Francisco. They are almost totally
different in their organization and manner of proceeding. The Vigilance
Committee had become absolutely necessary for the protection of
society. It was composed of the best and wisest men in the city. They
used their power with a moderation unexampled in history, and they laid
it down with a calm and quiet readiness which was absolutely sublime,
when they found that legal justice had again resumed that course of
stern, unflinching duty which should always be its characteristic. They
took ample time for a thorough investigation of all the circumstances
relating to the criminals who fell into their hands, and in _no_ case
have they hung a man who had not been proved beyond the shadow of a
doubt to have committed at least _one_ robbery in which life had been
endangered, if not absolutely taken.

But by this time, dear M., you must be tired of the melancholy subject,
and yet if I keep my promise of relating to you all that interests _us_
in our new and strange life, I shall have to finish my letter with a
catastrophe in many respects more sad than