s time came in from Salt Lake City, which was the supply point. If a
man wanted to send out gold to his people in the States, it had to go
over this long trail across the wild regions. There was no mail service,
and no express office nearer than Salt Lake. Merchants sent out their
funds by private messenger. Every such journey was a risk of death.
Plummer had clerks in every institution that was making money, and these
kept him posted as to the times when shipments of dust were about to be
made; they also told him when any well-staked miner was going out to
the States. Plummer's men were posted all along these mountain trails.
No one will ever know how many men were killed in all on the Salt Lake
trail.

There was a stage also between Bannack and Virginia City, and this was
regarded as a legitimate and regular booty producer by the gang.
Whenever a rich passenger took stage, a confederate at the place put a
mark on the vehicle so that it could be read at the next stop. At this
point there was sure to be others of the gang, who attended to further
details. Sometimes two or three thousand dollars would be taken from a
single passenger. A stage often carried fifteen or twenty thousand
dollars in dust. Plummer knew when and where and how each stage was
robbed, but in his capacity as sheriff covered up the traces of all his
associates.

The robbers who did the work were usually masked, and although
suspicions were rife and mutterings began to grow louder, there was no
actual evidence against Plummer until one day he held up a young man by
name of Tilden, who voiced his belief that he knew the man who had held
him up. Further evidence was soon to follow. A pack-train, bound for
Salt Lake, had no less than eighty thousand dollars in dust in its
charge, and Plummer had sent out Dutch John and Steve Marshland to hold
up the train. The freighters were too plucky, and both the bandits were
wounded, and so marked, although for the time they escaped. George Ives
also was recognized by one or two victims and began to be watched on
account of his numerous open murders.

At length, the dead body of a young man named Tiebalt was found in a
thicket near Alder Gulch, under circumstances showing a revolting
murder. At last the slumbering spirit of the Vigilantes began to awaken.
Two dozen men of the camp went out and arrested Long John, George Ives,
Alex Carter, Whiskey Bill, Bob Zachary, and Johnny Cooper. These men
were surprised in t