Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-10-19

1
best they could. A groan and muttered
group hurried man off in their arms. I
was Hice johnson, a well-to-do, respectable
farmer. He had a ball through his breast
and bled to death out on the road, with the
pistol-balls flying over his head, singing
his requiem. Then a groan came from
within, and Reilly Campbell fell in pool
of blood at his brothers feet-a corpse
But Bud stood to his guns, doggedly firing
away into the night whenever he saw the
flash of an enemy's gun. How long this
wild warfare might have lasted no man
knows. But Buds ammunition gave Out, land
his shots became less frequent. The mob
closed in on him. Thirty-nine to one,
surely it was madness to resist longer. Bud
did resist, however, and, barricading doors
and windows,he stood ready with dubbed
gun in his hand to defend his life to the
last. Suddenly he began to smell smoke
about him. There was smoke all around
him, and it seemed to be issuing from
everywhere. There was an ominous crackle
in the air, the sound of fire eating away at
dried wood. Then he knew the horror of
his fate. The mob had fired the cabin.
Thirty-nine men stood ranged around, just
outside, with leveled guns, waiting for
him. Death by fire within, death by bull
let without, which would he choose? The
smoke became denser: he could hardly
grope around the room. The blaze was
leaping around him like mad wolf. The
roof was mass of fire. Then the door
was burst open, and out of the fire and the
binding smoke that man could not breathe
and live, out of this very mouth of hell
man staggered with singed clothes and
grimy face and blsared eyes, clirging to
the end of a gun. Twenty pistols were
leveled at him, but he fell before the hands
that were so anxious to pull the triggers
could move. A dozen men gathered about
him, bound him hand and foot, and, dazed
and half dead as he was, dragged him into
the woods. rope was quickly brought,
and as the smoke of the burning cabin
hoated through the trees it touched and
moved the dangling body Of Bud Camp
bell.
A night or SO later some men returning
from visit to a neighbours thought they
heard mans voice pleading with some
one for mercy. They were not positive,
but thought the one addressed was called
MARY" The next day the lifeless body
of Crockett jenkins was found swinging
from the limb of great oak at the top of
a high hill. The moral proof that Mary
Sullivan committed the crime, assisted by
her mother and sister, seems to be con-
elusive; but there was no positive proof.
And SO when Mary and her mother and
sister were arrested nothing could be done
to them. They were al discharged, and
when Mary went back home she found
deaths head notices glazing at her, warn
ing her to leave the neighborhood. All
the rest of her friends were either dead or
wounded or had left. Bud Campbell was
dead; Reilly Campbell was dead; Crockett
Jenkins was dead; her brother Tom had
gone away to recover from his wound,
which had begun to trouble him again;
her mother and sister had fed, she was an
outcast and alone. But in spite of all this
the woman's indomitable courage never
failed her. She went off to make arrange
ments about selling some COWS, primed
and oiled her pistols, and then wrote de-
faint notes to her enemies. On the twenty
ninth of September she rode over to far
mer Hubbelrs and asked for lodging for
the night. She had her little five-year-old
child with her. About ten o'clock a voice
called her to the door. Her usual pru-
dence seems to have deserted her. She did
not even take her pistol, which for five
years had never left her hand day or
night. She reached the door, opened it
and peered out. The night was dark and
windy. Heavy, rainy clouds hid every
thing, and she failed to see the five men
with pistols in their hands standing within
a few feet of her. She opened the door
and stepped out. Three strong pairs of
arms reached out from the darkness, and
in an instant she was whirled away out to
the public road. She knew what fate lay
in store for her, but uttered neither threats
nor entreaty. She said never word, but
walked along quietly with her captors.
They bound her arms and feet, and, tossing
borrower a horse as though she were meal
sack, they joined the mob which was wait
ing for them on the road. They rode on
till Mary recognized with a thrill of horror
that they were approaching the place
where Jenkins was hung. They halted
under the very tree, and the leader, taking
a rope from behind it, solemnly fastened
the moose about the woman's neck. She
never finched. They took her off the
horse, dragged her to the foot of the tree,
threw the rope over the same limb from
which Crockett Jenkins had dangled a
week before, and drew the woman up. A
convulsive, horrible shudder ran through
her frame, but she spoke never a word.
The wind moaned dismally through the
branches of the wood, whispering to the
trees as it went that a woman's body,
cold and stiff in death, was swinging
from the tallest branch of the old oak
tree.