When they let him down he stuck it
out and refused. They strung him up again, and just as they got him
hauled up they noticed that the boy--he wasn't over my age--was running
away. They ran after the boy and, numbed as he was lying in the wagon in
the winter's cold, he could not run fast, and they caught him. Then they
remembered that they had left Old Man Bunker hanging when they chased
off after the boy; and when they cut him down he was dead.
They were scared, drunk as they were, and after holding a council of
war, they decided that they would make a clean sweep and hang the boy
too--I forgot this boy's name. This they did, and came back telling the
story that the prisoners had escaped, or been shot while escaping. I do
not recall which. It was kind of pitiful; but nothing was ever done
about it, though the story leaked out--being too horrible to stay
a secret.
There was a great deal of sympathy with the Bunkers all over the
country, I know where one of the men who did the deed lives now, out in
Western Iowa, near Cherokee. He was always looked upon as a murderer
here--and so, of course, he was, if he consented.
At the time when this conversation took place in Judge Stone's office,
the Bunkers were in the heyday of their bad eminence, and while they
were operating a good way off, there was some terror at the mention of
their name. The judge looked me over for a minute when Henderson L.
suggested me for the second time as a good man for his body-guard.
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