The Journal of a Sporting Nomad 



had escaped, and from the prisoner, condemned 

 him to death. He was then taken at once on to 

 the glacier, on the edge of which grew a small, 

 shaking aspen tree. To this he was strung up 

 by the neck, the body being cut down only an 

 hour or so before our arrival, and thrown into 

 a crevasse in the glacier. To show the callous- 

 ness of this brute, the only words he spoke when 

 he was being conducted to trial were these, 

 " Waal, I guess you're going to kill the smartest 

 revolver shot in the Western States of America." 

 Such is " lynch " law, or the law of the land. 

 Primitive civilization requires desperate remedies 

 sometimes, but I think that in the vast majority 

 of cases the prisoner gets a fair trial, and perhaps 

 the " benefit of the doubt." It is essential that 

 some such law must be enforced to safeguard 

 life and belongings, and it resolves itself into the 

 Mosaic system, " an eye for an eye." There are 

 certain unwritten laws in a wild country such as 

 this that must be upheld, the penalty of the 

 breaking of them being death. One of these 

 is murder, another theft. The consequences 

 attaching to the latter may seem severe, but 

 are well known to every one living in the country, 

 native or white man. I consider the law is 

 therefore just, for this simple reason know- 

 ing that the penalty for theft is death, a man 

 cannot excuse himself on the plea of ignor- 

 ance. It would be impossible in such a 



208 



