Plummer and his gang; how many were murdered without their fate
ever being discovered can not be told. Plummer was the leader of
the band, but, arch-hypocrite that he was, he managed to keep his
own connection with it a secret. His position as sheriff gave him
many advantages. He posed as being a silver-mine expert, among
other things, and often would be called out to "expert" some new
mine. That usually meant that he left town in order to commit
some desperate robbery. The boldest outrages always required
Plummer as the leader. Sometimes he would go away on the pretense
of following some fugitive from justice. His horse, the fleetest
in the country, often was found, laboring and sweating, at the
rear of his house. That meant that Plummer had been away on some
secret errand of his own. He was suspected many times, but
nothing could be fastened upon him; or there lacked sufficient
boldness and sufficient organization on the part of the
law-and-order men to undertake his punishment.

We are not concerned with repeating thrilling tales, bloody
almost beyond belief, and indicative of an incomprehensible
depravity in human nature, so much as we are with the causes and
effects of this wild civilization which raged here quite alone in
the midst of one of the wildest of the western mountain regions.
It will best serve our purpose to retain in mind the twofold
character of this population, and to remember that the frontier
caught to itself not only ruffians and desperadoes, men undaunted
by any risk, but also men possessed of a yet steadier personal
courage and hardihood. There were men rough, coarse, brutal,
murderous; but against them were other men self-reliant, stern,
just, and resolved upon fair play.