That was indeed the touchstone of the entire civilization which
followed upon the heels of these scenes of violence. It was fair
play which really animated the great Montana Vigilante movement
and which eventually cleaned up the merciless gang of Henry
Plummer and his associates. The centers of civilization were far
removed. The courts were powerless. In some cases even the
machinery of the law was in the hands of these ruffians. But so
violent were their deeds, so brutal, so murderous, so unfair,
that slowly the indignation of the good men arose to the
white-hot point of open resentment and of swift retribution. What
the good men of the frontier loved most of all was justice. They
now enforced justice in the only way left open to them. They did
this as California earlier had done; and they did it so well that
there was small need to repeat the lesson.

The actual extermination of the Henry Plummer band occurred
rather promptly when the Vigilantes once got under way. One of
the band by the name of Red Yager, in company with yet another by
the name of Brown, had been concerned in the murder of Lloyd
Magruder, a merchant of the Territory. The capture of these two
followed closely upon the hanging of George Ives, also accused of
more than one murder. Ives was an example of the degrading
influence of the mines. He was a decent young man until he left
his home in Wisconsin. He was in California from 1857 to 1858.
When he appeared in Idaho he seemed to have thrown off all
restraint and to have become a common rowdy and desperado. It is
said of him that "few men of his age ever had been guilty of so
many fiendish crimes."

Yager and Brown, knowing the fate which Ives had met, gave up