The carriage containing the prisoner, together with the officers and ministers, was driven to the foot of the scaffold. The prisoner walked firmly on to the platform, placed himself beneath the rope, and facing to the east, the officers and ministers standing around him. One of the fathers offered up a fervent prayer, though in a voice scarcely audible to the crowd, in which he implored God to give the dying man strength to pass through the trying ordeal, and to receive his soul as it escaped into the shadow of death.

[Illustration: Arrest of Theodore Meyers by Gen. Cook. See page 263.]

Hands Up; or Thirty-Five Years of Detective Life in the Mountains and on the Plains — Part 166

[Illustration: Hanging of Theodore Meyers in Denver, in 1873.]

Hands Up; or Thirty-Five Years of Detective Life in the Mountains and on the Plains — Part 166

Meyers met his doom with an exhibition of nerve the most extraordinary. Once only, and then for but a moment, did he change countenance. The place had no terrors for him. Upon being asked by the sheriff if he desired to say anything, he replied, seeming to address the crowd:

Hands Up; or Thirty-Five Years of Detective Life in the Mountains and on the Plains — Part 166

"Farewell, men! I'm going to another world!"

The noose had been adjusted. The black cap was pulled down over his eyes. Almost before any of the lookers-on were aware of it the fatal spring had been touched, and the body of Meyers was dangling in the air, and human justice, so far as he was concerned, was satisfied. The body had dropped about four feet. There were a few convulsive twitches, the body spun around five or six times, and all was still. The trap was sprung at twenty minutes past 2 o'clock. Four minutes after the pulse stood at 144; five minutes after it had been reduced to 72, and in six minutes life was extinct, as pronounced by Drs. Marix and Heimbarger. The body was allowed to hang thirty minutes, and was then taken down and placed in the coffin, and taken to the city cemetery for interment, alongside of Duggan, Franklin and Griswold.

Mrs. Newton soon afterwards left Denver completely restored to health. It was announced at the time of her leaving that she had been discovered to be one of the heirs to the Stewart estate in England, and that she had inherited a fortune of £60,000 sterling. The trial exculpated her husband, Mr. Freidenthal, from all blame, and also went far towards establishing the fact that Bonacina was the woman's brother, as was claimed.