CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE “SIX HUNDRED AND ONE.”

In the spring of 1871, there sprang into existence in Virginia City, a secret organization known as “Six Hundred and One.” It was a “Vigilance Committee” similar to that organized in San Francisco in the early days. The object of the organization in Virginia City, as far as is known, appears to have been the speedy execution of persons guilty of cold-blooded murder, and the banishment of dangerous men from the city.

At the time “601” made its appearance, there were frequent incendiary fires, many murders had been committed, robberies were common, and there prevailed an unusual amount of lawlessness. The idea of those belonging to the organization seems to have been to strike terror to the hearts of evil-doers by the summary punishment of desperate characters who, with little or no provocation, killed peaceable citizens.

“Six Hundred and One” was so quietly and secretly organized that it appeared to spring into existence in a single night. The first that was publicly known of the organization was on the night of March 24, 1871, when Arthur Perkins Heffernan, who, a short time before, had shot down a man in cold blood at the bar of the saloon in the principal hotel of the town, was taken from the County Jail and hanged.

In the morning, when the coroner went to cut down the body of Arthur Perkins, as he was commonly called, there was found pinned upon it a paper on which were the figures “601.” This was taken to be the name of the “vigilante” organization, and “601” it has ever since been called. It is supposed to be still in existence, and it is said that meetings are frequently held, in which the “situation” is discussed. The members are supposed to be leading citizens and business men of the town, but just who they are is not certainly known, as they always appear in masks when out on business. Perkins was taken from the jail and hanged, at about 1 o’clock in the morning. The majority of the residents of the city knew nothing of the occurrence until they arose, yet many persons were still on the streets and lingering about the saloons and other places of public resort, and not a few met “601” face to face, greatly to their astonishment.

The meaning of the appearance of armed and masked men in the streets at such a time in the night was rightly guessed by most persons, as soon as they had time for reflection. The members of the organization had quietly taken possession of the armory of one of the military companies of the town, where they armed themselves with muskets and bayonets, drew on their white masks, and suddenly sallied forth.

Their first move was to place a strong guard at the four corners of the streets round the block in which stood the jail. The appearance of these guards at the street corners was the first intimation that the people of the town had that anything unusual was transpiring. Men started to go to their homes, when they suddenly found themselves confronted by a score of masked men, who brought to bear upon them a row of glittering bayonets, and said; “Go back!” Most persons went “back” without a word, but a few wanted to know “what’s up!” and “what was the reason they could not pass?” when they were again told to go back or they would “find out what was up!”

Some persons after being thus turned back, went round the block and tried at the next street corner, where they were again met by a glittering array of bayonets and the stern order: “Go back!”

A woman who happened to be scouting about the town at the unseemly hour when the net was drawn about the block, found herself caught in it. She tried every corner and, at each, found a row of bayonets held in front of her.

Not a word was spoken anywhere, and this silence and the sight of the arms and masks so frightened her that she galloped about at a very lively rate for a time, then suddenly disappeared, no one knew whither. Some printers also going home from their work on a morning paper, were halted, and their foreman, a fussy, fidgetty old fellow, recently from San Francisco, was frightened nearly out of his wits. When he found half a dozen bayonets at his breast, and saw before him the masked faces, he was sure he had fallen into the hands of robbers.

“Don’t shoot! for God’s sake don’t shoot!” he cried. “I’m a poor miserable old printer and haven’t got a cent!”

Said a voice: “We know you, you old fool. You only want to go two doors above here. I guess we’ll just escort you!” Then turning to the printers, who stood back, heartily enjoying the fright of their foreman, the same masked man said: “Come on boys, you lodge in the same house, I believe!”

Four or five men stepped out and marched the printers within the lines, seeing them to and through their own door.

“Gentlemen, will we be quite safe here?” asked the still anxious foreman, thrusting his head out at the door, after it was thought he was secured within.

“You are safe inside,” said one of the masked men, “but if you come out again we’ll blow the whole top of your head off!”

The head instantly disappeared.

Every few minutes some belated citizen was halted and turned back, at one or another corner of the beleaguered block, giving him an opportunity of returning to his favorite saloon, telling of the wonder and taking another drink. The armed and masked men at the corners were all that any one saw; what was going on within the guarded square no one knew, but all were able to make a tolerably correct guess.

Suddenly the heavy boom of a cannon shook the town and disturbed the stillness of the night. Instantly, and as though by magic, the armed and masked men disappeared from the streets, going no one knew whither. The boom of the cannon, which was fired in the eastern part of the city, at an old military post occupied during the rebellion by a provost guard, told that Arthur Perkins was no more.

While the masked men stood on guard at the corners of the streets, Perkins was hanged in the western suburb of the city. It appears that twenty or thirty members of “601” who were within the lines, quietly went to the Court-house, and, with a crow-bar, wrenched open the front door. They then quickly advanced to the private office and sleeping-apartment occupied by the sheriff and a deputy. These officers were surprised in their beds, their weapons were secured, and the keys of the jail and cells taken from them. All the rest was now easily done. Arthur Perkins and a man who, in a fit of jealousy, had shot and wounded his wife, occupied the same cell. When the heavy tramp of the vigilantes was heard in the outer room, Perkins suspected its meaning—

“They have come for me,” said he to his companion. “I may as well bid you good-bye; this is my last night on earth!”

When the masked men entered the room in which were ranged the cells, they advanced to that occupied by Perkins, and unlocking the door, said: “Come out, we want you.”

The man who was in the cell with Perkins was terribly frightened. He supposed that he, also, was wanted—indeed thought a clean sweep of all in the jail was to be made. He started to march out with Perkins, but was pushed back, one of the men saying: “Go back! we don’t want you.” These, the man afterwards said, were the most comforting words he ever heard in his life. In his excitement Perkins was unable to get on one of his boots. “Never mind the boot,” said one of the vigilantes, “where you are going you will not need boots!”

Perkins was marched by the back way through the Court-house, was hurried to a point near the old Ophir works, and there, when a convenient timber was found, was hanged. He stood on a plank placed across the mouth of a tunnel and, when the fatal moment came, did not wait for the plank to be pulled from under his feet, but sprang into the air as high as he could leap, in order to fall with as much force as possible and thus end his life quickly and with little pain.

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF PERKINS.]

[Illustration: EXECUTION OF PERKINS.]

On the 26th of September, 1846, the ship _Thomas H. Perkins_ sailed from New York, having on board a portion of Stevenson’s regiment of California volunteers. The _Perkins_ was commanded by Captain Arthur, and Arthur Perkins Heffernan was born on the vessel during her passage between New York and Rio de Janeiro. He was named after the vessel and her captain. His father was a corporal in Company F; F. J. Lippite commanding; his mother was a sister of the notorious robber, Jack Powers, who was also at that time a member of company F. A girl was born on the ship _Thomas H. Perkins_ about the same time that young Heffernan first saw the light, and it was an understood thing by those on board the vessel that this girl, called Alta California, should, at the proper age, become the wife of Arthur Perkins Heffernan,—an event that never came to pass. Both children were baptized at Rio, at the American Embassy, by the chaplain of the United States’ ship _Columbia_, then lying in Brazilian waters.

On the 18th of July, 1871, “601” hanged George B. Kirk, a man who was considered a very bad character, who had killed a man in California, and who had lately been released from the Nevada State Prison. He had received a note (ticket of leave, as these notes came to be called) from “601,” ordering him to leave the city. He left, but after being gone some time ventured back. Acquaintances told him that to attempt to remain in the town would cost him his life, but he thought otherwise.

The first night he was in the city he was found at the house of a female acquaintance, and, at about 11 o’clock, he was captured by “601,” placed in a buggy, and taken out to the north end of the town, to the Sierra Nevada mining works, and there hanged from the timbers of a flume. Again the cannon in the eastern part of the city boomed, and as the single, heavy shot echoed through the mountains those who heard it said: “Ha! Six Hundred and One! Another man gone!” Had Kirk remained away from the city he would not have been harmed. When he came back in defiance of the order he had received, commanding him to absent himself from the city, the vigilantes found it necessary to make an example of him, as otherwise all who had received “tickets of leave” would have flocked back to the town.

Since the hanging of Kirk, “601” has not found it necessary to “deal with” any others of the desperadoes of the country. A wholesome fear of the organization is felt. All know that a man who behaves himself in even a half-way decent manner is in no danger from the vigilantes.

As the reader may desire to know what the regularly constituted authorities do in the case of an execution of the irregular character of those of “601,” I give the verdict of the coroner’s jury in the case of Kirk:

“We find the deceased was named Geo. B. Kirk; was a native of Jackson county, Missouri, aged about 36 years; that he came to his death on the 18th day of July, 1871, by being hanged by parties unknown to us.”

The morning after the hanging, when Kirk’s remains were lying at an undertaking establishment, a man who appeared to be a stranger in the city, observing something of a crowd about the door, approached, and looked in at the body lying in the coffin.

“Man dead?” asked he of a person standing near.

“Yes, sir;” shortly answered the person questioned.

Fidgetting a little the stranger tried it again: “How did he die?”

“Hung.” was the laconic reply.

“Hung! Ah, hung himself?”

“No sir, he was hanged by ‘601‘—by the Vigilantes.”

“What did they hang him for?”

“He had been notified to leave town, but after leaving he came back.”

“When a man has been notified to leave the town, can’t he never come back here again and stay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes? Then how is this?”

“Well he came back and”—pointing to the coffin—“you see _he stayed_.”

[Illustration]