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.