The officers, making quite a little posse, stopped at a tavern down in Tama County, I think it was at Fifteen Mile Grove, and took a drink or two too much.

They had Old Man Bunker and one of the boys in the wagon tied or handcuffed, I never knew which; and while the posse was in the tavern getting their drinks the boy worked himself loose, and lay there under the buffalo robe when the men came back to take them on their journey to jail.
When they had got well started again, it was decided by the sheriff or deputy in charge that they would make Old Man Bunker tell who the other members were of their gang.

So they took him out of the wagon and hung him to a tree to make him confess.

When they let him down he stuck it out and refused.

They strung him up again, and just as they got him hauled up they noticed that the boy--he wasn't over my age--was running away.