In the meantime cold chisels had cut into the cell padlocks, and sledge hammers completed the job. Woodruff was on his feet and showed fight, but his visitors were determined men, and the cold-blooded murderer was soon rendered docile, a few raps with the butt of a revolver being administered on the top of his head. He was carried out and laid upon his stomach on the floor, his face resting upon his left side, while skillful and willing hands bound his wrists together behind his back. As he was being taken from his cell he made but one remark:
"Gentlemen, you are mistaken. I am innocent of this crime."
When the tying was completed he was lifted up to a sitting posture and asked for the captain, referring to Boyd, and that officer immediately came forward.
Laying hand upon the shoulder of the prisoner, Boyd said:
Woodruff raised his dark eyes to the kindly face above him, and with a low voice, inexpressibly sad and full of feeling, said:
"Captain, write to my wife--and to my brother, and tell them all about this, will you? Don't forget it. Write to (and a name was given which the officer forgets) and tell him to avenge my death--he'll do it."
"Gentlemen," he said, turning to his captors, "this is not the last of this."
Then Boyd said: "Is that all I can do for you, Sam?"
During all this time the men had been hammering away at Seminole's cell, and as Woodruff finished speaking, the door was opened and a number of men sprang within. Seminole was lying upon his face moaning fearfully in his terror. He was quickly picked up and carried out, and his hands bound behind him in like manner to Woodruff's.
Without further hesitation or delay and in perfect silence the prisoners, the manacles on their ankles clanking a dismal dead march, were taken out through the front door of the basement and taken in the direction of the Golden and South Platte railroad, three or four hundred yards distant. Woodruff refused to walk, and was half carried and half pushed, but Seminole did what he could in the way of locomotion, and in a few minutes the men were on the railroad bridge that crosses Kinney creek.
The bridge is a timber one, having three spans, supported on spiles resting on wooden foundations. A rope three-eighths of an inch in diameter was produced, which was supposed to be long enough to hang both men, but being found too short, a delay occurred while a new one, an inch in diameter, was obtained. Woodruff was stationed on the end nearest Denver, and Seminole just five sleepers further away. With nooses about their necks, the other ends of the ropes being fastened to the projecting ends of the timbers (notches being cut to prevent any slipping), the men stood.