"Watson my dear fellow, would you see about getting me the times of sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset, at Bannack on November 14, 1863, in Mountain Standard Time, hours after midnight," Holmes said in his usual crisp and somewhat laconic manner.

I replied as politely as I could, "Holmes, you must realize that one has only to go to the World Wide Web and ask for such data. Indeed if you would look at the URL http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/data/
you will find links to enable you to compute the data you wish to have. I have done that for you and stored it in a file on your hard drive."

"Thank you, Watson," Holmes magnanimously replied, "but why did you not also tell me the phase of the moon on that date?"

"I can do that, but I thought a picture is worth more than a mere decimal fraction," I replied, sure that he would be asking me for more.

"That's all very well and good, my dear fellow, but what am I to do about the weather on that night? Is there no way your ubiquitous World Wide Web could figure out the weather at Bannack that night? "

" Holmes, the World Wide Web can shed some light on the state of the weather that night of November 14. If you look at the URL
http://montana-vigilantes.org/langford/chapters/chap27.html you will find this passage concerning the night of November 14. Langford is telling the story of Wilbur Sanders taking off from Bannack up over the divide to Rattlesnake Creek to track the party of Plummer who was looking for silver mines (he thought).

Upon arriving at the top of the hill, as is not unusual on the top of these mountain ranges, a snow storm burst upon the lone traveller, accompanied by a high wind, and in half an hour the disintegrated granite in the road, which was dry, mixed with the snow so as to cause the mule to accumulate on his hoofs large quantities of the dust and snow, to such an extent as to make speed impossible, and travelling very difficult. "

" No, there is another source, although it is not yet on the World Wide Web. Helen Fitzgerald Sanders, A HISTORY OF MONTANA, Vol. 1 (The Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, 1913, page 190, mentions the snowstorm that night. Wilbur Sanders is relating his experiences that night: 'About dark a snow storm commenced, the wind blew with considerable fury, and the accumulations of snow upon the feet of the mule rendered his steps uncertain and very laborious. I therefore dismounted, and for the last eight miles drove him to Rattlesnake ranch.' "

"Well now," Holmes said, "it looks as if it might have been difficult, but perhaps not impossible to recognize Henry Plummer by the color of the lining of his overcoat. We already know that the moon was a sliver and would set at about 8 P.M.. I noticed your map shows some high mountains to the west of Bannack, so I suppose even that sliver might have gone down earlier, but in any case there was very little light to make an identification of a masked man. In addition it was very likely snowing. Damn it all, how bright was the red cloth used? Can you get me a sample of that red cloth? They hanged this fellow Henry Plummer did they not? So what became of his property? Who got the overcoat? His gun? His mining claims? He was married to a good Christian woman, was he not? I suppose the honorable, Christian thing to have done would have been to send all that and the proceeds from sale of the mining claims to his wife, eh, Watson? "

I was sorry to have to tell Holmes that the property was disposed of by the vigilantes who hanged the Sheriff, and there is no record of any of it except the gun which was seized by Mr. Goodrich, for payment of rent. Henry had been sleeping at the Goodrich Hotel, but boarding with his sister-in-law Martha Vail.

So the question of the luminosity of the red lining will remain unanswered. There really wasn't much more Holmes could do. He did add, though, " Drat it, Watson, it's awfully slim testimony to base a death sentence on. "

"Ah, but there was more evidence. A young fellow named Red Yeager, or Yager, who worked as a flunky and a roustabout at the Rattlesnake Ranch stage station confessed to being a member of a sophisticated gang with Henry Plummer as Chief," I explained to Holmes.

"My dear Watson, please show me a copy of the confession," replied Sherlock Holmes excited to hear about some firm evidence of the man’s guilt.

"I’m sorry to say that no copy of the confession was kept, if indeed it ever existed. And this in spite of the vigilantes being highly organized and meticulous record keepers (they even kept their grocery lists)."

"Was this confession made in open court?" asked Holmes.

"No, the same night Yeager was captured and confessed he was hanged from a cottonwood tree branch at a lonely ranch on the Ruby River, with no witnesses other than the vigilantes who had asked him to accompany them to Virginia City for questioning."