THE TRIAL OF THE INVADERS
On August 7th, 1892, the invaders were arraigned before Judge Scott, in
the District Court for Laramie county, at the court house at Cheyenne.
They all pleaded not guilty, and the work of securing a jury began.
Three days were consumed and some progress made. It was evident that a
jury could be found in the county, and hopes began to be entertained
that the prisoners would be called upon to face their accusers for the
killing of Nathan D. Champion and Nick Ray, and the burning of the
Nolan ranch on Powder river, April 9th, 1892. Skeptics and doubters
there had been from the time of the arrest of the prisoners. “They will
never be tried,” was an expression heard every day, and in all parts of
the state. The theory was that the cattlemen exerted such a dominating
influence that in some way they would prevent a final hearing and that
the accused would go free. The special privileges granted the prisoners
throughout the summer months strengthened this idea, but when the day
of trial came and both prisoners and witnesses appeared in court, the
doubters began to hope that they were mistaken in their judgment.
But a bomb shell was already loaded, with fuse attached. At the close
of the third day the sheriff, A. D. Kelly, presented a petition to
Judge Scott for relief, setting forth that Johnson county was bankrupt;
that its officials had not paid the expenses incurred by the detention
of the prisoners in Albany county pending the hearing on the motion for
a change of venue; that the cost of holding the prisoners, including
hall rent, guards and food, was over a hundred dollars a day; that he
could not get any money from the county officials with which to meet
these bills; that Johnson county warrants would not take the place of
money; that he, as sheriff, would no longer assume responsibility for
these current expenses, and praying for an order of court that would
secure him against loss as he could no longer hold the accused.
When court convened on the morning of August 10th, Judge Scott handed
down his decision on the above-named petition in substance as follows:
“I am unable to issue an order compelling Johnson county to make good
the sheriff’s disbursements for the maintenance of the prisoners, and
as he has refused to longer provide for them, my only alternative is
to admit them to bail. But as the defense refuse to furnish bail, I am
forced to release them on their individual recognizances.”
The prisoners at once signed each his own bail bond for $20,000 in the
two separate cases, and they were all set at liberty, but ordered to
appear at the next term of court, in January, 1893.
When this news reached the public a feeling of disgust was everywhere
manifest, save among the white caps, who flung their banners on the
outer walls and literally colored the town crimson. It was then clearly
demonstrated that the old guard had gotten in its work, and that crime
was still to go unwhipped of justice. The press of the country was
generally outspoken in denunciation of the travesty upon justice,
and many very bitter editorials were printed. The following from the
Cheyenne Daily Leader is a sample of the more conservative utterances:
The Prisoners Released
“Well, the stockmen and Texans are all at large, having been released
yesterday on their own recognizances. Taking it all around perhaps
it’s just as well. Their confinement at Keefe hall was such only in
name. They were permitted to go at will day or night about the city.
Many of them never slept in the hall at all, and the guards were an
elegant superfluity except whenever it was necessary to preserve the
peace among the Texans. Some of the prisoners took in the Templar
demonstration at Denver, and few of them were ever impeded in any of
their movements.
“The keep of the prisoners, pay of guards and hall hire, amounted to
about $100 a day. For all practical purposes this amount of money was
but little better than wasted. In the ordinary sense of the term the
prisoners were never guarded and could have made good their escape
at any time were they so minded. Such scenes as were presented could
not, in the nature of things, increase the public respect for the
law or its administration, and from this point of view it was better
to discharge the prisoners even on their own recognizances than to
pretend to keep them in custody when they were as a matter of fact
freer to go about than men employed at the shops.”
Thoughtful persons asked why Governor Barber had brought these men
hundreds of miles from the scene of their misdeeds to be held at the
expense of Johnson county, and ready money demanded at every turn in
the case? Johnson county’s credit was good at home and abroad--her
warrants had always been paid and her people would have been glad to
furnish guards and provision for the invaders and taken their pay in
evidences of indebtedness, knowing that they were good for their face
value. This privilege was denied them, and the costs more than doubled
by transferring the case to distant points for a hearing. Besides this
the white cap press continually held Johnson county up as a bankrupt
community and insisted that it could never pay the cost of a trial.
This tended to weaken or destroy her credit away from home and rendered
the borrowing of money difficult. Looking at the train of circumstances
as a whole, and connecting them with the final release of the prisoners
without trial, on the plea of Johnson county bankruptcy, the consensus
of opinion in many circles was that the 10th of August witnessed the
closing act of a drama (if such a comparison may be allowed) fully
outlined before the prisoners left Fort McKinney for Cheyenne under
military escort. The fact that confidence in their ultimate release
never seemed to be lacking in the minds of the invaders strengthens
this view of the case. They apparently knew what was to be the outcome.
There were many ludicrous and humiliating incidents connected with the
detention and partial trial of these men. They were under arrest for
murder, in the hands of the law and the sheriff, yet when arraigned in
court to plead F. M. Canton was carried in on a stretcher, wounded by
the accidental discharge of his own pistol while in one of the city
saloons in the early morning hours. This was made the excuse for asking
an order of court to disarm the prisoners, and as there was a living
example of the danger before the court, the order was granted. This was
the 7th day of August, and the prisoners had been in custody since
April 13th--all this time carrying the arms and flaunting them in the
face of the law, while the citizens walked the streets with no weapons
of defense.
Another incident is worthy of relating. A brother of Nathan Champion
came in on the afternoon train from the west. Desiring to see the men
who had killed his brother, he asked the first man he met on the street
where they were to be found. He was directed to Keefe hall. Approaching
the entrance he found no one on guard at the door, so went inside and
slowly walked around the room, deliberately looking at the men as they
sat or lounged about. For a wonder, there happened to be about half the
prisoners in the hall at the time, and two or three of the cattlemen
who were personally acquainted with the murdered Champion. When they
saw this man approaching they thought it was the ghost of the murdered
man, and rushed for an officer to put him out. The deputy sheriff
asked: “Who are you, and what do you want here?” He replied: “My name
is Champion, and I came in to see these men who killed my brother
Nate.” The deputy quietly walked by Champion’s side and told him he
had better retire as visitors were not allowed without a permit. “All
right,” said Champion. “I have seen the murderers, and have no further
business here,” walking out as he finished the remark.
The presence in the city of a brother of Nate Champion seemed to stir
up unpleasant memories and create forebodings in the minds of the
imprisoned cattlemen, for apparently well authenticated rumor said that
an express wagon was driven up to the rear of Keefe hall just at dusk
the evening after the above named visit, and 40 Spencer rifles unloaded
for the use of the prisoners in the event of an attack by “rustlers or
their friends.” No attack was made or contemplated, but all the same
there was a good deal of nervousness displayed for several days, and
Champion’s ghost seemed to have taken possession of Keefe hall, much to
the disgust of the temporary sojourners therein.
Immediately on the signing of their bonds, preparations commenced
for leaving the city. The Texans and many of the cattlemen took
the afternoon train for the East. The fiscal agents of the Stock
Association were part of the outgoing throng, which laid over a day
in Omaha to settle up with the hired men. These were supposed to be
on the payroll at $5 a day from the time of their enrollment in March
up to the hour of their discharge by the court, as well as for the
computed time of their journey home. The Omaha papers of the 12th
and 13th of April announced the happy adjustment of these financial
arrangements and the departure of the late imprisoned on their way
south in the best of spirits and with canteens well filled.
Tom Smith, the captain of the Texans, has since paid the last penalty.
He was shot and killed by a negro desperado on the cars between
Gainesville, Texas, and Guthrie, Oklahoma, in the summer of 1893.
Others of the band are reported killed, but how many is not known. He
who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword, will no doubt prove
true with many of these reckless characters.
A goodly number of the cattlemen quietly departed for a change of air,
while others repaired to their respective places of domicile. One
general manager, who had been in the north for years, remarked that
he was “heading straight for Brooklyn, and that once safely over the
bridge he would stay on that side of the East River. He had had all the
business he wanted with a lot of duffers who had no more sense than to
shoulder their guns and fight like demons for their jim crow farms in a
country that was not worth a d----n, only for cattle grazing.” He has
kept his word.
January 21st, 1893, when the case of the State of Wyoming vs. the
Invaders was called, nearly all of the cattlemen responded, but the
hired men failed to appear. Alvin Bennett, prosecuting attorney for
Johnson County, offered a motion to enter a nolle prosque, to which the
attorneys for the defense entered an objection. After discussion the
court accepted the motion and the prisoners were discharged. A similar
motion was made covering the cases of the hired Texans, who had not
appeared, and an order of discharge was entered in the court records,
also one rescinding the order of forfeiture of bail bonds previously
entered.
This action was severely criticized by many as unwarranted and
outrageous, but the public finally settled down to the common opinion
that the ring had so many obstructions of one kind and another to
spring that justice was not likely to be meted out in the event of a
long and expensive suit, and perhaps it was as well to end the farce
without further cost to Johnson County settlers. It presented one
object lesson that would in the end result in good to the state by
arousing a sentiment among the masses in opposition to corporation rule
that in future would prevent similar disgraces.