Chapter XIV: 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.