While this occurred at Winchester, Craig Tolliver and his band had already assembled at Farmers, ready to play their part in the cowardly deed. Armed to the teeth, they were posted at and near the railway station, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the train. The night was dark and disagreeable, perfectly suited for a hold-up. Presently the flash of light pierces the gloom, the shriek of the engine whistle echoes mournfully through the night. The train bearing John Martin thunders toward the station. The air-brakes wheeze, the train slows up; the conductor cries "All out for Farm--" He does not finish the call of the station. A pistol is thrust into his face. Armed men board the engine and cover the engineer and fireman. Others enter the coach in which Martin is sitting, handcuffed, utterly helpless, surrounded by Bowling and his confederates. Martin sees the men enter and instinctively realizes that his end has come. He attempts to rise to his feet. Instantly shots are fired. Martin sinks back upon his seat, lifeless, his "protectors" calmly witnessing the murder. Martin's wife, in another coach, had up to this time believed her husband secure in his cell at Winchester. But the moment she heard the shots, unaccountable, undefinable dread seized her. Instinctively she rushed to the scene of the tragedy and found her suspicions realized. There lay the blood-covered body of her husband, literally torn to pieces and perforated with leaden messengers of death. All that the faithful, grief-stricken wife could do was to order the remains taken on to Morehead. Martin was buried amid a large concourse of sorrowing friends and relatives. The solemnity of the occasion accorded ill with the many suppressed, yet none the less ominous threats of terrible and swift punishment of the murderers. The news of the cowardly assassination spread like wildfire over the county. The war had begun in earnest. From the day John Martin's body was consigned to the grave, the angel of peace departed from Rowan County. For more than three years a reign of terror was to sweep over it with all its attendant horrors, cutting a wide path of desolation and misery. Deeds of violence now occurred at frequent intervals. All manner of crime went unpunished by the law. The whole machinery of the law was rotten, the officers of the courts being themselves partisans, in some instances very active as such. Mr. Young, the county attorney, was the first to feel the wrath of the Martin faction. While riding along the road on Christi Creek he was shot from ambush and painfully, but not fatally, wounded. The perpetrators of this deed were not definitely known, but Young's friends claimed to have certain information that the men who attempted his assassination had acted under instructions from the Martin faction, which had openly accused Young of playing into the hands of the Tollivers, and had even gone so far as to allege that he had with them connived in the murder of John Martin.