When the court convened and the grand jury was called no case was made against the little band of prominent citizens who had arrogated to themselves the power over life, and they were discharged. But the crime of taking two lives without a trial by jury had been committed just the same, and the disgrace of hanging a woman fastened upon the state. This incident greatly excited the people throughout the territory and widened the breach already opening between the ranchman and the settler. On the other hand, the success of the “enterprise,” and the failure to successfully prosecute the perpetrators of the outrage, gave special encouragement to the stock growers and they determined to “continue the good work.” CHAPTER II. THE HANGING OF WAGGONER NEAR NEWCASTLE--ATTACK UPON NATHAN D. CHAMPION AND ROSS GILBERTSON ON POWDER RIVER--BRUTAL AND COWARDLY MURDER OF JOHN A. TISDALE AND ORLEY E. JONES IN JOHNSON COUNTY Emboldened by exemption from prosecution for the Sweetwater executions, the cattle ring determined to begin a systematic and indiscriminate slaughter of their supposed enemies. They had in their employ men of known recklessness and daring, and apparently the plan was to have these hired assassins begin on the eastern side of the state and pick off their men as they came to them. The first job was the hanging of Waggoner, a few miles from Newcastle, on the morning of June 4th, 1891. Three men went to his house and with false papers took him under arrest. He was alone with his wife and two small children, so his friends were ignorant of his arrest; in fact, his wife supposed he had gone with friends and quietly awaited his return, unsuspicious of foul play. The body was found on the 12th of June hanging to a tree in a gulch some miles away, since known as “Dead Man’s Canyon.” When found the mustache had dropped from the flesh, the face was black, the hands pinioned behind and decomposition rapidly doing its work. Naturally great excitement prevailed in the community when the discovery of the body was made, and for a time there seemed a likelihood of more trouble. The savage brutality characterizing the act of leaving a human body hanging in the woods to be eaten by vultures or devoured by wolves was calculated to stir the blood of the average citizen. But the cattlemen’s domination in the community proved superior to the resisting forces and the matter was dropped after a partial investigation, with no arrests made. Circumstances quite clearly pointed to certain men as the lynchers, but in Western parlance, they “had a pull,” and no official action was taken.