“About two weeks ago eleven men, who had for years been acting as either United States deputy marshals or deputy sheriffs, left here rather mysteriously, and it was given out that they had gone West to enter the cattle business. They belong to the party that was rounded up by the troops and rustlers and taken to Fort McKinney. It turned out that they were sent to Wyoming by the United States Government to help the big ranchmen protect themselves from the raids of the rustlers. The large cattlemen, it is said, appealed to President Harrison for protection, and offered to pay for men who would come and aid them in maintaining what they considered their rights. The President requested the marshals of the Eastern, Western and Northern districts of Texas to go to Wyoming at once, and a party of forty-three was organized. It is said that they took oaths as Pinkerton detectives.” While it is probably not true that the President had any conception of the depth of villainy to which the treason plotters were stooping, it has been generally understood that his consent to a transfer of a deputy marshal from the South to Wyoming had been secured. That an effort was made to gather up a large number of these Southern deputies by the agents of the invaders is known, and the braggadocia with which Ijams speaks in the above quotation when he says, “Angus and the rustlers cannot muster as many men by far as our party will have in the field very soon,” indicates that recruits were expected from this direction. The circumstances and conditions strongly point to some kind of an understanding with the United States Marshal’s office at Washington, if not with a higher power. It is evident, also, from the tone of the Baxter-Ijams interviews given above that they expected many recruits from Denver, and were in that city to aid in forwarding a second battalion to the front. Squads were promised from Casper, Douglas and Newcastle, and it is known that a case of guns was shipped to Douglas, addressed to Acting Governor Barber about that time, and later shipped to Cheyenne, without being opened, presumably because the volunteers were all on the other side. Buffalo was booked for a hundred men, and stragglers were to come in from the Big Horn and other places. But none of these auxiliaries materialized. Baxter’s “nine-tenths of the people of Wyoming” were found to be in sympathy with the people and against “the cattle owners.” All of these promises to aid, and the splendid detail of plans laid, however, led Baxter to boastingly say to the Denver interviewer, “I am willing to give all the assistance possible to any body of men which will attempt to exterminate the rustlers.” This promised assistance did not seem to arouse the common herd of Denver to the enlisting point, notwithstanding the liberal terms of $5 a day and $50 for each and every scalp taken by any of the force. (See Downing’s confession in the appendix.)