The plan of the campaign, it is believed, was to go direct to Buffalo, kill Sheriff Angus and his deputies, and there be re-enforced with a large number of co-workers, when they would capture the town, kill twenty or thirty citizens and then raid the settlements in the county, killing or driving out several hundred more, thus getting rid of all their enemies. After satiating themselves with the blood of Johnson County’s citizens, they undoubtedly expected to make detours into Natrona, Converse and Weston counties, where they had dead lists in the hands of the mob, covering many settlers and some business men in each county. Spotters were already in each county locating the men to be killed, and apparently they anticipated a regular picnic in their work of death. One leading idea seemed to be that a reign of terror would at once be brought about and that hundreds of settlers would gather up their families and fly for safety before the approach of the crimson-handed slayers. To prevent the sending of news by wire in advance of the cutthroat band, men had been posted along the telegraph line leading north, with instructions to cut the wires and leave the communities in ignorance of their approaching danger. CHAPTER IV. THIRTY HIRED ASSASSINS AND TWENTY REPRESENTATIVE STOCKMEN LEAVE CHEYENNE TO MURDER, BURN AND DESTROY--THE FINAL PREPARATIONS AND THE START--ARRIVAL AT CASPER AND DEPARTURE, MOUNTED, ACROSS THE COUNTRY Monday and Tuesday, April 4th and 5th, 1892, will always be remembered as red letter days in the criminal history of Cheyenne, the capital city of Wyoming, the baby state of the American Union. Leading members of the Wyoming Stock Growers’ Association were engaged on these two days branding a bunch of seventy-odd, picked and highly fed horses with the unrecorded or “Maverick” brand “A” on the left shoulder, loading them in cars, and putting in other cars, saddles, harness, tents, ammunition, giant powder, provisions, etc. Late in the afternoon of the 5th a special train came in from Denver, Colorado, carrying the southern contingent of hired murderers. Stopping for an hour in the east end of the switching yards, the cars were then taken across the Crow Creek bridge to the stockyards, where the stock and baggage cars, already loaded, were attached, and at 6 o’clock the start was made for Casper, two hundred miles to the northwest. The mob consisted of somewhere between fifty and sixty men, divided about equally between hired helpers from the South and Wyoming citizens. These latter were in the proportion of about two stockmen to one hired man. Each person was armed with a brace of pistols and a Winchester rifle. The leaders were anxious for a start at their bloody work, Major Walcott, in command, as a parting salute, saying to the railroad superintendent, “Hurry up; put us at Casper and we will do the rest.”