“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.