“Last Friday, at Fort Smith, Arkansas, the Texas Kid was hung. He will be remembered as being one of the invaders, and the one who boasted that he was the man who fired the shot that killed Nick Ray. He was one of the hired Texans who got $5 a day and rations for helping Wolcott, Carey, Warren & Co. to kill and scare people out of this country in order to help out their arid land scheme. After getting out of jail he went back to Texas and murdered a girl, and for that crime he was justly hanged. He was engaged to the girl he murdered, before he came up here as an invader, and when he went back she had learned what he had done in Wyoming, and refused not only to marry him, but told him she never wanted to see him again. He became enraged and deliberately shot her. He was soon caught, and in less than a month after committing the crime was tried and sentenced to be hung. He broke down several days before the execution of his sentence and repented of his crimes. He blamed the instigators of the invasion for being the cause of his ruin and the death of a fair young girl. He said that he had been told by Wolcott that a band of outlaws existed in Johnson County, in comparison to whom the James boys or the Daltons were innocent children; that they not only were thieves, but that they had waylaid and killed several stockmen, and that nine out of ten of the citizens were scared to death of this gang, which numbered about 75 men. He said Wolcott and Irving told him that the governor and both Senators had offered rewards for their capture or extermination, and that the governor, as the head of the state, had given his sanction to the invasion, as had also both Senators. He denounced the whole gang and expressed regret for the part he took. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” CHAPTER XVII. A WORD ABOUT WYOMING Midway between the rock-ribbed coast of New England and the golden sands of the Pacific, high above and beyond the reach of the malaria laden winds that gather in the low lands on either side, sits fair Wyoming, youngest born of the sons and daughters of our Republic. Resting on the summit of the great Rocky Mountains, her garments fall in graceful folds to the East and West, covering an area of nearly four hundred miles square. Within these rectangular lines is found a variety and richness of nature elsewhere unknown, and absolutely beyond the power of words or brush to paint.