From a hillside overlooking the scene thousands upon thousands of Everett citizens sent forth cheer after cheer as a hearty welcome to the "invading army." High up on the flag-pole of the Verona clambered Hugo Gerlot, a youthful free speech enthusiast, to wave a greeting to the throng that lined the shore. Passenger Oscar Carlson and his friend Ernest Nordstrom, from their position on the very bow of the boat, caught the spirit of the party and endeavored to join in the song that resounded louder and clearer as many of the men left the cabins to go out upon the deck. Completely filling the bow of the boat and blocking the passageway on either side, the singers crowded to the rail in the usual joyously impatient manner of holiday excursionists, and then for the first time observed a body of deputies march from the large warehouse and settle into lines across the back and sides of the open landing space on the dock, where Curtis, McRae, and Beard were stationed. Waiting until Captain Ramwell's wharfinger, William Kenneth, had made fast the bowline to prevent the boat from backing out, Sheriff Donald McRae gave his belt holster a hitch to bring his gun directly across his middle and then lurched forward to the face of the dock. Holding up his left hand to check the singing, he yelled to the men on board: "Who is your leader?" Immediate and unmistakable was the answer from practically every member of the Industrial Workers of the World: "We are all leaders!" Angrily jerking his gun from its holster and flourishing it in a threatening manner, McRae cried: "You can't land here!" "The hell we can't!" came the reply as the men stepped toward the partly thrown-off gang plank. A shot rang out from the immediate vicinity of deputy W. A. Bridges, then another, closely followed by a volley that sent them staggering backward. Many fell to the deck. Evidently the waving of McRae's revolver was the prearranged signal for the carnage to commence. The long months of lumber trust lawlessness had culminated in cowardly, deliberate, premeditated and foul murder! Young Gerlot crumpled up and slid part way down the flag pole, then suddenly threw out both arms and crashed lifeless to the deck, his bullet-torn and bleeding body acting as a shield for several who had thrown themselves prostrate. Passenger Oscar Carlson threw himself flat upon the forward deck and while in that position seven bullets found their way into his quivering flesh, life clinging to the shattered form by a strange vagary of fate. With a severe bullet wound in his abdomen, Ed Roth swayed back and forth for a moment and then toppled forward on his face. When a bullet whistled past the head of Captain Chauncey Wiman, and another tore a spoke as thick as a man's wrist from the pilot wheel beneath his hand, he deserted his post to barricade himself behind the safe with a mattress, remaining in that position until the close of the hostilities.