With a rattle of wheels over stones and frozen ground the buckboard swung round the bend and down across the muddy creek flats. The driver, Ranger Jones, one of the pioneers of Northern Wyoming, drew off his leather glove and rubbed his chilled hands on the buffalo robe to restore circulation. The sun was low in the west, and, after placing his hand on the heavy Colt that lay reassuringly beside him on the seat, he drew on his glove and spoke sharply to his team. A moment later they struck the bridge, and after clattering across the shaky wooden structure began the ascent of the south bank. Scarcely had the buckboard left the bridge than from underneath it was thrust the barrel of a rifle. A sharp report rang out, followed by two others in rapid succession, and with his fingers groping vainly for his pistol Ranger Jones, the best rider and one of the bravest men of the Big Horn country, fell forward off the seat. Shot three times through the back, he was dead before his head struck the dashboard. Jones’s death was but one of the brutal murders that about 1890 horrified the settlers east of the Big Horns and north of the Powder River. This country, which had formerly belonged exclusively to the cattle kings, had of late years been invaded by homesteaders and other settlers, who had begun to stretch their hated wire fences along the creeks and around the water-holes on the alkali flats to the east. Early in the winter all the settlers in this district had received warnings that they had been tried by “a jury of their betters” and found guilty of cattle rustling, and warning them that if they did not leave the country within thirty days their lives would be forfeited. These warnings were signed by the “White Cap Protective League.” The letters, which were known to be the work of the Cattle Association, or of some of its members, were for the most part disregarded.