On Thursday, the 27th of April, the little town of Douglas was surprised and terrified by the appearance of sixty armed men who alighted from the Elkhorn train. The strangers paid but little attention to the townspeople, but hastened out to the E----Y ranch near the town, where their horses awaited them. Here they pitched camp for the night, and at daylight the next morning set off for the north-west, camping that night on the banks of Wild Horse Creek, some forty miles from Douglas. By Saturday night they were within sight of the Powder River, but were halted by Benton in the hills south of the river until it became dark, when they advanced, and, after fording the river, camped in a large cottonwood grove for the night. At two o’clock in the morning they were awakened, and followed their leader on foot for a couple of miles, when, just as day was breaking, they came to a little log-house near the banks of the Powder River. The building was on the claim of a small rancher named Ben Champion, and stopping with him at the time was another rancher named Billy Ray. Both men had received White Cap notices, and were living together for greater security. Swiftly the men under Benton--who were known thereafter as White Caps--surrounded the ranch and lay concealed, awaiting the appearance of the hapless ranchers, who were to be their first victims. About five o’clock the door opened and Billy Ray stepped out. “Get breakfast, Ben, and I will look after the horses,” he called out, cheerily, as he started for the log stable near the river bank. Half-way there he paused and partly turned as if to retrace his steps. Thinking that they had been discovered in their hiding-place, Benton gave the order to fire, and poor Ray fell riddled with bullets. “Now for the house, boys! Get the other one!” yelled Benton, and he headed a rush at the log building. The rush, however, ended in a wild stampede for shelter, for, regardless of the bullets smashing into the logs around him, Ben Champion appeared in the doorway with a six-shooter in either hand streaming fire and lead. One White Cap lay dead close beside the body of Billy Ray, and another one was painfully trying to drag himself into shelter with a broken leg trailing behind him. From all sides a perfect hail of bullets was now poured into the log cabin, and but for the seasoned logs stopping a large proportion of the bullets no man could have lived inside for five minutes. As it was, bullets were constantly getting in through the chinks and crevices between the timbers. After the first charge failed, Champion, knowing that it was only a question of time before the White Caps killed him, sat down at his table and wrote a letter of farewell to his mother and sisters in far-away Vermont. He also, from time to time, wrote down short comments on the battle in progress. This blood-stained diary, which is now the property of the State Historical Society at Cheyenne, reads as follows:--