The St. Johns herald., 1889-02-07
The Other Side.

reporter sought him this morning, and found him at the office of MT,
 J. Y. Eickers. "Ies,' said Nr
 White, T nave just returned from i Graham county, where l have been
 investigating the recent killing in
 which our hcrders were implicated and which has caused tue arrest of
 three Of the number" 1Ir. White
 then related the story of the killing and how the trouble began. There
 were seven men connected with cat
 tie company acting in the capacity
 of herders The sheep herders num-
 bered in ali nine men and two boys.
 Everything went along pleasantly,
 the shccpherders not bothering tie
 cattle range until one day when
 two of tic herders appeared around
 on the upper end Of the range with several thousand head of sheep,
 which they said they were going to
 driTc down the valley. They camped
 at night near tie stream of water
 on Q high knoll and began building
 barricade of rocks around their camp, giving them a commanding view of the approach on all sides. This wall ti.ey completed, leaving
 only an entrance at the back. They hcrded their sheep on the range with
 the cattle, met the cattle boys near ly every day, and although friendly
 at first gradually grew insolent, and
 made their brags that their boss would soon have ten thousand more
 sheep on the cattle range The
 cowboys paid no attention to this talk, and no trouble WAS feared or thought oG. The morning of the
 shooting the seven cowboys with Jimmy Lassiter at the head, accom- panied Ry the foreman of the "Tug
 tie" brand company, set out with q pack mule for Rustlers Park to hunt for some missing cattle which the foreman of the latter company said had seen there. They followed tie stream which Icl them by the camp
 of the sheep herders above men toned. Before reaching thi2 point however, three of the COW hunters were sent byss yssLassiter to tzaminc q little bunch 0f, cattle, inspected
 the brands, and startei 10 join the balance of the party which had by
 this time made about two miles fur thor along. Their route led them down to the camp Of the sheep herd- CTS, and it being \ cold morning they stopped, exchanged greetings with the occupants, and stood around the fire warming themselves.
 They had been there probably ten
 minutes waiting for the balance of
 the party to come up, when sudden lY they appeared riding quietly
 along tie stream. The Mexican
 herders no sooner saw them, than
 they jumped for their guns. They
 seemed tG think that a plan had 1 been laid 10 kill them. One of their number placed the muzzlc of his rifle against the stomach of young Burchard, and pulled the trigger.
 The lattter seized the rife ty the Imuzzlc just in time to save his life
 and get the ball in the knee. Atthis the fight became general. The en- closure was small and the five Mex
 jeans and two boys on one side each
 man a'med with a rife, were not equal to the three Americans armed
 with Colts revolvers. The fight
 was hand to hand and nearly every shot effective leaving powder mark
 around it.
 The party below never fired a shot but rushed to the rescue of their
 comrades, reaching them when the 1 battle WAS finished. Three Mexi-
 cans lay weltering in their blood,
 dead; fourth had propped him.
 self up against the wall, bleeding profusely from wound; the fifth one, as also tie two boys, were un- injured. while of the cowboys Bur chard was down with 8 wounded