Olive and his five indicted codefendants were picked off, one by one, that very Sunday morning as they walked the quiet streets of Plum Creek. Not a shot was fired, and the cowmen were whisked off to Kearney on a waiting train, and then, for safer keeping to the state penitentiary in Lincoln.
Judge Gaslin secured a change of venue, moving the trial to Hastings, fifty miles further east. The stage was now set for the trial that received more attention than any other arising from the cattleman/homesteader conflicts on the plains. The editor of the Lincoln State Journal noted that practically every one of the eight thousand newspapers in the United States gave some coverage to the case. The power of the cattle kings vied with the State of Nebraska to determine the future of the Platte country west of Kearney—would the Chisholm Trail Texans or the immigrant homesteaders prevail?
On April 1, Judge Gaslin called the court to order in Liberal Hall, a large brick building constructed by the Hastings Unitarians, and one deemed large enough to hold the expected crowds. Opening arguments were presented by both the prosecution and the defense. The balance of the week was consumed by a flurry of objections filed by the defense team. All during the week the court was concerned by likelihood that the cattlemen and their cowboys might attempt to rescue the accused and spirit them off the cattle country.
The prosecution presented particularly damning testimony from C. W. McNamar, the attorney for Ketchum and Mitchell who, on the night of their abduction, had followed the wagon containing the two from the Plum Creek station until he lost them in the darkness of Custer County hills. Next, before adjournment on that Thursday, Dilworth introduced a surprise witness in the person of Phil DuFran, one of the defendants and the Custer County deputy who had driven the wagon containing the two homesteaders away from the Plum Creek station. DuFran was turning State’s evidence. Things looked bleak for the Olive crew.
By the time the court adjourned that evening, Hastings was choked with cowboys—about two hundred by the sheriff’s estimate. Many were declaring, openly and loudly, a hint of liquor evident on their breath, that they might just step in and take the defendants back to Custer County. The loudest suggested that maybe they shouldn’t wait until dawn, acting tonight and burning Hastings to the ground for the part they were playing in this farce of a trial. The sheriff had thirty-five men available to defend the town against this energized crowd.
Gaslin and Dilworth agreed with the sheriff’s concern and authorized him to wire the Governor, asking him to send in a full company of U.S. Army troops. The Governor was absent from his office, and the request was handled by the Adjutant, Captain Si Alexander, secretary of state, who promptly passed the request to General Crook, the commander in Fort Omaha. Crook dispatched the requested troops, some reports say 100, some 35, aboard the fastest train in the UP fleet.
If the number was the lower one, 35, the presence of their Gatling Gun, may have been a difference maker. When court was called to order the following day, Liberal Hall was surrounded by that phalanx of United States Army troops, the possibility of trouble minimized. Crook, who was concerned about his authority to intervene in a matter with no federal jurisdiction, wired the president, Rutherford B. Hayes, for approval and Hayes initially rejected the request, citing the lack jurisdiction. A second request from the Governor’s office to the President received a warmer response. Hayes approved a delayed withdrawal in case there was a need ‘to suppress domestic violence.’
Radical Winds ~ by Steve Buttress, posted by Chuck Peek