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Show (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) Echo of a Forgotten 'War' APRIL 9 of this year marks the 50th anniversary of an event that was a high spot in the history of the West the battle which took place at the KC ranch on the Powder river in Wyoming on April 9, 1892. Perhaps "battle" is too pretentious a word, for it was only a frontier gun fight in which few men were involved. But in so far as it was a case of a man fighting to the death against odds of nearly 50 to 1, it had a certain Homeric quality which raised it above the level of such affairs. af-fairs. The man's name, appropriately enough, was Champion Nate Champion. Cham-pion. His enemies said he was a rustler and he undoubtedly was. So they killed him and, all unknowing, they also gave him a certain kind of immortality. For after his death he became a sort of Robin Hood hero, an almost legendary figure whose name and fame have been perpetuated in song and story. The living Nate Champion was not an important person. But Nate Champion, dying, became a kind of symbol and as such was more significant. sig-nificant. For the fight at the KC was the first battle in a "war" which "marked the dividing line between the Old West, under the rule of the cattle kings, and the New West of the pioneer homesteader." The story of this conflict has been told many times and it is related again in a book published recently by the Caxton Printers, Ltd., of Caldwell, Idaho "The Longest Rope The Truth About the Johnson County Cattle War," by D. F. Baber, as told by Bill Walker. The principal prin-cipal interest and value of this addition ad-dition to our store of Western iff re x- 'V' BILL WALKER Americana lies in the fact that the story is told by one of the few survivors sur-vivors of the "war" and possibly the only survivor of those present at the KC ranch fight The Johnson County war, also known as the "Powder River war," the "Rustler war" and "The Invasion," Inva-sion," was the result of the cattle-stealing cattle-stealing that was prevalent in Wyo-' ming in the late eighties and early nineties. The big cattle outfits, the principal victims, decided it must be stopped and, rightfully or wrongfully, wrong-fully, fixed upon their own method of doing it Accordingly, a group of these cattlemen, accompanied by hired gun men from Texas, set out early in April, 1892, to invade Johnson John-son county, which they regarded as the stronghold of the thieves, and to summarily execute certain men whom they looked upon as the leaders. lead-ers. Their first objective was the KC ranch house on the Powder, occupied occu-pied by Nate Champion, the "king of the rustlers," and his companion, Nick Rae. Bill Walker, "cowpoke'-and "cowpoke'-and trapper, and his partner, Ben Jones, had spent the night there and when they set out for an early start on a trapping expedition the next morning they were made prisoners by the "regulators" who had surrounded sur-rounded the ranch house. Thus it was that the co-author of "The Longest Rope" became an eye-witness of the historic fight that followed. He saw Nick Rae shot down as he came out of the door a little later. He saw Nate Cham- pion rush out, amid a hail of bullets; bul-lets; and drag his dying companion back into the cabin. He tells of Champion's rifle duel with his enemies, ene-mies, which lasted nearly all day, until they set fire to the cabin and forced him to flee. He "came out shooting" and died under their fire in a little gulch nearby. The leader of the "regulators" looked down at him "Give me fifty men like that and I could whip the whole state!" he said. After Nate Champion was killed, his assailants found on his body a little book in which he had written an account of his desperate last stand. A newspaper reporter, Sam T. Clover of the Chicago Herald, who had accompanied the "regulators," made a copy of this account which has been frequently reprinted under un-der the title of "The Diary of the Rustler King" and widely circulate ed. It has perpetuated the fame of Nate Champion as has a poem, "Our Hero's Grave," written by one of his friends and set to music soon after his death. |