It was in the early seventies, before J. S. Robb had gone back to Texas, that he was

with an outfit that had just turned loose a big Texas herd at Creighton's Horse Creek ranch. The boys were away, in pairs, looking after and getting the cattle acquainted with their new range, when one of the queer spells seized Billy Nurse, the cook. This one was, unfortunately, a drug eater before he went with the outfit.

At supper that night, the first boy down at mess picked up a biscuit and bit into it. There was a bitterness that he did not like and he failed to eat the part bitten off and threw the biscuit to a dog. The dog ate it, and in a moment of two was taken sick, and died very shortly afterwards. The whole pan of biscuits went into the fire, and the boys were chary about what they ate that night. The cook went about as normal, but perhaps a little more morose, but the boys all sensed that there was something wrong.

The next day at evening, Robb and a man

named Parks were returning, when a shot came out of the bushes, and the bullet whistled uncomfortably near. They rushed to the cover of brush but found no one. That night, while Parks was writing a letter in the old soddy, the cook shot him in the back, killing him instantly. Before he could get any further action with his six-shooter, the boys overpowered him. He was taken to Pine Bluffs, then to Cheyenne, and turned over to the authorities, and in due time was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for life.