About the time of Sidney's last lynching episode, that of McDonald'in 1881.' frightful orgies were common at a road house some dist iiiii' north of town, at one of the spring creeks leading down to the Platte river. One night, a dance and carouse was going full '•win- when a soldier accidentally shot himself dead. The others deposited the body in a corner of the room and ordered the music to proceed. After a time a fellow named Jack Page and another had a little altercation, Jack's adversary, dead, was placed into the corner villi the soldier, and the dance went wildly on.

Later in the night a third man was killed, and ibis broke up the dance. The lights were shol -in Daylight found some sleeping off

their drunken stupor and others gone. The three dead were taken to Boot Hill Graveyard.

Killing of Wild Bill

Forty hours after the killing of Wild Bill (W. J. Hickok) by John McCall, at Deadwood, which event occurred in a gambling joint, August 2, 1876, the news reached Sidney. It created a profound sensation that a thoroughly established king of gunmen should be taken off by a mere kid.

A hastily selected jury heard the boy's story that Wild Bill had killed his brother in Kansas the year before. He was found "not guilty," according to the code of the times, but was told to get out of the Black Hills. Before the event, Wild Bill had heard that a kid was looking for him, and he had said, "a kid looking for me, is the only kind I am afraid of : he may get me."