According to Reynold's story it started at the supper table over a difference of five dollars in wages, whether the amount due was seven dollars or twelve dollars. He said the Pinkstons attacked him with clubs and he used the axe in self defense.

His first story, however, told at Trognitz barn, which then occupied the present site of tht U. S. A. Theatre at Sidney, was that a stranger came along, and killed the Pinkstons in a fight, and had compelled him to help bury them. This story not being satisfactory to the officers, he was arrested, and later confessed.

Of the numerous hangings in Cheyennecounty, this was conspicuously the only legal execution within its borders.

An Imaginary Calf

It must not be understood that the recitation of these gruesome and sorrowful events indicates all the early history of Sidney and Cheyenne county were of such color. There were lively affairs that possessed only sufficient danger to quicken the pulses, and a modicum of humor to justify the hazard.

There were attempts by swindlers and crooks that sometimes went well, but generally ended in disaster.

There were "Happy Jacks," carefree as the western wind, always with ingenious methods evolved of necessity, when an unlucky chance stripped them of all they possessed. Never discouraged by adverse circumstances, for the darkness of the night meant to them the sun was soon to rise. "Whitie" was one of these genial souls.

"Whitie" had a run of luck that put him "down upon his uppers," and conceived a scheme for a moderate stake. He invented a calf and valued it at ten dollars. He told three companies he had such a calf, and if they would give him two and a half dollars each, he would sit in a game of "freezeout" to see who should own the calf.