Fred Shonquist, the first sheriff of Box Butte county, was a prince of good fellows, but occasionally he undertook to put the distillers out of business, by drinking everything in sight. At such times, instead of being a guardian of the law, he would shatter about all the statutes that had anything to do with good government. The Republicans renominated him, however, in 1890, but the Democrats had the good judgment to place in nomination Eugene A. Hall. Mall was elected and two times reelected, serving six years. During that time, he was successful in breaking up the cattle rustling that had been carried on before and in assisting in the arrest of the murderer of young Ross at the state line south of Kimball.

Two men named Holliday and Cochran had worked out a plan for rustling cattle over the state lines of Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota, bringing them to western Box Butte county, and so mutilating the brands that they had few points to identify them as the original marks. There was a local man in Hemingford and another just over the line in Sioux county. who in some way stood in with the rustlers, although they had never been implicated in the transactions, so far as known. In 1891, a bunch of cattle were brought in from Colorado, and when they came out of the Holliday-Cochran branding pens it was with different brands.

Jack Elliott, who was agent for the cattle association, located the cattle, and he and a banker named Sterling came up from Colorado to replevin them. Cochran and Holliday were both in Kimball, and the cattle were in charge of George Zimmerman, and two other nun. and were just over the line in Sioux county. It took a bit of maneuvering to get tin' cattle nver the line into Box Butte county, but it was accomplished in time, and then Sheriff Hall served the necessary writ, and Sterling and Elliott started for Hemingford with the cattle.