Cochran determined to make another raise, and turned his attention to northern Colorado. Near the state line, almost directly south of Kimball, lived an elderly couple named Ross, and their son, who had accumulated a nice bunch of cattle, and on these fell the covetous eyes of Cochran.

( )ne mi •ruing they were missing from their usual haunts, and Willie Ross, the young man, went out to look for them. He did not come back and neither horse, rider, or cattle could be found.

Again Jim Elliott was called to action. He found the trail, followed north across the Union Pacific railroad near Dix, and across

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

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Pumpkin creek at Indian Springs and Wright's Gap, then across the Platte and Snake. He found Cochran and the cattle in Coyote canyon. Cochran did not recognize him and when within a few feet he pulled his gun, and made Cochran put up his hands. While disarming and hand-cuffing him, Cochran was protesting his innocence, and asked him to look at "the paper," a bill-of-sale. He said he had bought the cattle of young Ross, who had told him that he was going away. As the horse and saddle were gone, the story looked plausible. Sheriff Hall participated in the proceedings attendant and following the arrest.

The parents of young Ross, when they heard this, stoutly declared that it could not be so, and that it was "not like Willie" to do a thing like that. An extensive search brought about the discovery that the body had been buried in a sand draw, and also the horse and saddle. Cochran, it appeared, had gone to a nearby house and borrowed a spade, and when he returned it there was no one at home. He had entered the house, secured some writing materials, and made several attempts at writing a bill-of-sale before he had succeeded in getting one in proper shape to suit him.