On one occasion he went to Mr. Jackett's home and after a bitter quarrel, Mr. Jackett grabbed a revolver and ordered him off the place. Helms started to leave but unknown to Jackett he had left his shotgun leaning against the doorjam as he came in. Just as he stepped out he grabbed the shotgun and noticing that Jackett was off his guard, turned and shot his hand off and the revolver dropped to the floor without having been discharged.

One evening early in December, 1896, Helms went out to bring in his milk cows and just as he had driven them through a gate, closed it and got on his horse again, a fusilade of shots rang out from the top of a little hill not more than fifty yards distant, man and horse dropped dead, riddled with bullets and buckshot. The murderers were never apprehended. Empty rifle and shot gun shells were found on top of the little hill, but the tracks of the gunmen were obliterated by the drifting sand and the officers had to give up the chase.

Israel Kimbel tells an incident of his experience as emergency deputy under Sheriff Rube Lisco in 1892.

It seems that A. D. Remington of Day postoffice had a mortgage on a bunch of cattle belonging to Hi. Wilson who lived in the hills north of Island Lake. Wilson was unable to settle and Remington sent Constable Bill Plummer of Big Springs to take possession of the cattle under the mortgage. Mr. Plummer came back unsuccessful ; so Mr. Remington brought suit in replevin. Sheriff Lisco went to serve the writ ; but Mr. Wilson and his sons and sonin-law resisted so stoutly that the sheriff went back to Chapped and procured a warrant for their arrest. On his second trip accompanied by Bill Plummer and a boy from Chicago he pulled into a hunting camp on Island Lake just as a blizzard came down from the north.