Distinctly Montana Magazine

20 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R 2 0 2 3 to "try & arrange matters so that he will steal no more horses." He achieved this, at least, when his riders left McKenzie's corpse dangling from a tree in the heat of an Independence Day afternoon. Or Billy Downs, trapper, whiskey trader, and married man known to sometimes host rustlers on his ranch. Out of deference to his wife, Stu- art's posse did him the service of attempting to warn him away from his life of crime and to choose a peaceful life with his wife. In the end, it did no good, and Billy Downs (along with cohort California Eddie) was dragged to a small grove and hung while his wife, watching, begged them for mercy and, receiving none, screamed. Her husband and California Eddie were killed on July 7th, just three days after McKenzie. The cattleman's "Vigilance Committee," known even at the time by its more gruesome nickname, "Stuart's Stranglers," had their most violent brush with alleged rustlers a week later when they surrounded a woodyard owned by Old Man James and frequented by Stringer Jack. There were eleven presumed thieves on the property, including Old Man James and his two sons, a man named Bill Williams in a cabin, and six other men, including Stringer Jack, Orvil Edwards, Silas Nickerson, and Dixie Burr. Burr happened to be Granville Stuart's nephew, but Stuart resolved not to let that get in the way of justice. Early in the morning, Old Man James left the tent and found himself in the sights of three vigilantes. They ordered him to go to the corral and let the horses out. He complied but didn't surrender, instead retreating back into the cabin, where he had just enough time to tell his sons they were under attack. A volley erupted from the cabin's makeshift gun ports. The Battle of Bate's Point, as it would later be known, began. Both sides sought cover and exchanged fire. Two of the Stranglers, carry- ing torches, made it onto the roof of the cabin and set it afire. Black smoke curled into the sky while clouds of pistol and rifle smoke quickly erupted all over the scene. The tent, positioned in high brush and near the bank of the Musselshell, offered some chance of escape for those inside. A Strangler's bullet struck and shattered the arm of Stuart's nephew Dixie Burr as he crawled out of the tent, but Nickerson and Edwards managed to escape without a scratch. Burr crawled into a dried-up well, gritted his teeth, and tried to keep from producing any audible moans of pain long enough to escape under cover of night. The cabin, however, offered no means of escape. The flames rising and beginning to lick at the walls, the men inside continued firing at the vigi- lantes through port holes cut in the walls and door. It got hotter and hotter. Smoke got in their eyes. Before long, bullets would have been a mercy. As Stuart related in his autobiography, the alleged rustlers holed up in the house "kept up the fight until they were all killed or burned up." "The cabin," he would write, "burned to the ground." Stringer Jack, less lucky than some of his cohorts, escaped the tent but only got as far as a thick tussock of willows, where he fought them off as long as he could, which wasn't long. Of all the alleged rustlers at Old Man James's woodyard, only Paddy Rose would escape with his life. The Stranglers caught up to the rest within hours, hanging Nickerson, Edwards, and Swift Bill from a log suspended between two cabins before razing the cabins, thieves and all. The general public's reaction was split between apparent admiration and horror at the killing spree. Many law enforcement officers across the coun- try condemned Stuart's cavalier attitude toward due process, but just as many praised the same. THE GENERAL PUBLIC'S REACTION WAS SPLIT BETWEEN APPARENT ADMIRATION AND HORROR AT THE KILLING SPREE.

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