There were now in the Montana fields many good men such as the Stuart Brothers, Samuel T.Hauser, Walter Dance, and others later well known in the State.

These men were prominent in the organization of the first miners' court, which had occasion to try--and promptly to hang--Stillman and Jernigan, two ruffians who had been in from the Salmon River mines only about four days when they thus met retribution for their early crimes.

An associate of theirs, Arnett, had been killed while resisting arrest.
The reputation of Florence for lawlessness and bloodshed was well known; and, as the outrages of the well-organized band of desperadoes operating in Idaho might be expected to begin at any time in Montana, a certain uneasiness existed among the newcomers from the States.
Two more parties, likewise bound for Idaho and likewise baffled by the Salmon River range, arrived at the Montana camps in the same summer.
Both these were from the Pike's Peak country in Colorado.

And in the autumn came a fifth--this one under military protection, Captain James L.Fisk commanding, and having in the party a number of settlers bound for Oregon as well as miners for Idaho.

This expedition arrived in the Prickly Pear Valley in Montana on September 21, 1862, having left St.
Paul on the 16th of June, traveling by steamboat and wagon-train.