Stephenville vigilante leader Peter Garland was one of many firebrands to accuse the Brazos River reservation Indians (near Fort Belknap) as the culprits, to a frontier audience of recent , gullible immigrants to Texas. After the accusation Peter Garland gathered twenty Erath County residents for a mission to scout the Brazos River Reserve, as many vigilante gangs were doing, hoping to find Indians off the reservation. Garland’s gang was turned away at the reservation and on the return trip arrived at Golconda (later Palo Pinto) fifty miles north of Stephenville. There, Garland learned that a family of reservation Indians (Choctaw and Anadarko) were camped nearby at the invitation of rancher C.C. Slaughter, and with permission of Indian agent Shapely P. Ross. Their purpose was to hunt bear to render the fat into cooking oil. The people of Golconda explained that the campers were friendly and should be left alone, perhaps they mentioned that the family patriarch, Choctaw Tom, had been a scout for Sam Houston and that two of the young men were with Captain Van Dorn on his attack on Iron Shirt’s village the month before.  Garland and his eager Indian-hunters explained, deceptively, that they were starting back to Stephenville.