The Allemand-Emge party consisted of five men, including Allemand and Emge, two sheep wagons, several
sheep dogs, and between 2,500 and 12,000 head of sheep, depending on varying sources. The other three men were hired hands named Jules Lazier, Allemand's nephew, Pierre Cafferal and Charles "Bounce" Helmer. The herd was divided into two groups, one on each side of Spring Creek, with a wagon and at least one dog attached to each one. For the first thirty miles or so the journey was uneventful, but, on April 2, the party met up with a pair of friends, who lived nearby, and stopped to have dinner with them. Allemand also telephoned his wife sometime during the drive, to tell her that he would be home soon. According to one source, some of Emge's enemies were listening in on the phone call and were able to plan an attack based on the information. When dinner was over it was already dark, so the party decided to camp for the night and continue on in the morning. The location of the camp was about a half day's ride from the deadline and safety, but also near the Keyes Ranch, where the raiders had assembled. The raiders, who were later identified as George Saban, Herbert Brink, Albert Keyes, Charles Farris, Ed Eaton, Tommy Dixon, and Milton Alexander, rode out from the ranch sometime that night and found the sheepherders' camp soon after. At least half of the group were wealthy cattlemen. George Saban, the leader of the group, was the owner of the Bay State Cattle Company, one of the largest in Wyoming, and already known to the public for having led the
lynch mob that raided the Big Horn County jail in 1903, where two prisoners and a deputy sheriff were killed. There were two other cattlemen in the area as well, Porter Lamb and Fred Greet, who were camping in a tent within 400 yards of the Allemand-Emge camp, on land that was part of the Lamb Ranch. According to Morris: "[Lamb and Greet] were awakened by staccato cracks of automatic rifles and the glimmering starlight made indistinctly visible moving shadows stepping swiftly about in the haze, punctured with spitting flame flashes when the weapons spoke. Ultimately the firing ceased, then followed the flare of burning sheep wagons. A chorus of galloping hoofs- then silence." Lamb and Greet were the ones who first discovered the remains of the sheepherders on the following morning. Morris wrote: "When dawn came Lamb and Greet stood aghast at the vendetta vengeance that had been taken. In front of the wagon ruins Allemand lay face upward with bullet holes in his neck and side, to show where deadly soft-nosed missiles took his life. In the charred still-smoking embers were two baked bodies, subsequently identified as Emge, the daring, and Jules Lazier, a herder. 'Bounce' Helmer and Pierre Cafferal, two herders in the wagon on the other side of the creek, escaped through the leniency of the raiders and it is believed their lives were spared because Helmer's father is of the cattlemen and a leader among them." Although some accounts vary, it is generally believed that the group of raiders snuck up to the Allemand-Emge camp, split in two, and then began shooting at the flocks or advancing on the wagons. After that they called on the herders to surrender, but when Allemand came out he was shot down in cold blood. The raiders then fired into the wagons and it was during this time that Emge and Lazier were killed while Cafferal and Helmer were captured and tied up with rope. However, the latter two men were either freed by the raiders later on, as Morris claims, or they were able to untangle the ropes and free themselves, as another source says. Cafferal and Helmer went straight from the camp to alert the police, who organized a
posse, which arrived at the crime scene on the next day. Overall, Allemand, Emge, and Lazier were killed along with two of their dogs and twenty-five sheep. The rest of the herd was scattered and both wagons were burned. Cafferal and Helmer had suspicions about who had attacked their camp, but all of the raiders wore masks and therefore could not be positively identified by the survivors' testimony alone. ==Aftermath==