As a general rule, the atmosphere was friendly at the Hildreth Hotel in the Madera County foothills, but on May 1, 1901, trouble was brewing in one corner. A handful of mountain men with blood in their eyes was hatching a revenge plot against a stoolpigeon who had caused them considerable trouble.
Oliver Chetwood was the ringleader of the bunch, which included Ben Parrent, Fred Noble, John McMann, John Benson, and George Muller. They were all respected cattlemen in the hills, but recently they had run afoul of the law over some lumber, all on account of their neighbor, William Sellers.
It seems that they had been helping themselves to some of the nearby government timber, and Sellers found out about it. Seeing it as his civic duty to report the pilfering, William reported them to George Borstadt, special agent for the General Land Office.