In the summer of 1855 the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory faced a series of quiet thefts that at first drew little alarm. Vegetables vanished from gardens at night. Livestock disappeared from pastures without tracks or broken fences. The thieves struck only when watchmen slept or turned away, never entering camps when guards stood alert. Settlers in the hills that would later form LeFlore County and nearby Anglo farmers in what is now Arkansas set traps and posted extra se