The sheriff's posse finally reached the remaining Invaders holed up in a log barn at the TA Ranch, but the latter manage to hold them back, resulting in a siege that would last for three days. The posse surrounded the whole ranch, building pits on the ground for cover and killing the Invaders' horses to prevent them from escaping. The "New York Times" reported that twenty men tried to escape behind a fusillade, but the posse beat them back and killed three to five. Another Texas gunman named Alex Lowther accidentally shot himself mortally in the groin as he was crawling to safety from the barrage of bullets being fired by the settlers. As the siege dragged on, a settler rode off to Fort McKinney requesting to borrow a cannon but was turned down. A blacksmith named Rap Brown tried to build his own cannon, but it exploded when he first tested it. He then built a siege engine he called the "Ark of Safety"—a large, bullet-resistant wagon that would help the settlers get close to the ranch so they could throw dynamite at the Invaders.