While homesteaders did begin to settle northern Wyoming in the 1890s, claiming land under the newly enacted Homestead Acts, there were no hordes of starving European immigrants, killing rich men's cattle to feed their families, as depicted in the film. Nate Champion, who is portrayed as a murderer and "enforcer" for the stockmen, was actually a popular small rancher in Johnson County, nicknamed "king of the rustlers" by the stockmen because he resisted their tactic of claiming all unbranded young cattle as their own.