But Coffey's was just a county sheriff's operation - "no protective gear, no radios, no weapons to speak of other than 'squirrel rifles and a few pistols.'"

Few of the others carried firearms, and those who did held squirrel rifles.

The nesters threw blankets across browsing horses and mounted them bareback, grabbing squirrel rifles and pistols on the run.

Other than the lack of artillery, Moore's small force was much better armed with rifled muskets and bayonets versus shot guns and squirrel rifles.

He came hunting Sackett hide with an old squirrel rifle.

He said, 'Hey Hal, watch out for the guys with the squirrel rifles in the trees out there.'

A bowling ball or squirrel rifle would have been more in keeping with the image she had of him.

"Watch out for those squirrel rifles; that's all."

Potbellied men and gas-station jockeys toting shotguns and squirrel rifles?

Her eyes seemed to have crawled back inside her head, and at that moment she resembled some hard-bitten old frontier woman with a squirrel rifle in one hand and Scripture in the other.