In Walter Van Tilburg Clark's novel The Ox-Bow Incident, an exited youth passes on a rumor that popular rancher has been murdered and his cattle stolen. Eventually an angry mob of townspeople decided they can't wait for the sheriff for fear that the desperadoes will get away, so they form a makeshift posse. Riding long and hard, they discover three strangers and a herd of steers near an oxbow in the river. The strangers claim that they had paid for their cattle that morning and don't know anything about a murder. Despite their repeated pleas of innocence, the mob casts a guilty, except for five who vote they be turned over the courts. The strangers are summarily hung.

Them as the vigilantes return to town, they meet the sheriff and the rancher whom they believed had been killed. It turns out the strangers had been telling the truth all along and the men they had just murdered had nothing to do with the rustling.