James B. Gillett

“ The stage, drawn by two fast running little Spanish mules, passed down the valley and entered the canyon, a very box-like pass with high mountains on either side,—an ideal place for an Indian ambuscade. Walde had driven partly through this pass when, around a short bend in the road, he came suddenly upon old Victorio and his band of one hundred warriors. The Indian advance guard fired on the coach immediately, and at the first volley General Byrnes was fatally wounded, a large caliber bullet striking him in the breast and a second passing through his thigh. ”

“ I have not the power of language to describe Lieutenant Baylor's bravery, because he was as brave as it is possible for man to be. He thought everyone else should be the same. He did not see how a white man could be a coward, yet in a fierce battle fought with Apache Indians on October 5, 1879, I saw some of his rangers refuse to budge when called upon to charge up a mountainside and assault the redskins concealed above us in some rocks. George Harold, one of the attacking party, said, "Lieutenant, if we charge up that hill over open ground every one of us will be killed." ”

“ While Tim Williamson had met a horrible death at the hands of a relentless mob, that did not justify Cooley in killing people in a private war of vengeance in defiance of the law and the rangers.
As the climax of his speech the major said, "Men, I now have a proposition to make to you. If every man here who is in sympathy with Scott Cooley and his gang and who does not wish to pursue him to the bitter end will step out of ranks I will issue him an honorable discharge and let him quit the service clean." ”

“ In the summer of 1877, Lieutenant Armstrong of Captain Hall's company, assisted by Detective Jack Duncan of Dallas, Texas, captured the notorious John Wesley Hardin. It has been said that Texas, the largest state in the Union, has never produced a real world's champion at anything. Surely, such critics overlooked Hardin, the champion desperado of the world. His life is too well known in Texas for me to go into detail, but, according to his own story, which I have before me, he killed no fewer than twenty-seven men, the last being Charley Webb, deputy sheriff of Brown County, Texas. ”

“ SIX YEARS WITH THE TEXAS RANGERS
CHAPTER I
[Pg 11]
THE MAKING OF A RANGER
The greatest shaping force in human life is heredity, and from my father I inherited my love of the open frontier and its life of danger and excitement. This inheritance was further strengthened by environment and training, and finally led me to embrace the life of the Texas Ranger. My father, James S. Gillett, was himself a frontiersman, though born in the quieter, more settled east. At a very early age his parents emigrated from his birthplace in Kentucky and moved to Missouri. ”

“ Halting the men deployed to the right and left and then, kneeling, the rangers gave the astonished Indians a deliberate volley. At the second fusillade the Apaches broke and fled, the rangers charging the flying foe with a Texas yell.
Sergeant Carruthers executed his orders in gallant style. The Apaches on his side, alarmed and surprised by the fire of Captain Baylor's force, huddled together and three were killed within twenty yards of their camp fire. The redskins ran like deer and made no resistance, for it was each man for himself. ”

“ As I sit in an easy seat in the Pullman and look out over the country I always reflect on the past and wonder how many of its present inhabitants know what a wilderness and what a rendezvous it once was for all kinds of cutthroats, cattle thieves and murderers.
While the rangers were camped near El Paso during the fall of 1881 I met Captain Thatcher, then division superintendent of the Santa Fe Railroad. He told me, because of the stage and train robberies in New Mexico and Arizona, the railroad and the Wells-Fargo Express companies feared that their trains would be held up near El Paso. ”

“ From this day Marshal Stoudenmire had the roughs of El Paso eating out of his hand. There was no longer any necessity for the rangers to help him police the town and they were withdrawn. Stoudenmire's presence on the streets was a guarantee of order and good government. He was a good man for the class of people he had to deal with, yet he knew there were those in El Paso that were his bitter enemies and always on the alert for a chance to take his life. ”

“ He allowed his men to march carelessly. A scout of ten or fifteen men would sometimes be strung out a mile or more on the march. I suppose to one who had commanded a regiment during the Civil War a detachment of Texas Rangers looked small and insignificant, so he let his men have pretty much their own way. To a man like myself, who had been schooled under such captains as Major Jones, Captain Coldwell, Captain Roberts, and Lieutenant Reynolds, commanders who were always careful of the disposition and conduct of their men, this method of Baylor's seemed suicidal. ”

“ Lieutenant Baylor was as tender hearted as a little child and would listen to any tale of woe. He frequently took men into the service, stood good for their equipment and often had to pay the bill out of his own pocket. All men looked alike to him and he would enlist anyone when there was a vacancy in the company. The result was that some of the worst San Simone Valley rustlers got into [Pg 202] the command and gave us no end of trouble, nearly causing one or two killings in our camp.
Baylor cared nothing for discipline in the company. ”

“ No pace is too quick, no task too difficult or too hazardous for him. Night and day will the ranger trail his prey, through rain and shine, until the criminal is located and put behind the bars where he will not again molest or disturb peaceful citizens. For bravery and endurance and steadfast adherence to duty at all times the ranger is in a class all to himself. Such was the old ranger, and such is the ranger of today. ”

“ One morning Sergeant Hawkins ordered me to travel south from camp to the head draws of the South Llano and watch for pony tracks.
"Suppose the Indians get me?" I asked laughingly as I mounted my pony.
"It's your business to keep a sharp lookout and not let them catch you," he replied. ”

“ Today it is all fenced and thousands of as fine cattle, sheep and goats as can be found in any country roam those hills. The Old Spanish Trail traverses most of this section, and in traveling over it today one will meet hundreds of people in high powered automobiles where forty years ago it was dangerous for a small party of well armed men to journey. While ascending Devil's River I learned that Lieutenant Baylor was not only a good hunter, but a first class fisherman as well, for he kept the entire camp well supplied with fine bass and perch, some of the latter being as large as saucers. ”

“ It is a strange fact, but one beyond question, that no wild animal or bird of prey will touch the body of a Mexican. These corpses had lain on the ground nearly two weeks and were untouched. If they had been the bodies of Indians, negroes or Americans the coyotes, buzzards and crows would have attacked them the first day and night.
Nothing of interest occurred on our return trip. The rangers, as usual, always ate up their three days' rations the first camp they made and got out of bread, but our Mexican allies divided with us. ”

“ Whenever they saw a wagon or a man on horseback approaching along the road they would shy around the stranger, and the harder the driver held them the faster they ran.
On our way out our teams were pretty well fagged out, and often Lieutenant Baylor would camp within a few yards of the road. The Spanish stage mules would see our camp and go around us on the run while their drivers would curse and call us all the vile names they could lay their tongues to for camping in the road. ”

“ When we had all signed this oath we were pronounced Texas Rangers. This was probably the happiest day of my life, for I had realized one of my greatest ambitions and was now a member of the most famous and efficient body of mounted police in the world.
Immediately upon being sworn in the men were divided into messes, ten men to the mess, and issued ten days' rations by the orderly sergeant. These rations consisted of flour, bacon, coffee, sugar, beans, rice, pepper, salt and soda. No potatoes, syrup or lard was furnished, and each man had to supply his own cooking utensils. ”

“ While he was being disarmed his elder brother, Dick, rode out of the brush and came within gun shot of the ranch before he discovered the presence of the rangers. He turned his horse quickly and made his escape, though the rangers pursued him some distance. When Dick learned that the Banister boys and myself were with Lieutenant Reynolds' company and hot on his trail he declared he would whip us with a quirt as a man would a dog if he ever came upon us, for he remembered us as beardless boys with the Joe Franks' cow outfit. ”

“ Texas was no [Pg 35] longer endangered by Indians, for the rangers had done much to convert the red devils into good Indians,—that is, into dead ones. Although the Indians had utterly disappeared from the state, the activities of the rangers did not cease. The white "bad man" who had stirred up the first Indian troubles now began to plunder and murder his own race and indulge in every form of lawlessness. From hunting the murderous redskins the rangers became now stalkers of the man-killers and those who despoiled their neighbors of their property. ”

“ It is indeed too bad that the world knows so little about those marvelous men. There have been hosts of men among the Texas Rangers who were just as nervy as Davy Crockett, Travis, or Bowie at the Alamo. ”

“ MAJOR JONES AND HIS ESCORT
Despite their usefulness in protecting the frontiers and in maintaining law and order, the Texas Rangers have always had to fight more or less strenuously to obtain the necessary appropriation for their annual maintenance from the State Legislature. Whenever the appropriation is small there is but one remedy,—reduce the personnel of each company to the lowest limits possible. In the fall of 1875 the Adjutant-General notified the captains all along the line to reduce their companies to twenty men each for the winter at the end of the current quarter. ”

“ For arms, the ranger after 1877 carried a Winchester rifle or carbine, a Colt's .45 revolver, and a Bowie knife. Two cartridge belts, one for Winchester and one for revolver ammunition, completed his equipment, and so armed he was ready to mount and ride.
"We live in the saddle and the sky is our roof," say the old rangers, and this is literally true. The rangers are perfect centaurs and almost live in the saddle. They take horse where they will and may arrest or search in any part of the state. There is very little of what a West Point graduate would call drill. ”

“ Captain Baylor at once ordered me to take seven men and five days' rations and scout up the Rio Grande to the line of New Mexico for the bandits' trail, and, if I found it, to follow it up. I worked up the river but found no trail. Neither could I learn anything about any strange men driving stock through the country. My time was nearly up and I concluded to return to camp through a gap in the Franklin Mountains, some thirty or forty miles north of El Paso. We left the Rio Grande late in the evening, passed out through the gap and made a dry camp on the plains east of the mountains. ”

“ General Jones hurried to Dallas and Denton to look over the situation and, strange to say, he arranged to organize a company of rangers at Dallas. Captain June Peak, a very able officer, was given the command. No matter how brave a company of recruits, it takes time and training to get results from them, and when this raw company was thrown into the field against Bass and his gang the bandit leader played with it as a child plays with toys. Counting the thirty rangers and the different sheriffs' parties, there were probably one hundred men in pursuit of the Bass gang. ”

“ Another warrior was knocked down and lay as though dead for some time, but finally regained his feet and made two-forty time over the hills with a running accompaniment of Springfield and Winchester balls. One brave stood his ground manfully, principally because he got the gable end of his head shot off early in the action.
Of course the women were the principal sufferers. As it was a bitterly cold, windy morning and all ran off with blankets about them few of the rangers could tell braves from squaws, and in the confusion of battle two women were killed and one mortally wounded. ”