Chapter X: A Winter of Quiet and a Transfer

In the fall of 1878 a man named Dowdy moved from South Texas and settled on the headwaters of the Johnson Fork of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County. His family consisted of himself, wife, three grown daughters, a grown son, and a young son twelve or fourteen years old. Mr. Dowdy owned two or three thousand sheep and was grazing them on some fine upland pasture just above his home. He contracted for his winter supply of corn, and when the first load of grain arrived at the ranch the three girls walked out half a mile to where the sheep were grazing to stay with their younger brother while the elder returned to the ranch to measure and receive the corn. When young Mr. Dowdy returned to the sheep an hour later he was horrified to find that his three sisters and his little brother had been massacred by a band of roving Indians. From the signs on a high bluff nearby the sheep and their herders had been under observation by the redskins for some time and, seeing the only man leave, the Indians descended upon the defenseless girls and boy and killed them. As there was no ranger company within one hundred miles of Kerr County at the time, a party of frontiersmen quickly gathered and followed the murderers, but after pursuing them for nearly two hundred miles the posse lost the trail in the rough Devil's River country.

Kerr County then called for rangers, and General Jones ordered Lieutenant Reynolds to proceed to that county and go into camp for the winter at the Dowdy ranch. This descent upon the Dowdy family was the last raid ever made by Indians in Kerr County, and was perhaps the most heart-rending. We herded our horses that winter on the very ground where the unfortunate young Misses Dowdy and their brother were killed. At the time they were murdered the ground was soft and muddy from a recent rain, so one could see for months afterward where the poor girls had run on foot while the Indians charged on horseback. I remember one of the young ladies ran nearly four hundred yards before she was overtaken and shot full of arrows by a heartless redskin. These murderers were probably Kickapoos and Lipans that lived in the Santa Rosa Mountains, Old Mexico, and frequently raided Southwest Texas, stole hundreds of horses and killed many people. While guarding their horses on the ground where the Dowdy family was killed the ranger boys built a rock monument eight or ten feet high to mark the spot where the victims fell.

Lieutenant Reynolds kept scouting parties in the field at intervals throughout the winter but, like lightning, Indians never strike twice in the same place. The winter of 1878-79 was the quietest one I ever spent as a ranger. Kerr County was pretty well cleaned of outlaws and we made fewer arrests that season than ever before.

The rangers encountered but one real bad man in Kerr County. His name was Eli Wixon, and he was wanted for murder in East Texas. It was known that Wixon would be at the polls of the county precincts to vote on election day, November, 1878, so Lieutenant Reynolds sent Corporal Warren and Privates Will Banister and Abe Anglin to arrest Wixon. Corporal Warren found his man at the polls and lost no time in telling Wixon what he was there for, and ordered him to unbuckle his belt and drop his pistol. Wixon hesitated and finally called on his friends to protect him from the rangers.

The crowd came to his relief, and for a time it looked as if there would be trouble. Wixon abused the rangers, called them a set of dirty dogs, and dared them to shoot him. Corporal Warren was brave and resolute. He told Wixon his abuse did not amount to anything; that the rangers were there to arrest him and were going to do it. The corporal warned the citizens to be careful how they broke the law and if they started anything he declared Wixon would be the first man killed.

Then, while Banister and Anglin held the crowd back with their drawn Winchesters, Warren disarmed Wixon, grasped his bridle reins and led him away without further trouble. Lieutenant Reynolds took no chances with that sort of man, and as soon as Wixon was in camp he was promptly handcuffed and shackled. This usually took the slack out of all so-called bad men and it worked like a charm with our new prisoner.

As the winter wore on Lieutenant Reynolds, with but little to do, became restless. He once said of himself that he never had the patience to sit down in camp and wait for a band of Indians to raid the county so he might get a race. Action was what he wanted all the time, and he chaffed like a chained bear when compelled to sit idly in camp.

When the Legislature met early in 1879 it was known that it would be difficult to get an appropriation for frontier defense. From time immemorial there has been an element from East Texas in the Legislature that has fought the ranger appropriation, and in this instance that element fought the ranger bill harder than ever. The fund appropriated for frontier defense two years before was now running short and in order to make it hold out until it could be ascertained what the Legislature would do it became necessary for General Jones to order the various captains to discharge three men out of each company. In a week a similar order was promulgated, and this was kept up until the battalion was reduced to almost one-half its former strength. Lieutenant Reynolds was compelled to sit idly by and see his fine experienced rangers dwindle away before his eyes, and what he said about those short-sighted lawmakers would not look nice in print.

In March, 1879, Captain Pat Dolan, commander of Company "F," then stationed on the Nueces River, seventy-five miles southwest of Reynolds' company, wrote to Lieutenant Reynolds that a big band of horse and cattle thieves were reported operating in the vicinity of the head of Devil's River and along the Nueces. He wished to take a month's scout out in that country, but since the ranger companies had been so reduced he did not feel strong enough to operate against them alone and leave a reserve in his own camp. He, therefore, asked Lieutenant Reynolds to send a detachment to cooperate with him. I was then second sergeant, and with five men I was ordered to report to Captain Dolan for a three weeks' scout on Devil's River and the Pecos. I reported to the commander of Company "F" and we scouted up the Nueces River, then turned west to Beaver Lake on the head of Devil's River. From the lake we went over on Johnson's Run and covered the country thoroughly but without finding the reported outlaws.

One morning after starting out on our day's scout Captain Dolan halted the command and, taking with him Private Robb, went in search of water. A heavy fog came up after he left us and hung over the country the greater part of the day. The captain did not return to us, and Sergeant G.K. Chinn ordered his men to fire their guns to give the lost ones our position. We remained in the vicinity until night and then returned to Howard's Well, a watering place on Johnson's Run. The following morning we scouted out to the point from which the captain had left us the day before. It was now clear, the sun shining brightly, but the lost men could not be found. Dolan was an experienced frontiersman, and we concluded that, after finding himself lost in the fog, he would return to his headquarters on the Nueces, one hundred and twenty-five miles away. Sergeant Chinn, therefore, headed the command for this camp, and when we reached it we found Captain Dolan and Private Robb had preceded us. They had traveled through a bad Indian country with nothing to eat but what venison they had killed.

From Dolan's Company I marched my detail back to Company "E" by easy stages and reached our camp at Dowdy's ranch the last week in March with our horses ridden down. We had covered something like five hundred miles without accomplishing anything.

As soon as I arrived I walked up to the lieutenant's tent to make my report. I was met by First Sergeant C.L. Nevill, who told me that Lieutenant Reynolds had resigned and left the company. At first I thought the sergeant was only joking, but when I was convinced that the lieutenant had really gone I was shocked beyond measure. The blow was too strong and sudden for me, and I am not ashamed now at sixty-five years of age to admit that I slipped out of camp, sat down on the bank of the Guadalupe River and cried like a baby. It seemed as if my best friend on earth had gone forever. Reynolds had had me transferred from Coldwell's company to his own when I was just a stripling of a boy. As soon as I was old enough to be trusted with a scout of men and the vacancies occurred I was made second corporal, first corporal and then second sergeant. I was given the best men in the company and sent against the most noted outlaws and hardened criminals in the State of Texas. Lieutenant Reynolds gave me every chance in the world to make a name for myself, and now he was gone. I felt the loss keenly. I feel sure the records now on file in Austin will bear me out when I say Reynolds was the greatest captain of his time,--and perhaps of all time. The State of Texas lost a matchless officer when "Mage" Reynolds retired to private life. After leaving the ranger service he made Lampasas his home and served that county as its sheriff for several terms.

The Legislature finally made a small appropriation for frontier defense. Sergeant Nevill was ordered to report at Austin with Company "E" for the reorganization of the command. Reynolds' resignation practically broke up the company, and though Sergeant Nevill was made Lieutenant of Company "E" and afterward raised to a captaincy and left behind him an enviable record, yet he was not a "Mage" Reynolds by a long shot.

On reaching Austin, R.C. Ware and the Banister boys secured their transfers to Captain Marshes' Company "B," while the Carter boys, Ben and Dock, C.R. Connor, and Bill Derrick resigned the service and retired to private life. Abe Anglin became a policeman at Austin, Texas. Henry Maltimore and myself, at our requests, were transferred to Lieutenant Baylor's Company "C" for duty in El Paso County. With my transfer to this command the winter of inaction was over, and I was soon to see some exciting times along the upper Rio Grande.