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The Ranger Force Era, 1901 – 1935 155 Introduction to Part II The Ranger Force Era 1901–1935 From time to time citing random facts can prove thought-provoking. Markedly, such is the case within the framework of Riding Lucifer’s Line. As noted in closing the preceding chapter, Ernest “Diamond Dick” St. Leon was the last nineteenth-century Texas Ranger killed in action. His passing did not, however, register as the last Texas Ranger to give up the ghost while serving with the Frontier Battalion. That history will belong to another Ranger. For this narrative it’s not unfitting to note that since the 1874 birthday of the Frontier Battalion , Company D, St. Leon’s unit, would mortally forfeit more Texas Rangers than any of the other companies. And it’s not out of place to mention that twice as many Rangers were killed along the border as within the state’s interior counties during that same turn of time. Notwithstanding that the 1800s were but now days left for historians to dissect, Texas Rangers were yet living in real time and still facing real tests. Armchair thinkers looking backwards have opportunity to capriciously draw imaginary timelines. For everyday Rangers posted in the borderlands crossing a line from one century to the other was, as a practical matter, meaningless. Riding Lucifer’s Line is but at the halfway point. The new century’s opening year would hasten bitter news for a Texas Ranger’s family and for the Frontier Battalion. A deathbed would receive both. In the first instance Texas Ranger T. L. Fuller was fatally bushwhacked while washing his face at a barber shop in Orange, Texas, on October 15, 1900. Fuller had been assassinated by Thomas Poole, the brother of Oscar Poole, a fellow the Texas Ranger had killed four days before Christmas the preceding year while the ruffian was trying to liberate a prisoner from his custody. The Poole brothers were sons of the Orange County judge, George F. Poole, who from previous 155 156 Introduction to Part II dealings already held dear a disdain for Texas Rangers. In fact, Captain Bill McDonald, Company B, Frontier Battalion, thought Judge Poole was unethically furnishing legal counsel to partisans during an ongoing feud. Although delving into the feud story makes for a fascinating read, for the purpose of moving this Introduction forward such will not be obligatory. Suffice to say there was no love lost between Judge Poole—along with his cronies—and the Texas Rangers . Thomas Poole was not unexpectedly put on trial for murdering Ranger Fuller at Orange and, also not surprisingly, the trial jury hastily rendered a verdict of not guilty. Feelings between Texas Rangers and the Poole faction in Orange chronically soured. And those acidic feelings had been fated not to sweeten: In the legal mind of Judge Poole most Texas Rangers did not have lawful authority to even make an arrest.1 Such an assertion was not brand-new. Near twenty years earlier the niggling little question had been broached, all because of a Texas Rangergunplay.AtaboutmidnightonMay16,1881,atColoradoCity, Mitchell County, Rangers Jeff Milton, Jim Sedberry—“a regular bear in a fight”—and rookie private J. B. Wells responded to a disturbance at the Nip and Tuck Saloon. There they confronted W. P. Patterson, full-time cowman and part owner in a local newspaper, the Colorado City Courant. By most accounts Patterson was a real decent fellow— when sober. But alas, he was a gritty, hard-bitten West Texan “who got drunk often, and stayed drunk long.”2 During the ensuing arrest attempt Patterson yanked out his Colt’s six-shooter, firing a shot at the Rangers who answered in kind. Patterson’s shot had missed; the Rangers’ had not. In fact, Private Wells put a hot round into Patterson while he was at least critically wounded—maybe already dead—but in any case sprawled horizontal in the dirt street. Patterson died but the uproar about his demise didn’t. Mitchell County folks were outraged !3 The trio of Rangers had to face the legal music, dancing into and out of courtrooms for quite an extended time. One legal question then, was the same one Judge Poole was bringing two decades later. Eventually the three Texas Rangers came free of being legally imprisoned or executed or lynched. However, rather than remedy any disputes arising about Texas Rangers’ legal authority—as is so typical for a bureaucracy—the tin of nuisance was just kicked down...

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