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255 “I was carefully guarded by Lieut. N. O. Reynolds, who commanded twenty-five well armed brave men; but I knew the power of the mob, the spirit that possessed them, and knew that my life hung on a tread.” John Wesley Hardin hile waiting the result of his appeal, Brown Bowen was placed in the Travis County jail with Hardin, sent there from Gonzales . Confined together in the Travis County jail they could not avoid each other. On January 29, 1878, Hardin wrote to Jane, pointing out that friend Bill Taylor’s conviction for killing Gabriel Webster Slaughter back in March of 1874 had been remanded; hence there was hope Taylor would be somehow acquitted of the deed, and be released from Galveston jail. Cousin Mannen Clements was to go to Gonzales for a bond hearing, and Hardin was confident he was “Sure to Get out Soon.” He encouraged her to keep her spirits up, reminding her that where “there is a will there is a way and that the darkest hours are Just before day [.]” Of course Brown joined him “in Sending Love to all [.]”1 Hardin and Bowen may have kept their spirits up while waiting. Occasionally Bowen would play his fiddle; one song he seemed to enjoy was “Drunkard’s Lamentation” and “Many other favorite tunes in His cell.” Bowen now had gained weight in jail, Wes pointed out in this letter, but also: “[T]hey found him guilty of murder in the 1st degree for killing tom Halderman [sic] he has stood tryal [sic] and is Here for Safe Keeping.”2 In the Travis County jail one never knew when new prisoners would be incarcerated. While Hardin endured his dreary existence in his cell, 256 Chapter 15—Huntsville and Punishment always contemplating escape, two members of the notorious Sam Bass gang were arrested by Texas Ranger Junius “June” Peak and men of Company B. The company of thirty men had accomplished good work in a relatively short time: mustered in on April 17, they already had two men cut off from Bass: Pipes and Herndon. These men were accused of participating with Bass in the robbery of the United States mails and sentenced to prison terms. Prior to sending them to Albany, New York, to serve their sentence, they spent some time in the Austin jail. A biographer of Bass obtained an account of a visit to the jail where they were. Passing through a hall walled in by solid masonry, the jailer unbolted a pair of heavy iron doors and he found himself in a large room filled with rows of iron cages. It was a hot day in July, and a July day in Austin is not to be described by any figure of speech which will not stand the test of white heat. The room was dark and not very well aired. The men were stripped to the waist and the perspiration was dripping from their bodies. The cages were of solid iron bars, the floor was sheeted with iron. There were no bedsteads in the cells, a blanket or quilt answered all sleeping purposes. From one to three occupants were in a cage. There were more than three-score prisoners in all. Among the sixty prisoners was “the notorious John Wesley Hardin” described as “pert and saucy as ever and advanced to the front of his cage for a chat.” “This is a very bad place to come to,” said he, “people better keep out of here. They say there is honor among thieves, but don’t you believe it. There’s not a word of truth in it. When they can’t steal from anybody else, they steal from one another. . . . They tell lots of lies about me. They say I killed six or seven men for snoring, but it isn’t true. I only killed one man for snoring.”3 On April 22, 1878, in his cell in the Travis County jail, Hardin picked up pen and paper and composed a letter, which appeared Chapter 15—Huntsville and Punishment 257 in Austin’s Weekly Gazette newspaper. He had had ample time to review the recent happenings and time to see how Ranger N. O. Reynolds differed from Ranger John R. Waller, although he certainly knew they both answered to the same commander, Major John B. Jones. Hardin observed that Reynolds, upon arriving in Comanche and having placed him in the local jail, went out “to see what the situation...

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