Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1894-08-02
HE POSED AS A BAD NAN
Had Right to BE Lynched, Maybe, but
Not That Way.

nau Right to BE Lynched, Maybe, but
Not That Way.
There isn't any kind of doubt that One
Ear Dodge was an all round nuisance and
internal annoyance to the boys and mavhe
ha1 right 70 be lynched, but it doesp,i
seem to me that I'd have lynched him lust
the way they did, said Orrin Boyes of New
Mexico ut may be, too, that they didn't
intend to lyncL him. But, anyhow, hewss
lynched, and | said then, and | say now,
mat 1t wasn't done exactly regular.
Dodge wanted to pass as a bad man
the worst Kind of Il bad man--but he wasn't.
and that's what made him so unpopular.
lie couldn't originate anything bad at all.
lie could steal horse or run off cattle.
but he did it in the regular commonplace,
sneaking way that every dirty Indian thief
does 1t, and not by some stroke of genius
That would have marked him as chap
worth cultivating He could fill himself
with rum on the slightest provocatiou, but
'yen that never brought any spark of
amartness out of him.
lie was a secondhand bad man. He
was simply copyist. He carried this to
such an extent that he even tried that
hackneyed, played out, discarded bit of
cowboy playfulness that was once looked
upon as fixing at once the title of bad man
on the cheerful chap who tried 1.-THE fore
ing OF tenderfoot at the point of revolv-
er to drink liquor he didn't want. Dodge
made an effort at this trick one night at
Lordsburg. Instead of the tenderfoot trem-
blingIy swallowing the liquor he laid hands
on Bob. He took his revolver away from
him and then good naturedly whacked one
of the would be bad mans ears off close to
his head with his hunting knife.
After that Bob lost caste faster than
ever. He became known as One Ear Dodge,
ana he got lots OF hints that folks around
there only wanted one thing to make them
perfectly contented and happy, and that
, thing vas One Ear Dodge's perpetual alb
sence. But he wouldn't take hints and got
to be bigger nuisance than ever. There
was big cattle ranch Just over the line in
Old Mexico, and one day a lot of stray cat
| tie came strollmg in among us. Their
brands showed that they belonged on the
| Mexican ranch. One Ear Dodge had beer
unusually disagreeable for day or two
and was hanging around, ugly and broke
| When the boys saw whose cattle the strays
were, they said it would be a good thing tt
| get One Ear to drive them back to theil
owner. The matter was suggested to him
| esther anything in it,? snorted Dodge.
Big reward in it, of course was the re
ply.
1.-The upshot of it was that One Ear go
on his pony, rounded up the strays ant
started with them for their owners ranch
After he had been gone an hour or so on,
of the boys said, as if he had just happened
to think of it,
| Zone Ear will have to drive them cattl
onto and across that Mexican range befor
he gets to the ranch, won't hep
| "The reply was that he would.
| eff any of them Mexican ranchers shoul,
see him doing itt they might think it looke'
suspicious, mightn't theyP
Naturally they might, was the reply
But maybe they won't see him.
"That was all there was said ON the sui
ject just then. One Ear Dodge didn't com
back that day nor the next. Along towar
night the next day some of the boys cam
together again.
"'Well, said one of them, guess the
must "a seen One Ear.
"Lools that way was the quiet reply.
"Then the subject was dropped. Two O
three days later word came from over tn
border that some Mexican ranchers ha
captured and strung upa one cared cattl
thief, taken in the act
"'Yes, they seen One Ear said one c
the boys. 4 was afeerd maybe they would
"And l said then, and say now, tina
maybe One Ear had right to be lynched
but wouldn't have done it that way.
wasn't regular New York Sun.