The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-11-22
THE MURDER BRAND.
Ahe Neason for the Strange Marking on
 Maverick Bull in Texas
From the Galveston Daily Nows.

"'9t'ASI court at Fort Stockton, in PeCps
 county the other day, in company with
 Judge Gillis, the writer observed on the
 roadside, about thirty miles from AL
 plhe' @ swayback, red bull of uncomely
 appearance and far isolated from other
 cattle. Being kind of a cowman and
 haVlng my running iron and string on
 my saddle and a few matches in my
 pocket, l concluded l would put my
 string on him. No sooner had I tied him
 down than l noticed a brand on him
 which startled and appalled, me, and
 mad 1t not been for the cool action of
 Judge Glllis l would have left him tied
 down and pursued my way rapidly.
 He was branded thus: Murder, Jan.
 Is, 1891, Upon reflection and ipvesti- gation I found this history connected
 with that bull:
 On January 1S 1891, there was a gen. eral roundup att Leoncita, twenty-five miles northeast of Alpine, at which
 were gathered the various stockmen of
 the country and their representatives.
 H. H. Powe was there and had cattle in the roundup, and Fine Gilliland was
 there representing the outfit of Dubois x Wentworth. This bull was there, only yearling then, and dispute arose between Powe and Gilliland as to
 the ownership of this particular year.
 ling, Powe claiming it for himself and Gilliland claiming it for Dubois & | Wentworth Powe cut it out of the | general roundup several times, and Gill1land cut it back, until both men became highly enraged. Powe went to horse and saddle. and got a six shooter, and when he returned cut the yearling out and Gilliland pursued it.
 Powe shot out toward the yearling, it is believed, to kill it. Gilliland stopped pursuing it and advanced toward Powe
 They both dismounted, and the firing began at each other. Gilliland turned his horse loose and rapidly advanced on Powe, firing all the time. Powe was a one-armed man and attempted to hold his horse, which was afraid of a gun, | and fire at Gilliland also He did so, | too, but without effect as he had a poor chance to shot and hold a scary horse with but one hand Gllliland fin aally advanced and grabbed Powe and shot him to death. This ended the first chapter. Gilliland got away The | roundup broke, but not before the cowboys branded the maverick. They put the above brand on it, and he has been a. maverick since, And, strange to say, it is a runt-a dogie. It is now in Ector county, in the pasture of E. A. Kelly and J. B. Irving, Kelly driving it out of the country.
 The rangers stationed here at that time and the county officers secured the country and watched the mountain passes, but without avail Fine Gill; land was in the mountains somewhere, l T. T. Clark and John Putnam, rangers, set out with pack horse, en route to Fort Stockton via the Glass Mountains, and incidentally looking for Gilliland. Neither Putnam nor Cook knew Gilli- land, but it was thought Gilliland knew Cook. When about on the summit of 1 Glass mountain, in a. marrow canon, l long way from any settlement, on Jan uary 91, 1891, these two officers, heavily armed, met a lone traveller. They were I passing each other-Putnam had al ready passed Gilliland, and as Gilliland passed Cook, he (Gilhland) drew his pistol and shot Cook. Then hot and | heavy fight ensued. Gilliland was
 killed after a desperate fight, his horse was killed, the pack horse and the | horse Cook was riding were killed and Cook severely wounded. A dog that was following the rangers, belonging to them, was also killed. And it is great wonder that any living thing in the fight came out alive.
 | Cook was brought to Alpine, and the doctors attempted to take the ball from his knee, but failed They used brace and bit. Cook was sent to the Santa | Rosa hospital, in San Antonio, and there fingered for months, and is to- day cripple living and working for the railroad company at Fl Paso, Tex. | Putnam is living in Presidio county, and is working at the Shafter silver | mines. H. H. Powe, who was killed, | was a man of impetuous temper, but an honest, upright citizen, and served | in the Confederate army, losing his arm in one of the great battles in Virginia. | Jeff Webb, an uncle of Fine Gilliland, | left Alpine on the night of July 2,18S9, to go to the ranch north of Alpine, talk | ing with him on the horse a pet bear, and the next morning he was found dead on the Fort Stockton road, with | a bullet hole through his body. It was a profound mystery as to his killing. Sam Taylor, who killed a passenger conductor a short while before at Val | entine, was the last man seen with | Webb the night that Webb left town | and Fine Gilliland was a pretty bad man himself, and on the night of Sep tember 20, 1890, while Taylor was play ing poker in the Buckhorn saloon with several others, he was shot in the breast with twenty-two buckshot, and a man watching the game, night operator here, was killed with one of the balls, and a Mexican shot in the | back. The slayor shot Taylor through 1 the window. Gilliland was suspected | of this murder. There were twenty | four buckshot supposed to have been in the gun, twenty-two striking Taylor and the other two doing bloody work. | The young operator was from NewYork state and was well connected there, but l his name the writer has forgotten. The | Mexican recovered.
 | It developed later that Taylor was in | nocent of the killing of Jeff Webb, as | Victor Ochoa, the, celebratd Mexican revolutionist, when captured at Fort Stockton in October, 1894, said that he and a comrade, who was a very bad I111D q JYaf,, 41o