Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-03-15
DAMS PRIVATE MARK
FOUND ON A MOSQUITO, IT SAVED
 HARDlN'S LIFE.

Neither Knife Nor Branding Iron Was Used on That Ranch, as the Owner Was
 a Pretty Fair Shot and Always Kept In
 Practice.
 .'Them was pretty good shots, said Che old sheep raiser when the boys had Finished telling about some glass ball shooting they had done at the gun club tournament, "bnt folks nowadays don't do no shootin like they did few years ago. There WAS Dan Hardin now, who run sheep ranch in west Texas in 1881: he could shoot .
 Pretty good shot, was he?" asked che boys to draw the old man out
 Well, h9 was good, fair shot for shem times and locality. A Colts 45 was Dan favorite. He run about 6, 1000 aheep and a good many cattle and horses. The ranchers all marked the ears of their stock, each man ill a diff ferent way, to distinguish their proper ty. Dams mark was a hole in the left ear and an underbit in the right, and he never allowed knife to be used on his ranch. He marked every animal himself with bis six shooter, and be never made a mistake. 1t was a sight to see him gallopin across the prairie on his mustang after bunch of lambs or a round up of spring calves, a-plaein his marks with his 45 and never yaryin sixteenth of an inch from where they he1onged. Dan marked more mavericks than anybody else in the country put together.
 From practicin so much Dan got to be first rate shot. He used to ride along in his pasture and put his mark on the coyotes and jack rabbits just to keep his hand in. It got so that nine Gmss out of ten when man killed a deer with his winchester he would find bole in its left and m underbit in it's right ear, and he'd always send Dan over quarter of venlson when he got 1t home. I seen Dan win a bet of $50 one day from tenderfoot. We was xtdin along the road and we seen the ground a-humpin ID where a mole was sbovin along out of sight under the earth. Dan made his proposition, the tenderfoot took him up and Dams old aB went off couple of times We dug che mole up, and there was the marks sn his ears right where they belonged After awhile don't think there was living thing on Dan ranch except his wife's that didn't have his mark in it's ears.
 ."This habit of Dams got him out ot a pretty bad serape one time. Aleng about 1882, when free range commenced gettin scarce, the fence cutters got to cuttin the wire fences aronnd the pas tures and give the sheep men lots of trouble. Dams had been cut half a dozen times, and he was mad. One day he node out without his gun and saw a low down rustler named Tompkins alioin his wires like fddlestrings with pair of nippers. Tompkins got on his horse and let out, and Dan rode back to ais ranch and got his gun. He struck cut on Tompkins' trail and overhauIed aim about sundown in the little town that was the county seat. Dan shot him quietly and was about to get cup of coffee and start back home when he was surprised by the sheriff's arrestin him. You see, that was about the time the law and order gang got to raisin Gain in the west and tryin to set Gowa on promiscuous shootin and personal liberty. They scared up a judge and a jury somewere and held a kind of court right away to try Dan. Tompkins had lot of friends in town, among the hoss thieves and free grassers, and they come in by the dozen and swore that Tompkins hadn't been out of town for a week, and that Dan's story about his outtin the fence didn't go Dan had no witnesses, and it began to look kind of funny for him. They had Tompkina laid out on table in tie courtroom.
 Directly Dan went over and looked pretty sharp q TompkiHs, and then he asked one of the deputies to go out to a little jewelry stora across the street and bring magnifying glass The deput5 went and got 1t, and Dan handed 1t to the judge and asked him to step down and look at something a minute There was mosquito with his bill fast in Iompkins' ear, and Dan asked Che judge to take good look at it with the glass The judge did so, and blest if that mos quito didn't have hole in it's left aad m onderbit in it's right ear, as shore as I'm sitting here. Everybody krew Dan's mark, and the cout was con. yinced that Tompkins must have heer prowlin round his ranch. It was what you would call good i~eutastantial e=l. denee, and ten minutes afterward Baa ~as oa his way home,
 There was little silence among the