Semi=weekly graphic., 1898-06-18
DAMS PRIVATE MARK
FOUND ON 4 MOSQUITO, IT SAVED
 HARDlN'S LIFE.

"elther kt.ife Nor Branding Iron wax
 Used on That Ranch, as the Owner Wa,
 Pretty Fair shot and Always Kept In
 Practice.
 Them was pretty good shots. 5 said the old sheep raiser when the boys had finished telling about some glass ball shooting they lad done at the gun clnb tournament, "but folks nowadays don't do no shootin like they did few wears ago. There was Dan Hardin now, who run a sheep ranch in west Texas in 1881. he could shoot. 7
 Pretty good shot, was hep asked Che boys, 10 draw the old man out
 We'll, he was a good, fair shot for them times and locality. A Colts 45 was Dams favorite. He run about 6 GOO Aheep aud good many cattle and horses. The ranchers all marked tha ears of their stock. each man in diff ferent way, to distinguish their proper, ty Dams mark was hole in the left ear and all underbit in the right. and he never allow ed knife to be used on bis ranch. He marked every animal himself with his six shooter. and ho never made mistake. It WAS a sight 20 see him gallopin across the prairie 0n his mustang after a bunch of lambs ar ronnd up of spring calves, a-placin hIs marks with his 45 and never varviu sixteenth of an zleh from where they belonged. Dan marked more mavericks shan al ybody else in the country put togeth ?.
 'Flan practicin so much Dan got to be first rate shot. He used to ride Hloh@ Il his pasture and put his mark on the coyotes and jack rabbits just to keep his hand in. It get so that nine times out of ten when a man killed 1eer with his winchester he would find hole in it's left and on underbit in it's klght ear, and he'd always send Dan over quarter of ventson when be got it home. l seen Dan win a bet of $50 one day from a tenderfoot We was sidin along the road and we seen the ground a-humpin up where a mole was shoyin along out of sight under the earth. Dan made his proposition, tho tenderfoot took him up, and Dams old s5 went off couple of times. We dug the mole up, and there was the marks in his ears right where they belonged. l After awhile don't think there was d l living thing on Dams ranch except his wife's that didn't have his mark ill it's ears
 This habit of Dams got hia out oS pretty bad scrape one time Along ] about 1882, when free range commenced | gettin scarce, the fence cutters got to | cuttin the wire fences aronnd the pas lures and give the sheep men lots of 1 trouble. Dams had been cut half dozen times, and he was mad. One day be rode out without his gun and saw a low down rustler named Tompkins shcin his wires like fddlestrings with i pair of nippers. TompkiAs got on bis horse and let out, and Dan rode back to | ais ranch and got his gun. He struck 1 cut on Tompkins' trail and overhauIed | Eim 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 hs was surprised by the sherif'S arrestin him. You see. tbat was about tue time tho law and order gang got to raisin 1
 
 on promiseuous shootin and personal liberty, They scared up judge and jury somewere and held kind of court right away to try Dan. Tompkins had 8 lot of friends in town, among the hoss thieves anu free grassers, and they cone ill by the dozon and swore that Tontpkins hadn't been out of town for a week, and that DaD's story about his cuttin the fence didn't go. Dan had no witnesses, and it began to look kind of funny fer him. They had Tompkina laid out on q table in the courtroom.
 Directly Dan went over and looked pretty sharp at Tonpkins, and then lie asked one of the deputies to go out to . little jewelry store across the street and bring a magnifying glass. The deputy went and got it, and Dan handed 1t te the judge and asked him to step down and look at something a minute. Thero was a mosquito with his bill fast in Tompkins' ear, and Dan asked the judge to take q good look at it with the glass The judge did so, and blest if that mos quito didn have a hole in its left and an underbit in it's right ear, as shore as I'm sitting here. Everybody knew Dan's mark, and the co1rt was con. vinced that Tompkins must have been prowlin round his ranch It was what you would call good i~cul1stantial evl- dence, and ten minutes afterwaTd Dan was on his way home. "
 There was little silence among ths soys, and then the one who had broker 45 glass balls out of a possible 50 sug- gested that some lemonade be hanGad around at his expense. - Washington Star.