Bisbee daily review., 1907-11-27
ARIzONARANGERS BY A TEXAS
 WRITER
Of Splendid Arizona Organization That Has Sup pressed the Bad Man and Brought Order From Chaos.

SAN ANTONIO, Tex, Nov. 25.-The smugglers. stage robbers and cattle thieves who used to prosper along the Mexican frontier. are migrating to more congenial region9. They have found that business was becoming ss'1 NIssIls~I Vt'0. 'iIIlIE .tiSII number paid for rooberies and mRr- ders by going to prison or the gallows. They discovered that they had met more than their match in a body of tN enty-six men, known as the Arizona Rangers, who have been organized by the Territorial government ito clean up the country" who travel over the wide stretches of tableland on fleet horses, who have a mysterious way of scattering through the mountains and then meeting at suddenly at some rendezvous, who go armed to the teeth. and who, when they cannot cap ture their men alive, are usually able to stretch them in the dust at the first shot.
 A recent dispatch about these ran. gers came from Yuma, and read as follows:
 "In a fierce battle on the desert, sixty miles From Gila Bend, Sunday morning. F. S. Wheeler, ranger, sin glehanded, killed James Herrick and Bentley, two desperadoes. Both were former convicts and Herrick was a murderer They were wanted for horse stealing in Yuma county. Bent ley fought until shot the fourth time. Wheeler tied the bodies to a horse and brought them twenty miles for burial"
 Although an officer of the law, the Arizona ranger has a careless, cut l throat manner which is apt to make the 'tenderfoot" squeamish on meet ing him alone in the wilderness. His head is generally surmounted with a l sombrero. His neck is swathed in 3 l loosely tied bandanna. His corduroy suit is yellow with the dust of the plain. His blet is full oF cartridges, | and fl one cares to look close one may see the handles of six shooters. Strap ped beneath his saddle hangs a rifle.
 When the Arizona ranger first took up the task of cleaning up the coun- try five years ago he was ridieuled. The border country to the south was infested with desperadoes, who boast ed that they could rob and kill as they AAhGAs Audk tAACg ha4E" HO AdlN 5eAfC . their own will, and that there was none bold enough to interfere with them. They made the southern bor- der of Arizona their chief haunt, be- cause it offered them the best oppor- tunities to pursue their lawless calling There they could round up herd Of cattle and escape with the booty over the line. After that they could ride into town, kill a storekeepeT, blow up his safe and gallop away into Mex, ico.
 So bold became these brigands that by the spring of 1901 they had almost driven the smaller cattle owners out of business. At the same time snug glers had become so numerous as to defy the Government officials sent out to capture them. In the wilder mount ain districts bands of "moonshiners" manufacturer large quantities of whis ky. for which never a cent oT revenue was paid The internal revenue agents who dared approach these dis tilleries of the desert never returned.
 Conditions like these led the Legis- lature in 1901 to establish an organi zation which was to combine the du. ties of police and militia, and was to take upon itself the particular task of ending this lawlessness. Its four teen members were called rangers, be- cause of the wide sweep of country they were expected to cover.
 It was not long before the bandits lJ57T77Ii 1iIdt IiT5 vT . IIIi5taT75II in s G.!iEes tla;S tsas;;S 3GGss7 3GGsss7 fierce C ffii;- as a joke When Captain Thomas H. Rynning, a former Lieutenant of the Rough Riders in the Spanisd-Ameri- can War, was placed in command and the number of the rangers was in creased from fourteen to twenty-siX, the bad men ceased to deride the po- lice scouts and acquired a wholesome fear of them. They learned in more than one way that a ranger was not to be trifled with.
 Willis Wood, once a formidable des- i perado of the borderland learned what sort of a man a ranger is soon after he and his followers disappeared vita a hundred ponies belonging to the PapagO Indians.
 Wood was pursued by the command CT of the rangers, accompanied by few Indians. The chase began the evening after the discovery of the theft, lasted all night and the next day, until in the following evening the horses of the Indians gave out and Rynning was left to pursue the thieves alone As darkness gathered about him he found himself climbing down from the mountain toward sol itary light, which looked as if it shone from the wndow of some nut where a gang of cowboys had gather ed for the fall roundup. As he passed temporal corral his ear caugat the sound of horses neighing. The ran ger captain dropped his reins to the ground, leaFed lightly from his horse and crept up to the lone window Of the shack. h the dim interior he l could see a dozen cowpanchers gath cred around a table. At the far end sat Willis Wood. They were playing ''freeze-out," and the stakes were ponies.
 Willis, with derisive jeer, was just 1 in the act of showing four aces when there was a slight noise at the door. l Turning. he looked into the center Of
 six inches of cold steel. while Rynning l drawlcd, Its no go, Willis; guess can go you one better"
 With his natural stoiidness, the criminal Indian nas been slower than the white outlaw in learning the true character of the Arizona ranger. But he. too, has become wiser with ex- ] periencc.
 l The sequel of the encounter of Shorty" Holmes and an Indian cattle A A Al. T