The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1907-02-08
From the Kansas City Star:

| charge hell with a bucket of water"
That's the way Major Blocksom Of the
! United States army described William
]. Mcdonald, captain Of the Texas
Rangers. That's what Senator Culber-
son reiterated on the floor of the Unit
ed States senate. That's what every
body in Texas has known these 20
years. And half Of Texas would go
broke on the proposition that If Nc
Donald started hellward he would come
back with the devil handcuffed and
| tied across the pommel of his saddle.
For nearly a quarter Of century
Mcdonald has been in the Ranger SER
vice. Most Of the time he has been on
| the plains. He knows the great en-
pire between the Cimarron and the Rio
Grande and the Sabine and Pecos like
demonstrating man knows his front
hall. Drop him out of a balloon in the
| darkest might anywhere in Texas and
he will tell you the number of the par
ticular quarter section where he
alights. For he knows the woods Of
East Texas. too,
The service required of this soldier of
peace is as various as it Is arduous. Is
it riot in a lumber camp? Mcdonald
and his men are hurried thence. Is 1t
chase for horsethieves or a band Of
lynchers? Mcdonald and his men are
on the scene. TITS special train for
Atkins" then. Is 1t a patrol Of range
fences-the loneliest job on earth-Mc-
Donald is in 1t. Wherever and when
ever the civil authority is paralyzed,
when anarchy usurps the orderly pro-
cedure of government, the Rangers
have the job of subduing the lawbreak-
ing and restoring order. It is to the
credit Of the Rangers, force which
has so many white marks to its credit,
| that 1t has never failed.
Throughout the state, among all
classes of lawbreakers, there is a SUI
perstitious dread Of Mcdonald. He and
his band Of 20 men move with the GER
| tainty Of a trip hammer and the celer-
ity of the wind. Here today, yonder
tomorrow and the next day some other
place. Naturally there are stories
some wholly true, some half-true, some
wholly imaginative. Some men will
| tell you there is no such person. 9th
| ers who have felt the reach Of the arm
say there are two or three Of him, and
the utterly ignorant say he Is but an
| ordinary mortal after all, and would
not amount to much without the 20
brave boys behind him. Still, if you
are so inclined. you can dig into the
official records of the adjutant gen.
erals office at Austin and find 20 in
stances Of reckless bravery where the
presence Of the 20 was a mere Incl
dent.
Does Not Pose As Hero.
If you were looking for heroes, Nc
Donald is about the last man you
| would pick out. He looks remarkably
like you" Just an ordinary man of
| six feet, slender stature, with breeches
which bag at the knees, a coat not any
| too new, and brown SLOUGH hat. No
| q In
or trappings Of romance. But there is
a big fighting nose and steel gray
| eye which seems to look at you and
through you at something beyond. And
| a bashfulness which makes him stu
diously avoid assemblages where he
| Is likely to fail on strangers or to meet
! women. He never obtrudes unless he
has warrant, and in that event there
| is no place on earth where he would
not go. He is a spendthrift in valor
and possessed Of a wonderful miserli-
ness of speech. But the West Is not
given to speech. The silence of the
great reaches Of sage and sand are not
conducive to garrulity. So this over
grown child of the plains is Of few
words Yet not uncompanionable.
| When the days work is over he can sit
by campfire and tell wonderful sto-
ries if you are adroit enough to draw
| OuI-SlOTlGS Ol adventure WHICH
| have never been told before, with the
personal equation always minimized.
And in spite Of the fact that his
bravery has been recently so widely
advertised, Mcdonald will tell you that
| there have been times when he was
positively terror-stricken, when his
knees knocked together and his breath
| came short. All because a tourist
aimed a camera at him. He despises
cameras. Likewise he detests inter-
views and interviewers who are too in
sistent. He says the first time he ever
got into a full dress suit, to attend
some Shrine blowout he felt like hug
ging a lamp-post and yelling for a po-
| liceman.
The matter Of restoring order at
| Brownsville was a mere incident. 1t
was easier than many of the jobs which
heretofore have fallen to the lot of the
Rangers. Seven years ago a farmer
and his four boys were lynched near
They were suspected of stealing hogs
from their neighbors. So the neigh
bors took them out and strung them
up. Local sympathy was with the
| lynchers. The county officials could
| not or would not arrest the offenders.
| Mcdonald and "Bill' Odds, his diminu-
tive lieutenant. were sent to investi-
| gate and report. one night about 10
o'clock we were all sitting around the
porch Of the hotel talking and smok-
| ing. A man came up and whispered
| to Mcdonald. Come on, Bill" said
the Ranger captain to Olds; I'VE are
| going out among them tonight" So
the TWO Of them disappeared in the
night. Along about o'clock in the
| morning everybody in the hotel was
awakened by a hubbub in the county
jail, not more than a hundred yards
away. We piled out and over to the
| Jail to find that Mcdonald and Olds
| had just brought in 16 prisoners.
Among them were the most desperate
men in the county.
| How did you do it?" somebody
asked Mcdonald.
"Oh," he replied. laughing, II heard
/ these fellows were all Masons and there
was going to be a meeting of the lodge,
| so 1 thought we would go and look in.
| Odds stayed on the outside to see that
nobody got out Of the windows and
| went in to talk to the boys. They were
all there. When the meeting was over
I told the outfit that the sheriff wanted
to talk to them about this lynching
case, and they had better come on
down to the Jail and square them
| selves. Then they came"