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(Continued from pace 3) his scouts, his order was carried out. The same summary treatment ad ministered to the Indians was carried out by the other columns operating in the field with the result that the spring of 1875 found the Indians in a desperate condition indeed. Their tepees had been burned; many of their braves had fallen; their women and children were half starved; and they were foot sore and weary from the incessant attacks of the troops. So disheartened were they that band after band came to Fort Sill, Fort Larned, and other federal posts and gave themselves up, only too glad to escape the fearful disasters which had been overtaking them on the plains. Mackenzie Cleans Out the Horse Thieves— Before the Indians had gone on the warpath they had complained many times of the activities of white horse thieves. No considerable attention was given to the matter by the feder al officers in the Indian Territory since it was thought that no credence could be put in such reports, but so bold became these marauders that at last steps had to be taken to curb their activities. While the Indian campaigns were under way, howev er, very little could be done to bring these criminals to justice, but when the savages were reconciled the fed eral government could then turn its attention to this alarming situation. Per such a task no one had proven his ability more than Mackenzie, con sequently he was instructed to give his time to this work. Captain Dorst says of his work that he was “‘trans ferred to the Indian Territory in 1875, when the country was swarm ing with horse thieves, in six months a horse could be tied and left along within a day's march of the post, and there it would remain until the wind blew away its dust.’’ Shortly after this time Mackenzie was called to the land of the Sioux where he aided in punishing this hos tile tribe for the massacre of Custer and his band. In 1878 he returned to Texas and assisted in the “‘Big Pond”’ campaign against the Apache, and the next year was transferred to Colorado where he was used in a campaign against the powerful Utes. In good health, physically weak, and suffering intensely he went with no complaint from one place to another, until finally, following the Apache campaign of Arizona in 1882, his health gave away. Along with the failure of his health his mind also left him, and on January 19, 1889, at New Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y., he died. But few men have left the impress of their personalities on their friends as did Ranald S. Mackenzie. One of his friends said of him: ‘More than twenty years of active life, always equal to any responsibil ity; always equal to any emergency; always brilliantly successful; without a single failure, and never surprised! “Braver than a lion, yet sensitive and gentle as a woman; uncompro mising, determined, and just, yet kind, generous, and deeply sympa thetic with humanity in every walk of life; imperious, impetuous, and dashing, yet modest, diffident, and simple ; he was chivalrous, warm, loyal, and pure, without fear, and without reproach, with a great mind and a great soul, a grand soldier, a refined gentleman, and an exalted type of the noblest work of God, an honest man. The example of such a life can never be lost in death.” Mackenzie shared the hardships of his soldiers. Seldom did he complain because of ill health or other causes. Concerning this characteristic of the man Sergeant John B. Carlton said: ““Once he passed me, on his way to take a swim in a little stream. ‘You may come too, if you wish, Sergeant,’ he said. His scars were plainly visi ble and by looking, when he wasn’t looking, I learned much of what he had suffered and would suffer until his dying day. (Note—He had been wounded four times.)”’ In his passing the Nation lost one of the most brilliant officers ever to wear its uniform. As an Indian fight er and pioneer, Ranald S. Mackenzie had no peer. He should be remem bered long by the people of West Texas for his valliant work in help ing to push from our frontier the depreciating bands of hostile savages. One of the first things he did, he recalled, after joining the Parramore outfit, was to go to Shreveport, where he bought 800 head of cattle for the range. Some of these were his own. They were among the first cattle to be shipped into Abilene, the Texas Pacific railroad having arrived there a short time before. In a few months he was made boss of the Parramore ranch and acted in that capacity until 1889, when he moved to his own land. During this time range ranching in Runnels county and adjoining counties was at its height and it was about incidents of this period that many of the reunion reminiscences centered. Men with graying hair and dim ming eyes grouped themselves to gether and talked of that memor able era when range riding and line holding and round-ups were affairs in which cowmen in half a dozen counties participated. They recalled the strenuous win ter of 1884-1885 when eight or ten outfits established a line from the 18-Point Crossing on the Colorado River to the mouth of the Concho and held thousands of head of cattle in check until Christmas. Then, be cause of the extreme weather and the shortage of grass and water, the line was broken and the cattle were allow ed to range farther south. Jim Johnson was the line boss and when it was broken he was put in charge of a wagon to follow the cat tle. Luce Wood and Dave Bradshaw and two other men were with him. They drifted south as far as the Nueces River, and then in the spring, after having received recruits from home traveled west as far as Eagle Pass, picking up cattle bearing the brand of all the cowmen in the Run nels County section. En route they fell in with another wagon or two, and when the combined forces re turned home their trip was marked down as the longest cow hunt in Runnels county range history. Round-Up de Luxe— They spoke of the semi-annual round-ups when the wagons of 15 or 20 outfits, with as high as 200 men and more than 10000 horses, met at appointed times along the Colorado or the Concho to drive in and separ ate and brand their cattle. G. G. Odom with his OG brand, R. K. Wylie with his ‘‘Cross’’, John Block er of APB fame, Parramore and Lewis, known by the 7-H-4, the Coyote outfit, Miller and Vaughan, Plaster and Joe Johnson, the Brew ers, the Hunts, the Webbs, all of them Runnels county interests, were there. And a few surviving representatives of those outfits, exchanging memo ries at the reunion, mentioned that Jim Johnson was always in charge of activities and that it was especially due to his tactful handling of these round-ups year after year that he made and still holds the reputation of saying the least and doing the (Continued on page 7)
Newspaper Details
Abilene Morning News
Abilene, Texas, US
Sun, Sep 11, 1927
Page 34
Full Page
Clipped by
Ann P.
TX, USA 17 Jun 2026
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