Salvete Omnes,
we will gallop to the west Texas country circa 1870s, with a memoir written by a former Texas Ranger J.B. Gillett (published 1921),available on Archive in several well-scanned versions.
James Buchanan Gillett served in the Rangers from 1875 through 1881. Them be became the City Marshal of El Paso, Tx, and later the sheriff of Brewster and Presidio counties. He was a cattle rancher and an important personage in west Texas history.
In his book - Six Years with the Texas ranges 1875-1881 - he first describes the rangers:
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| Captain D.W. Roberts |
then we get a glimpse of his service - a pursuit of a Lipan Apache horse stealing raid, at first 15 men under Captain Roberts, and upon some rattlesnakes biting two horses - Checo & Old Rock, that survived the bites - just 13 Rangers pursued the daring Lipans.
We find another description of this fight, from the Lipan point of view, in the Herman Lehman's Nine Years Among the Indians.
Curiously we learn from the memoirs, that 'a ranger was required to have a good mount, for each man was allowed to have only one horse, which had to be a good one,that could be ridden every day for a month if necessary.' But when he told his captain that he had 'two good pony mares.' Captain told him that 'a mare was not allowed in the service.' So he secured a 'big black pony' for himself. (page 43).
Valete
