Rangers and sovereignty Page: 163 of 188
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166
RANGERS AND SOVEREIGNTY.
defiant and considered Captain Williams an intruder
into their dominion and openly murdered him. This
put the United States soldiers after them.
They dodged from place to place until it got too
warm for them, when they left for New Mexico. They
came to where the city of Roswell is now located, and
there being no law in the territory then, except military,
and that "only in spots," they had a clear field
to work in.
In 1868 some big cattle ranches were being established
in the country, and in the latter part of that
year John Chisum started his big ranch on South
Spring river, four miles south of Roswell. Soon after
that, "Billy the Kid" started a little war of his own
up in Lincoln County; and the details of that being
too tedious to write, it need only be said that murder
and robbery were its leading features. Mr. Chisum
found that "fighting men" were in demand to protect
his cattle; and the Kid bunch and the Horrels being
the strongest and they together having absorbed about
all the fighting characters in the country, he had to
use some fine diplomacy in securing one or the other,
or both, to help him out. I have been told that fighting
wages didn't satisfy them and that they appropriated
Mr. Chisum's cattle very freely to make up the deficit.
The Horrels were not common thieves, but necessity
had driven them to do things of a lawless character
that made outlaws of them. They became very
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Roberts, Dan W. Rangers and sovereignty, book, 1914; San Antonio, Tex.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth5833/m1/163/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .