In the summer of 1877, Lieutenant Armstrong of Captain Hall's company, assisted by Detective Jack Duncan of Dallas, Texas, captured the notorious John Wesley Hardin. It has been said that Texas, the largest state in the Union, has never produced a real world's champion at anything. Surely, such critics overlooked Hardin, the champion desperado of the world. His life is too well known in Texas for me to go into detail, but, according to his own story, which I have before me, he killed no fewer than twenty-seven men, the last being Charley Webb, deputy sheriff of Brown County, Texas. So notorious had Hardin become that the State of Texas offered $4000 reward for his capture. Hardin had left Texas and at the time of his capture was in Florida. His captors arrested and overpowered him while he was sitting in a passenger coach. In September, 1877, Sheriff Wilson of Comanche County, in whose jurisdiction Hardin had killed Webb, came to Austin to convey the prisoner to Comanche for trial. Wilson requested the governor for an escort of rangers. Lieutenant Reynolds' company, being in Austin at the time, was ordered to accompany Wilson and protect Hardin from mob violence. This was the first work assigned Company "E" under its new commander. The day we left Austin between one and two thousand people gathered about the Travis County jail to see this notorious desperado. The rangers were drawn up just outside the jail, and Henry Thomas and myself were ordered to enter the prison and escort Hardin out. Heavily shackled and handcuffed, the prisoner walked very slowly between us. The boy that had sold fish on the streets of Austin was now guarding the most desperate criminal in Texas; it was glory enough for me. At his trial Hardin was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in the penitentiary. He appealed his case and was returned to Travis County for safekeeping. The verdict of the trial court was sustained, and one year later, in September, 1878, Lieutenant Reynolds' company was ordered to take Hardin back to Comanche County for sentence. There was no railroad at Comanche at that time, so a detachment of rangers, myself among them, escorted Hardin to the penitentiary. There were ten or twelve indictments still pending against him for murder in various counties, but they were never prosecuted. Hardin served seventeen years on his sentence, and while in prison studied law. Governor Hogg pardoned him in 1894 and restored him to full citizenship. In transmitting him the governor's pardon, Judge W.S. Fly, Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals, wrote Hardin as follows: