Dear Sir: Enclosed I send you a full pardon from the Governor of Texas. I congratulate you on its reception and trust that it is the day of dawn of a bright and peaceful future. There is time to retrieve a lost past. Turn your back upon it with all its suffering and sorrow and fix your eyes upon the future with the determination to make yourself an honorable and useful member of society. The hand of every true man will be extended to assist you in your upward course, and I trust that the name of Hardin will in the future be associated with the performance of deeds that will ennoble his family and be a blessing to humanity. Did you ever read Victor Hugo's masterpiece, "Les Miserables"? If not, you ought to read it. It paints in graphic words the life of one who had tasted the bitterest dregs of life's cup, but in his Christian manhood rose about it, almost like a god and left behind him a path luminous with good deeds. With the best wishes for your welfare and happiness, I am, Yours very truly, W.S. Fly. Despite all the kind advice given him by eminent lawyers and citizens, Hardin was unequal to the task of becoming a useful man. He practiced law for a time in Gonzales, then drifted away to El Paso, where he began drinking and gambling. On August 19, 1895, Hardin was standing at a bar shaking dice when John Selman, constable of Precinct No. 1, approached him from behind and, placing a pistol to the back of Hardin's head, blew his brains out. Though posing as an officer Selman was himself an outlaw and a murderer of the worst kind. He killed Hardin for the notoriety it would bring him and nothing more. After delivering Hardin to the sheriff of Travis County in 1877, Lieutenant Reynolds was ordered to Kimble County for duty. Of all the counties in Texas at that time Kimble was the most popular with outlaws and criminals, for it was situated south of Menard County on the North and South Llano Rivers, with cedar, pecan and mesquite timber in which to hide, while the streams and mountains furnished abundance of fish and game for subsistence.