At the crack of the pistol the rangers opened fire through the doors and windows on the negroes within the house. Reynolds and his men then charged the place, and when the smoke of battle cleared they found four dead negro men and a little negro girl that had been killed by accident. Only one black escaped. He was hidden under a bed, and as the rangers came in, made a dash to safety under cover of darkness. McCarthy died the following day and was buried near old Fort McKavett. Negro George fought like a tiger and won the boys' praise. A few days afterward the sheriff of Tom Green County, following the trail of a bunch of stolen cattle from San Angelo, came into our camp. Lieutenant Reynolds sent Sergeant Nevill and a scout of rangers with the sheriff. The trail led over to the South Llano, where the cattle were recovered. While scouting around the herd, Sergeant Nevill discovered a man riding down the trail toward him. He and his men secreted themselves and awaited the stranger's approach. It was getting quite dark, and when the newcomer had ridden almost over the concealed rangers without noticing their presence they rose up, presented their guns and ordered him to halt. "Yes,--like hell!" he exclaimed, and, turning his horse, dived into a cedar brake. A shower of bullets followed, but failed to strike the fugitive. This was the notorious Dick Dublin with a $700 reward on his head. Sergeant Nevill returned to camp with about fifty head of burnt cattle, but let the most notorious criminal in the county escape. Lieutenant Reynolds was disappointed at this, and said he did not understand how four crack rangers could let a man ride right over them and then get away. He declared his negro cook could have killed Dublin had he been in their place. This mortified the boys a great deal. The latter part of December, 1877, Lieutenant Reynolds sent a scout out on Little Saline, Menard County. On Christmas day this detail had a running fight with four men. John Collins, the man who stole a yoke of oxen at Fredericksburg and drove them up to within two miles of our camp, was captured, as was also John Gray, wanted for murder in one of the eastern counties. Jim Pope Mason, charged with the murder of Rance Moore, was in this skirmish, but escaped. One cold morning about the middle of January Corporal Gillett, with Privates John and Will Banister, Tom Gillespie, Dave Ligon, and Ben Carter, was ordered on a five days' scout. We saddled our horses and packed two mules. When all was ready I walked over to Lieutenant Reynolds. He was sitting on a camp stool before his tent and seemed in a brown study. I saluted and asked for orders.