Adventure Magazine Cover — page 36: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

30 case may be—was in the right. Out of it all one fact stands plain; they were brave men, and on that fact it is well enough to rest without attempt toward praise or blame. This then is the story as men tell it who saw some of its events enacted. In the beginning John Chisum claimed all the Pecos Valley from Fort Sumner to the Texas line and held it against new- comers, as he had held it against the In- dians, by force of arms. Two hundred miles of level grasslands lying between low mesas which stretch away to east and west, it offered tempting pasture to those Texans who were seeking new ranges during the early seventies; it gave good passage north- ward to the adventurous trail drovers who were hunting routes to Kansas for their herds. In those days there was no law beyond the eastern edge of the Staked Plains; and he who crossed this lonely land of the Comanche and the buffalo named the limits of his territory, put his iron on every cow which he found therein, and in case of dispute justified himself with revolver or rifle according to the distance over which the debate was carried on. So the Texans began drifting into Lincoln County and there was intermittent war. Lincoln, the county seat, lay up in the mountains to the west of the valley, fifty miles away. To Lincoln came Murphy and Dolan and established a general store. They grew prosperous through hay and beef con- tracts with the military post at Fort Stan- ton; they gained political power, and John Chisum’s enemies on the flat lands flocked to their support. The day came when they got control of the county government. Now each faction had its own leader, and in his own section each leader arrogated unto himself the power of the high justice, the middle and the low. Each did his best to harass his rival by sending into the latter’s neighborhood determined men. It was, you will remember, the era of a ‘“‘wide loop” and a Winchester, when you raided your neigh- bor’s herds without bothering to alter brands; and your neighbor, if he wanted to get rid of you, sent forth his armed retainers to drive you from the country. Away back in 1873 Murphy & Dolan started in at this sort of thing. There was a Texas outfit over on the Ruidoso in the mountains south of Lincoln, three brothers by the name of Herald, with a few hundred LINCOLN COUNTY, N.M Adventure head of longhorns, and they were hard men. The storekeepers held a bill against them and got a writ of attachment against the cattle. Juan Patron took a posse of thirty Mexicans to serve the writ. At least this was the legal purpose of the expedition. The old-timers tell of what followed, thus: Ben Herald and Dave Warner were sleep- - ing in the ranch-house when the Mexicans knocked on the door one midnight. They opened to the summons and half a dozen rifles flamed in their faces. Warner was quick enough on the draw to get his man before he fell, dying; but Herald was killed while groping for his gun. Now the so-called posse started to round 5 BOSQUE Sue *LINCOLN WHERE ROSWELL o STANDS To-pay | S Boni TA St ee CnHisuM's <a HOUSE RAN (e) = 2) aul? ON SOUTH SPP NG a fA - cerlé WHERE TUNSTALL RIO WAS KILLED R'0 p NASCo fe) OF PENASCO Seven Rivers | | S | BOWER CROSSinE x | as if wosin late 70's c 3 5° Are | | b+ e 4é | ' up the cattle; but before they had well begun the other two Herald brothers came down from the hills with a cowboy named Baker and made a fight for their property. They managed to gain entrance to the adobe house and stood off the besiegers for a day and a night. Under the cover of darkness Baker stole forth on the following evening and hitched up a team to a double wagon. ‘The party broke through the cordon of besiegers, with one man driving and the rifles of the others flaming from the vehicle while the horses kept to the dead run. They made their way down to the Pecos, where they found a Texas trail outfit resting with their herd COMmMicloookKs (C@