Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1901 — A HEROIC TEXAN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A HEROIC TEXAN.

latrogstd Officer Who Haa Captured Many Desperadoes. Easily one of the most interesting ineu In Texas is Captain Fred Beall, now of Forth Worth, but for years known all •ver the Lone Star State as an intrepid officer of the law. Since he was 20 years of age he has either been a state or a United Stages officer, says a correspondent in the St. Louis Republic, and at one time or another has had a hand In the apprehension of all the dof.pt>: ale gangs that infested this vast i - cc of territory from east to west and fai the Mexican border to the northern cn.l of- the Panhandle. It ia said of Captain Beall that he was prominent from the time of the wildest territorial disorder and depredation to the period of total renovation which

ended with the apprehension in Colorado of Tom Ketchum, the last of the Ketchum gang, and closed a reign of terror such as all new countries experience before the law and order element gets the upper hand and is as liable to go to extremes on the other tack. Fred Beall was boru in Tarrant county, midway between Dallas aud Fort Worth, 48 years ago. llis father was a rancher, and young Fred learned to ride a horse lon-: before hi- could speak a sentence intelligibly. His first udvi utare was with the Bass gang, one of the oldest bauds of desperadoes in Texas. A member of that gang named Barues was u relative of the Bealls by m.injage. One night oil a raid of the eo. iilry. shortly after they had robbed u Union Pacific train, some of the desperadoes came to the home of the Bealls i-.nd rifled it. Young Fred lost nearly all his belongings, and he naturally longed for revenge. He was 18 years old at the time, and with a saddle horse •wist as lightning lie joined the sheriff's posse tl;g| went 111 pursuit of the outlaws. They hud been ou the way for several days when they came upon the trail of the marauders on a Sunday just about church time. The street led by the little meeting house, in front of which the worshipers assembled when they learned that the sheriff’s posse was near to run down the Barnes gang, which had just passed by. Fred Beall rode by the side of the sheriff and tired shot after shot into the ranks of the desperadoes, who were finally captured and turned over to the thoritiesThis gave him his first taste of adventure. At the age of 20 he was a state officer and from that time on as much the terror of the marauders as they were the bane of the law abiding element in the state. In innumerable skirmishes and battles with these desperate characters he was literally riddled with bullets. He can show now seven wouuds, and in every Instance the lead passed clear through his body, several times barely missing a vital part. A knife wound once laid him up for a long time. He was arresting a desperate fellow whose drunken antics endangered the lives of citizens of Noiun county. As Beall led him along the street to land him’ in jail a crowd of his friends gathered to liberate the prisoner. “I held on to my man and tried to beat off my pursuers with the butt of my pistol," said Mr. Beall. “On the way to the jail one of them, a trifle more desperate than the rest, drove a knife Into my back. However, I didn’t know it until I had reached jail several blocks away and delivered my man. “As 1 came out the bloody which had been running down into my left boot, had so filled it that my foot almost splashed in it. Even then I thought I would get home or to n doctor, but dizziness overtook me, and I fell in a heap. I was laid up with that xvound for nine weeks, and It helped not a little to turn my hair gray, for the injury was intensely painful. “Yes, I’ve looked death in the face many aYime, but never more closely than when it grinned at me out of the muzzle of a Winchester in the hands of a woman. “The Waldron gang made things pretty lively just about that time. Old man Waldron was a good man and a real friend of mine, but his sons turned out some of the most desperate characters in the state. They had been engaged in a bunk robbery when I was detailed to run them down. We narrowed down upon them not far from the Waldron home and soon had them under control. As I came back old Mrs. Waldron, the mother of the boys, stood near her door leveling a Winchester at me and crying out to me thnt she would shoot. “Well, the mouth of that Winchester looked just ns big to me as my hat. I wouldn't shoot at a woman, and if she had shot at me—she had a good aim—she might have finished me. As it was, she fired one shot, which hit my sleeve, and then dropped her gun, but It was the closest call I believe I ever hod.”

STABBED IN THE BACK.