"I mean that you have six or eight of the right kind of men," he qualified.
"All right, then pick out the ones that are not the right kind of men."
But the major would not or could not undertake to do this. McDonald then said:
"Now, I'll tell you what I want you to do with these men. I don't want to put them in the jail; the sheriff is no good, and it would take too many of my men to guard them. I want you to put them in the guardhouse here and hold them on this warrant until I get through investigating. Will you do that much?"
Penrose first refused, but Major Blocksom, who was present, said that this was a fair proposition, and the major agreed to do it. The men were placed under guard and there seemed a reasonable chance that the whole matter would be sifted by the courts and that the guilty would be punished. The Rangers left the garrison to continue their inquiries about town, in the pursuit of further evidence, well satisfied with their progress thus far, and greeted everywhere with the congratulations of thankful citizens.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] "Captain Lyon claimed he could not find Captain Macklin anywhere and went to the jail and other places looking for him.... Some of Lyon's men after leaving the jail met five white gentlemen and threatened to shoot hell out of them and called them 'd—d white s—o—b—.' I have their names (meaning the names of the gentlemen), and some of them claim they could identify the soldiers that used this epithet.... Lyon and his crowd then went to where the murder was committed and found a policeman with a gun, and one of them said: 'There is a s— of a b— now with a gun.' The whole crowd of forty-five men cocked their guns on him and would have taken his gun, but he was one that was not afraid of them and talked back to the black devils, and of course they let him alone."
From Captain McDonald's report to Governor Lanham and Adjutant-General Hulen.