The day we left Austin between one and two thousand people gathered about the Travis County jail to see this notorious desperado. The rangers were drawn up just outside the jail, and Henry Thomas and myself were ordered to enter the prison and escort Hardin out. Heavily shackled and handcuffed, the prisoner walked very slowly between us. The boy that had sold fish on the streets of Austin was now guarding the most desperate criminal in Texas; it was glory enough for me.
At his trial Hardin was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in the penitentiary. He appealed his case and was returned to Travis County for safekeeping. The verdict of the trial court was sustained, and one year later, in September, 1878, Lieutenant Reynolds' company was ordered to take Hardin back to Comanche County for sentence. There was no railroad at Comanche at that time, so a detachment of rangers, myself among them, escorted Hardin to the penitentiary. There were ten or twelve indictments still pending against him for murder in various counties, but they were never prosecuted.
Hardin served seventeen years on his sentence, and while in prison studied law. Governor Hogg pardoned him in 1894 and restored him to full citizenship.
In transmitting him the governor's pardon, Judge W.S. Fly, Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals, wrote Hardin as follows:
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.
Up on the South Llano lived old Jimmie Dublin. He had a large family of children, most of them grown. The eldest of his boys, Dick, or Richard, as he was known, and a friend, Ace Lankford, killed two men at a country store in Lankford's Cove, Coryell County, Texas. The state offered $500 for the arrest of Dublin and the County of Coryell an additional $200. To escape capture Dick and his companion fled west into Kimble County. While I was working as cowboy with Joe Franks in the fall of 1873 I became acquainted with the two murderers, for they attached themselves to our outfit. They were always armed and constantly on the watchout for fear of arrest. Dublin was a large man, stout, dark complected, and looked more like the bully of a prize ring than the cowman he was. I often heard him say he would never surrender. While cow hunting with us he discovered that the naturally brushy and tangled county of Kimble would offer shelter for such as he, and persuaded his father to move out into that county.
Dublin had not lived long in Kimble County before another son, Dell Dublin, killed Jim Williams, a neighbor. Thus two of the Dublin boys were on the dodge charged with murder. They were supposed to be hiding near their father's home. Bill Allison, Starke Reynolds and a number of bandits, horse and cattle thieves and murderers, were known to be in Kimble County, so Lieutenant Reynolds was sent with his company to clean them up.