Within a few days of the February 18 necktie party, a former member of Sheriff Clark’s posse, Caleb Hall, was accused of rustling and placed in the Mason jail next to survivor Turley. Rumors soon spread that another raid on the jail was planned to finish off Turley and to give the same treatment to Hall. The two prisoners didn’t hang around to see if the rumors were true — they dug their way to freedom and high-tailed it from Mason County. Another former posse member, Tom Gamel, also felt threatened because he had spoken out against the hanging of the Baccus brothers. Instead of fleeing the county, Gamel brought together 30 armed men from surrounding ranches and rode into town to confront the sheriff. Clark beat a fast retreat out of town. Gamel and friends had the upper hand for a while, but on March 24, Clark returned with an estimated 60 well-armed Germans. Both sides drifted toward the courthouse square at the center of town, and a battle seemed imminent. Then, cooler heads prevailed, and the men negotiated a truce, which would stay in effect as long as mob rule was controlled and vigilantes didn’t orchestrate their harsh brand of justice.

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The truce held for almost two months. On May 13, Clark sent Wohrle out to Carl Lehmberg’s ranch to speak with the foreman, Tim Williamson. The deputy asked the well-liked 33-year-old cowboy, who also owned his own small ranch, to accompany him to town. Months earlier Williamson had been arrested for possession of a stolen calf, and cattleman-brand inspector Daniel Hoerster had posted bond for him. It was the custom in rural Texas that a person accused of a minor crime, and who was not a flight risk, need not travel to town to post bond; that could be done by any reliable third party who agreed to put up the money within 24 hours. Apparently Hoerster, a supporter of Sheriff Clark, had recently withdrawn his bond. Lehmberg told Wohrle he would post bond for Williamson later that day, but the deputy insisted that the new bond be paid in Mason. Lehmberg and Williamson agreed to accompany the deputy. While Lehmberg was saddling his horse, the deputy disarmed Williamson and traded his older horse for the foreman’s younger, faster mount. The three men then rode toward Mason.

After covering about 10 miles, the trio ran into a dozen masked men. Lehmberg, Wohrle and Williamson all supposedly tried to ride off, but Williamson had his horse shot out from under him (some accounts say by none other than Deputy Wohrle). On foot and disarmed, Williamson didn’t have a chance. But apparently he tried to talk his way out of the tight spot after recognizing one of the masked men as Peter Bader, a German farmer he had known for several years. Bader showed no mercy, firing his gun at Williamson, as did others in the mob.

Williamson was the fifth man killed in Mason County by Clark’s mob. It was a huge mistake, for Williamson’s death changed the nature of the Mason County War. Instead of a range war against alleged cattle thieves, it became an even more violent ethnic conflict, driven by the hate that Anglo-American cattlemen from Mason and nearby counties had for the Dutch. Never mind all that beef and the quest for greater riches, the cattlemen were now out for vengeance. The first man to take direct and bloody revenge against Williamson’s killers was a young former Texas Ranger named Scott Cooley, and he proved very good at such work.

Born in Missouri about 1854, William Scott Cooley moved with his family to Jack County, in northwest Texas, in 1856 or ‘57. Indian war parties regularly raided into that area, and it continued that way through the Civil War and even into the 1870s. The Austin Daily State Journal of February 17, 1872, and other sources tell the story of how three members of the Cooley family were trailing stolen horses the previous January 20 when they came upon about 25 Indians. The Cooleys opened fire, killing two Indians and scalping one, though they weren’t able to recover the stock. Also in the early 1870s, Scott Cooley helped take two cattle herds to Kansas. During this time, Cooley met Tim Williamson and rode with him. Williamson and his wife, while living at their Loyal Valley ranch south of the town of Mason, apparently accepted Scott into their family, and the young man looked to Tim as a father figure.

On May 25, 1874, one month after the Frontier Battalion was formed, 19-year-old Cooley enlisted at Blanco City in Company D of that outfit. Not long after that, Cooley was with Major John B. Jones when Indians ambushed the command at Lost Valley, killing two Rangers and wounding two more. A month later, Cooley resigned his rank of corporal but remained with Company D. On November 20, according to the Austin Daily Statesman, he had a big role in another Indian fight: Cooley, who was fired at and run into camp, not only cut a wounded Indian’s throat, but stripped a large piece of skin from his back, saying that he would make a quirt out of it. Near the end of 1874, a reduction in state allocations for the Frontier Battalion led to a number of Rangers being discharged, including Cooley, who had served just over six months.

After leaving the Rangers, Cooley moved to Menard County, west of Mason County, to begin a ranching life. Five months later, in May 1875, the masked mob murdered Williamson, and Cooley declared that he would revenge his best friend in the world. Cooley no doubt soon learned that Clark, as sheriff and tax assessor/collector, had once abused Williamson’s wife during a confrontation over the tax assessment of Williamson’s property in Loyal Valley. That incident, according to Tom Gamel, had caused Williamson to pay a call on the sheriff. Clark was on horseback and Williamson followed him around on foot and tried to get a fight out of him, but Clark refused to fight, Gamel recalled. Shortly afterwards Williamson was charged with stealing a yearling and placed under arrest and gave bond. Cooley didn’t need more evidence than that to become convinced that Sheriff Clark, Deputy Wohrle and their German mob were responsible for the death of his friend. He was further angered when the Mason County Grand Jury completed its inquiry into Williamson’s death and filed no indictment.

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