On August 10, Cooley rode into Mason and inquired about John Wohrle. He then rode to the west edge of town, where the former deputy sheriff was helping two other men dig a water well. Cooley spoke briefly with Wohrle, who then turned his attention back to his work — hauling one of the other men up from the bottom of the well. At that point, Cooley shot his target in the back of the head. The man being hauled up fell to the bottom of the well and was knocked out; the third man fled the scene. Cooley proceeded to shoot Wohrle five more times and to scalp him, the ultimate insult by an Indian fighter, before riding away. Nine days later, Cooley rode to the Bader farm in Llano County, perhaps looking for Peter Bader, the farmer who had showed Williamson no mercy. Cooley found Peter’s brother Carl working in a field and promptly rode over him and shot him at the same time. John Wohrle and Carl Bader were the sixth and seventh men to die in the Mason County War, and their deaths got the attention of the German faction and Clark. The sheriff convinced Texas to offer a $300 reward for the arrest of Cooley.

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Some writers have suggested that Cooley did not go to the Bader farm alone on August 19, but that he brought with him a number of drifters and desperadoes, including John Ringo, George Gladden, and Moses and John Baird. There is no evidence, however, that Ringo was even in Mason County at that time or that he knew Scott Cooley. Gladden, who lived in Loyal Valley and no doubt had known the late Williamson, could have allied himself with Cooley. Ringo, though, was from Burnet County and was never a friend of Williamson’s. In Burnet, Ringo was a good friend of the Baird family.

On September 7, Moses Baird happened to be visiting Gladden when Mason County gambler Jim Cheney (also seen as Cheyney) showed up at Gladden’s door. Cheney, who had been hired by Clark, told Gladden and Baird that the sheriff wanted to see them in Mason. As the two men were saddling their horses for the trip, Cheney rode off. If Gladden or Moses Baird had been involved in the killing of Carl Bader, they certainly would not have agreed to casually ride in to meet with the sheriff. In any case, it did not prove to be a wise decision. When they arrived near Hedwig’s Hill, east of Mason, Clark appeared, and his mob, including Peter Bader, was close at hand. The sheriff’s men were not there to talk; they opened fire, wounding the two riders, who stayed in the saddle and rode off. Their enemies gave chase. Moses Baird was found dead about a mile away, the eighth man murdered in the Mason County War, but Gladden managed to get away and receive care from friends in Loyal Valley. He survived to fight another day.

If killing Tim Williamson had been the biggest mistake made by Clark and company, then the murder of Moses Baird was a close second. John Baird, Moses’ brother, now rode into Mason County with John Ringo and several others, first to recover Moses’ body and later to even the score. Ringo, along with John Baird, was now joined with Cooley in the relentless search for revenge. And there were others, too. More than a dozen men from Burnet, Llano, Blanco and Bexar counties rode into Mason County to avenge the death of Moses Baird.

Early on September 25, Ringo and another avenger rode to Cheney’s home on Comanche Creek. Cheney must have been nervous, not knowing what to expect from the two strangers, but he soon found out. Ringo and the other man made Cheney the ninth victim of the feud and then rode to Mason, where they joined Cooley and others for breakfast. Three days later, Major Jones and a Frontier Battalion command from Companies A and D arrived on the scene. They found Sheriff Clark and a dozen other men hiding in a store outside Mason. Clark convinced the major that Cooley and his other lawbreakers were in Loyal Valley plotting to burn out the Dutch.

Jones took his command to Loyal Valley, but the town was quiet. The Rangers spent the night there and then headed to Mason the next morning, September 29. Meanwhile, Cooley and three others — Gladden, John Baird and Bill Coke — were in Mason looking for Clark. They didn’t shoot the sheriff, but they did ambush Dan Hoerster and two other members of the German faction, Peter Jordan and Henry Pluenneke. When the shooting was done, Hoerster was dead (the 10th man killed in the feud) and Jordan and Gladden wounded.

When the Rangers arrived at Mason, Cooley and company were long gone. For the next week, Major Jones and his Rangers accomplished little, with the probable exception of keeping Sheriff Clark alive until he resigned on about October 5. A few days after Clark rode away from Mason County, so did most of the Frontier Battalion, except for some men from Company A. Then, in late December, came big news from Burnet, Texas, more than 50 miles to the east. On December 27, both John Ringo and Scott Cooley had been arrested for allegedly threatening to do bodily harm to Burnet Sheriff John Clymer and Deputy Sheriff J.J. Strickland. But the fact that Ringo and Cooley were behind bars didn’t mean that all the violence had ended. On January 13, 1876, John Baird and Gladden tracked down Peter Bader in Llano County and killed him. That made 11 men killed in the Mason County War during the 12-month period from February 1875 to January 1876.

Cooley and Ringo were taken to the more secure Travis County jail and then back to the Burnet County jail. In early February, their case was removed to nearby Lampasas County in a change of venue. After the initial hearing in March, Ringo and Cooley remained in the Lampasas County jail. In May, on a second attempt to spring the two gunmen, a group that included John Baird and Joe Olney succeeded in freeing Ringo and Cooley. As far as John Baird was concerned, and Ringo, too, the vendetta had ended with Baird’s killing of Peter Bader. Once out of jail, Cooley rode down to Fredericksburg before heading to Blanco County to see friends. Cooley’s life after the Hoodoo War proved to be extremely brief. The former Ranger took sick (brain fever) — although some accounts say he had been poisoned by bitter Germans — and he died on June 10, 1876, at age 21. His death might be viewed as the 12th death related to the feud. He is buried in Miller Creek Cemetery in Blanco County.

John Ringo and George Gladden were arrested in Llano County, near the Mason County line, in October 1876. Gladden was tried in Llano County for the murder of Peter Bader and sentenced to 99 years in the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. In 1884 he was pardoned. Ringo was jailed in Mason County and indicted for the murder of Jim Cheney. In January 1877, the Mason County courthouse burned to the ground (arson was suspected) and all the court records went with it. That May, though, Ringo was indicted a second time for the murder, and he remained in jail for another seven months, finally being released in January 1878 on a writ of habeas corpus. In May 1878, the case against Ringo was finally dismissed, because testimony cannot be procured to make out the case. Ringo stayed in Mason County for a time and was even elected constable in Precinct No. 4 on November 15, 1878, but he soon rode west. He ended up in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, where he became involved in an even more famous feud — between the Earp brothers and the so-called Cowboys of Cochise County.

Once Ringo, Cooley, Gladden and John Baird were out of the picture, the feuding in the Mason area stopped. The terror in Hill Country had ended. The hate, however, was said to linger for another two decades, and several more men lost their lives in killings that some have linked to the Mason County War. Texas is famous for its feuds, but none of the others can quite equal the one in 1875 when it comes to corrupt and shameful motives and the number of men killed in such a short period. Although murder ran rampant during those violent 12 months from February 1875 to January 1876, the only individual convicted of murder was George Gladden. Furthermore, none of the men killed and very few others in Mason County were ever convicted of cattle theft.

This article was written by Allen G. Hatley and originally appeared in the August 2005 issue of Wild West.

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