This is one of my ancestors and true story. His ancestor were, John Lewellen, the First Sheriff of Scott Co., TN. John Reed of TN and Joseph Hatfiled of Russell Co., VA. Columbus was born in TN, migrated to Bell Co, TN about 1874 and moved on from there. I am told this is a reprint of what happened that day down in the Early Years. Jean Brand Fresno, CA Columbus Lewellen Page 5 1938 Progress Edition The Daily Current Carlsbad, New Mexico Bad Shell and Fact That He Picked Up Wrong Gun Saved Rancher From Killers. Columbus Lewellen had no premonition of danger as he swung down a Texas canyon trail late one February evening in 1894, humming a carefree cowboy tune to the rolling rhythm of his blooded horse's easy lope. Lewellen had every reason to be happy. Times were good, pasture was abundant. His herd had prospered and he was on the way to being one of the West's cattle barons. He thought of his family back at the ranch house. They would be spared the hardships he had experienced as a lad in the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky, he told himself. The sun was hanging low in the f as he turned down the trail leading to his partner's home. He had been sent word that the water supply had dried in a pasture where he kept a herd of fine horses. He would have to hurry to change them to another pasture and get home before night, so he spurred his horse. Long shadows were creeping across the valley, golden shades of light slanting upward through the boughs of the sleepy cottonwoods. Silhouetted against the plummeting red disc of the sun was form of his partner's wife. She appeared 15 feet tall, "that's funny," thought Lewellen. She's a mile away yet I can see her plain as day and she looks like a giant. Mirages were not unusual in western Texas, but they were not seen at sunset. The picture was rather ghostly, and it made Lewellen feel uneasy. Mechanically, he caught up his rifle from the saddle holster. His horse snorted, directing his attention to the trail in front of him. There stood the menacing form of his partner, his long booted legs planted on either side of the trail, the nuzzle of a six gun leveled at Lewellen's heart. "Stop where you are, Lewellen," barked the partner. "I might as well tell you now, that story of the water drying up was a gag. I just wanted to get you here to kill you. We've been stealing your stock for months and you were too stupid to know it. Now I am going to kill you and take the rest of them." He patted the barrel of his revolver and grinned. "You ready to die, Lewellen?" Further down the valley, a shot split the still air of the evening. A rifle ball whined close to Lewellen's horse, ripped through the leaves behind him. The frightened animal reared high into the air throwing Lewellen sideways, but his gun was leveled on the figure in the trail and when it spoke, the partner slumped to the ground, his dead fingers pressed hard on a trigger that had clicked on a worthless shell. "My God, don't kill me," wailed a frantic voice as a man jumped from behind a bush and kneeled at the feet of Lewellen's horse begging for his life. He was safe, for Lewellen had sent his last bullet through the heart of the partner who had tried to kill him for what cattle he had not already stolen and marketed. Two happy coincidences had saved Lewellen's life. One of the cattle thief friends of his partner had filed the trigger on his rifle so it would not stay cocked. His adversaries thought, with a jimmied rifle, Lewellen did not have a chance to shoot. His partner's wife had told the thieves that they had better not attack Lewellen, if they valued their lives, for he was a dead shot. "If you miss, you're dead," she told them, "for Lewellen doesn't miss". So when the cattle thief saw what happened in the first attempt on Lewellen's life, he went insane with fear. He did not know Lewellen's empty rifle just then was a harmless as a pop gun. That was Lewellen's first and last gunfight, but it cost him his last cent. A gang of nine cattle thieved had driven more than $100,000.00 worth of his cattle off to market. With the aid of the faithless partner, whom Lewellen had staked, and who owed him $3,000.00 the job had been easy. What he had left, he spent in proving to the court that he shot in self defense. With his family and what he salvaged from the wreckage, he moved to Black River in 1894, just across from Blue Springs, where he established a cattle ranch, stocked with the remnants of several old herds. Lewellen soon had a start again in the cattle business, but he never again regained the position he lost when his ungrateful partner joined with thieves to rob him of his herds he had spent many fruitful years in building up. Today, at 81, he is still active as caretaker of the Carlsbad Library and Museum. Mrs. Lewellen and their youngest son, Lee, born in Carlsbad, are the only members of a large family who still live here. The had five children. When he is caught up with his work at the library, Lewellen likes to tamp his well-seasoned pipe full of tobacco and dream of the romantic days of the Old West. Through the lazy curling spirals of pipe smoke, he looks with tired eyes back through half a century at the days when Billy the Kid, the James boys and many another daring gunmen spilled blood across the pages of frontier history. If you can catch him in the right mood and isn't too busy, Lewellen will tell you many a hair-raising story of the days when men lived by the law of the six gun, and men survived because they were more rugged then the elements and quicker on the draw than other men. "Men were honest in the very early days," said Lewellen. "There was a time when a traveler could stop at a ranch house or a cowboy camp on the way home from market, throw his money belt on the ground as he slept, knowing it was safe there as if the money were in the bank. Men didn't steal in those days. It was man against the wilderness and men trusted each other." "But when this cattle stealing started, the west got bloody. There was peace on the ranges until many men came west to seek their fortunes -- when boom towns mushroomed up and adventures started blazing and chapters of lawlessness were written into the history of the west."