James B. Gillett - Six Years With the Texas Rangers - 1875 to 1881

Soon after Cooley killed John Worley, Norman Rodgers got permission from Captain Roberts to ride over to Joe Franks' cow outfit to exchange his horse for a better one. When Rodgers rode into the cowboy camp he noticed a man resting under a tree near the fire. The stranger called one of the cowboys and asked him who Norman was. As Rodgers left camp this man followed him and asked if he were one of Roberts' rangers and if he knew "Major" Reynolds. Rodgers replied that he knew Reynolds very well.

The man then declared he was Scott Cooley and, reaching into his pocket, he pulled out John Worley's ears.

"You take these ears to 'Major' Reynolds with my compliments, but don't you tell anybody you saw me."

Rodgers duly delivered the ears and Reynolds cautioned him to say nothing about them. Forty years afterward, at an old settlers reunion in Sweetwater, Norman Rodgers mentioned this incident in a speech—he had kept his promise to Cooley and Reynolds all those years.

Having lost his friends and his sympathizers in the rangers, Cooley returned to Blanco County, where he had formerly lived. Here he was stricken with brain fever, and though tenderly nursed, shielded by his friends, he died without ever being brought to trial for his killings. This ended the Mason County War, but before the feud died some ten or twelve men were killed and a race war narrowly averted.

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