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The Conners had four vicious hunting dogs with them and when the Ranger group, (the other group took no part in the coming fight), turning back on their tracks, guns drawn, spread out and began to search back up the gully. The Conners,- Fed, John, and Bill were hiding in the camp with the dogs while Uncle Willis took up a snipers position. Willis noticed the Rangers at the same time that Brooks and Rogers saw one of the boys moving in the brush. Rogers whispered in the direction of the figure, thinking it was one of the other half of the Posse. The figure stood up and took aim with a shot-gun. Brooks shouted a warning and then all hell broke loose. The dogs sprung out at the Rangers as Brooks Rogers and Scott shot at the figure they had seen taking aim. Bill Conners 32 years old fell dead with a shot through the head and two shots in his chest. Jim Carmichael and Billy Treadwell shot the dogs.

The next shot came from Uncle Willis and was aimed at Jim Moore. It hit him in the heart and he died as Jim Carmichael bent over him. John Rogers was the next Ranger hit. The shot hit him in the chest at the left ribcage, spinning him round and slowing as it hit a notebook in his shirt pocket and thereby saving his life. He managed to stay standing and before he could let off another shot, he was hit in his left arm. The bullet hit him just above the wrist, tearing into muscle and going along the bone exiting by the elbow and veering downwards towards his hip, and leaving him temporarily paralysed. He fell to his knees, and when he regained his senses crawled towards a tree holding his left arm over the chest wound, and leaning against the tree, held the rifle between his knees and firing and cocking it with his right hand until the magazine was empty.

Captain Scott took a shot to the lungs and dropped out of the fight, leaving Treadwell, Brooks and Carmichael to continue the fight, but Treadwells gun jammed and he was forced to seek cover. The Conners came out of cover and were firing single selective shots, but the two remaining Rangers continued to return fire advancing when they could.

John Brooks was the next casualty. A shot hit his rifle and glanced along the barrel and ripped through both his hands, Mangling three of the fingers on his left hand and lodging in his right palm. He applied his hankerchief as a tourniquet and joined Rogers by the tree.

Fed Conner took a bullet before he and the remaining Conners disappeared into the brush. Over one hundred shots had been fired in a matter of minutes, and none of the targets were more than fourty or fifty yards away from the Rangers, but two men were dead (One Conner and one Ranger) three Rangers were wounded, the dogs and the packhorse were dead, and the Conners had escaped.

Jim Carmichael set about tending to the wounded, believing the Captain to be mortally wounded, he concentrated on Rogers and Brooks.He then raised the Captain by putting his jacket under his head to stop him choking on his own blood. Treadwell located the other part of the posse and brought them into the clearing. Captain Scott, (who survived against all odds) wrote in a later report that "the citizens were more used to hunting deer than desperados, and they had not been more than eighty yards from the fight. If they had come to our assistance we would have captured all the gang" Judge Weatherred and Ranger Crowder rode for Hemphill to fetch a doctor and search for a surgeon, ( they located a Dr. Frank Tucker in San Augustine). The remaining Rangers and civilians set about recovereing the horses and destroying the Conners camp.

Dr J.W. Smith along with the surgeon arrived later that evening, and set about tending to the wounded. The surgeon commented later that Capt. Scotts wounds were not dressed as they expected him to die, and he clipped off ends of bones on Brooks fingers and wrapped the hand.. As for Rogers wounds, he dressed after "me using great care to remove all extraneous matter in the track of the balls". They all remained there in the thickets until the following evening, as the surgeon had to remove the bullet from Capt. Scotts lung to enable him to breath easier. The wounded were transported to Hemphill in a buggy and were tended for ten days by the surgeon until he was sure they would recover.

Ranger Moore was buried in Hemphill with the attendance of the whole town. Capt. William Scott recovered, but resigned from the Rangers and moved to Mexico and worked as a railroad contractor. Jim Carmichael resigned from the Rangers later that year, left Texas in 1888 and didn't return until the 1930`s. Billy Treadwell eventually went to work on the Pettus ranch near Goliad Texas. John A. Brooks never made a fuss about his amputated fingers and learned to handle the tools of his trade with the fingers he had left, and went on to a long and successful career in the Rangers. John Rogers convalesced for a further two weeks in San Augustine and then on the last week of April returned to his home in Kingsbury, rejoining his company in May of the same year.

As for the Conners, it took a further six months before the Rangers would enter Sabine County again and fought a similar fight with the Conners, but with one big difference.This time the Rangers were prepared and they killed fourty one year old Fed Conners on October 25th. Bill Conner was tracked into Louisiana and captured, But John Conner escaped and was never found. It took a private detective until November to track down and kill Uncle Willis.

This story was researched from books in my library, with a lot of the information coming from the Biography of John Rogers, who was to go on and become one of the more famous Captains of his era in the Rangers. The book is called;- Captain John H. Rogers, Texas Ranger. written by Paul N. Spellman.and published by the University of North Texas Press in Denton Texas. Details of this book along with others is available on my website;- www.texasrangers.org.uk