Tom’s father oversaw the county jail, in Austin. Credit 42One summer day in 1892, when Tom was eleven, his father
hurried out with the bloodhounds: a family man had been gunned
down while riding his horse. Tom’s father noticed that, thirty
paces from where the victim lay, there was a spot of trampled
earth and a burned ammunition wad; it was the place where the
killer had stood. White unleashed the hounds and they picked up
the killer’s trail, which curiously led right back to the dead man’s
house. As Sheriff White gathered evidence from witnesses, he
learned that the victim’s slayer was his own son.
A few weeks later, Tom’s father was summoned again, this time
in pursuit of a rapist. A headline in the Statesman read “RAVISHED
IN BROAD DAY...Mrs. D. C. Evans Dragged from Her Buggy, Brutally
Assaulted and Then Outraged—the Officers Hot on the Trail of the