TIL TAYLOR— SHERIFF 



For a moment there was silence ; then from here and 

 there words of approval came from the compact 

 group. Calmer citizens supplemented the sheriff's 

 appeal. 



Little Pendleton upheld its record for intelligent ac- 

 tion, common sense and upholding of the law. Slowly, 

 haltingly, still in a state of partial indecision, the crowd 

 turned its back on the jail and trailed to their homes. 

 As the sheriff had promised, law took its course and 

 justice was done. 



Til Taylor had those characteristics which engender 

 respect and endear a man to those with whom he came 

 in contact. Generosity was as much an inherent part 

 of his character as courage, and any man, regardless 

 of his crime, could go to him and get money — some- 

 times in gifts and sometimes in loans. Of the many 

 he had trusted, his murderers were the only men who 

 went back on him. Many men whom he had arrested 

 thanked him in later years and credited him with 

 turning them from criminal paths to lives of useful 

 citizens. Criminals knew they were going to be caught 

 when he took their trail; yet when he occasionally 

 visited the state penitentiary prisoners he had placed 

 there would ask permission of the warden to "talk with 

 Til." Perhaps the most remarkable tribute to his rec- 

 ord as sheriff was not alone the fact that he never lost 

 a man but that he never killed a man. But, in the end, 

 it was the man whose life his mercy had twice spared 

 who shot him. 



There was a touch of pathos in the act of an old, 

 but reformed culprit, who came into the office of the 

 secretary of the Round-Up, the headquarters of the 

 Taylor Memorial Fund, with a tear glint in his eye, 

 and deposited his humble contribution with the remark : 



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