“Captain McCain and Roosevelt Poe? They were the best there was. Made this wilderness a state, by god! And a safe place to live. ‘Spect they’re either dead or laid up in some old soldier’s home now. Somehow, it just don’t seem right.”

- Old timer, 1883

“McCain’s well-trimmed beard and thick, shoulder-length hair was nearly snow white, but the eyes which stared out from beneath the large Texas hat were granite gray, and still as clear as the day he’d joined the Texas Rangers. The creases in his face and the backs of his hands were burned as dark as the local Mexicans, appearing as hard as saddle leather. To the casual observer’s first glance, except for the ramrod straightness that bespoke of some past regimentation, he appeared rather ordinary. But Captain J.D. McCain, as those who’d served with him could tell you, was anything but ordinary. Those whom he had served with in the Rangers thought him to be one of the finest field commanders the Rangers had ever produced. Both he and Roosevelt Poe had been famous throughout the territory for the past twenty-five years, well-known from Mexico all the way north to the Cripple Creek gold mines. After retirement five years earlier, they’d quietly slipped into oblivion and most people wrongly assumed they’d died or were laid up in some old soldier’s home. The mere thought of that might’ve disgusted McCain. Roosevelt Poe, however, would’ve found it quite amusing.”