LARN, John. Rancher, rustler, law officer, cowboy. Document signed ("John M. Larn"), partly printed and accomplished in manuscript, Fort Griffin, Texas, August 13, 1877. 1 page, 8 x 6 1/2 in., also partly printed on the verso and noted as filed before the Justice of the Peace, John Browning, who countersigns. An interesting document in which John Larn, the consummate livestock rustler, accuses another man of "Theft of one gelding ... of the value of fifty dollars." John Larn had a bad temper and a knack for serious trouble. While still in his teens he shot his boss in a dispute over a horse. He fled to New Mexico and murdered a sheriff who looked at him the wrong way. Next he came to Fort Griffin Texas and took up ranching and, naturally, was elected Sheriff. He often deputized his friend, the gun fighter John Selman with whom he launched a cattle rustling sideline under cover of the badge. Five months before he signed this document he was forced to resign as sheriff and the next summer he would be arrested at his ranch, taken to Albany, and murdered in his cell by a mob. Provenance: Ronald J. Atlas collection.