Robinson, who terrorized Central Texans as an armed robber, was wearing the tin star in Caldwell, Kan., when he willingly backslid into crime. The noose of an angry lynch mob took his life as he begged for mercy.

Ironically, eight years earlier in Milam County, Robinson breached the public's trust when as a deputy sheriff he readily surrendered the jail to angry vigilantes seeking to accelerate justice against a gallows-bound black man convicted of a heinous murder, as told in a new book "William Sherod Robinson, Alias Ben Wheeler," written by Len Gratteri of Sisters, Ore., Rod Cook of Caldwell, Kan., and James Williams of Milano.

Consistent with Wheeler's lack of fame is the scarcity of information written about his early years. Brief references to Wheeler in Old West publications usually contain recurring errors about his background.