Patti, as I mentioned in our recent exchange of emails, I'm also trying to sort the truth of this reported account out from the fog of distant memory in Guthrie's story. I never encountered anything about this, or even his ranger service, when I went through McCords papers and interviewed his son James Pressley McCord (1878-1967). However, I should have some additional information after a little more study.

I have notes suggesting that McCord first got to know Burleson in the late 1850s when a company of Rangers under Burleson's command escorted McCord and his partner (cousin) Andrew Lindsey as they surveyed a string of new counties in west central Texas. McCord and Lindsey lived in San Marcos and many McCord family members had recently settled in and around Prairie Lea, about 10 miles up river from San Marcos.