Constable Dallas Hodges stopped two men on their way into Gordonville, Texas, one summery afternoon. The constable had been tipped off that these two men were troublemakers.

He told the strangers that "troublemakers are not welcome here." The two men shot the constable dead before he could say another word.

It took a month before investigators could gather much information about the shooting. A team of eight men headed north from Gordonville. Deputy Sheriff Reuben Coleman led the posse which included Babe Hodges, the murdered constable’s brother.

Days later, the eight men surrounded an old shack in Oklahoma just north of the Texas border. Suddenly, six men burst out of the cabin-all of them shooting.

Deputy Coleman was the first to fall and died on that spot. Seconds later Babe Hodges was shot in the head. Again the killers got away. With further investigation the name of Granville Goode emerged as the killer of Constable Hodges. A few months later a sheriff from Central Texas dropped off Goode’s dead body at the Gordonville sheriff’s office and collected the $1,000 reward.

The names of Deputy Coleman and Constable Hodges were added earlier this month to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. Before their names could be added to the police "all of names" it took a lot of investigating by a retired Texas deputy sheriff named Terry Baker. He uncovered the history surrounding their deaths.

This year the names of 150 cops killed in the line of duty during the year 2000 were added to the wall. To that number add Dallas Hodges and Reuben Coleman-both lawmen killed in Texas in the year 1881. We just now found out about them.

One last thing: Dallas Hodges’ brother, Babe, who was shot in the head during the raid at the old shack in Oklahoma, did not die from his head wound. Babe lived to be just a few months shy of 100 years old. He died peacefully and was buried with that bullet still in his head.

(Information for this column was obtained from a story by Daphne Retter in the Houston Chronicle.)