The man was Dan McSwain, who contracted with Frank and his 12-year old brother Harrison to sharecrop one of his farms. Even at that age, Frank was known as someone who could handle a firearm. McSwain offered Hamer $150 (some accounts have it at $200) and Frank, according to Harrison, said jokingly, "Who do I have to kill?" When McSwain named the intended victim, Hamer realized his boss was serious and quickly and adamantly refused. McSwain told the boys he would kill them if they ever told anybody about the conversation.
Actually, McSwain decided to kill them anyway. He walked up on the boys two days later as they were plowing a field and asked Harrison to go to the barn for some equipment and Frank to go into the house for some groceries. Harrison dawdled over a plow he was repairing. When he looked up again, McSwain had a shotgun was advancing on the unsuspecting Frank.
"Look out!" Harrison yelled. Frank jumped out of the way of the first blast from McSwain's shotgun and took off running. McSwain pulled the trigger again. This time Frank was hit and he went down with buckshot in his back and the left side of his head.
McSwain walked up on the fallen boy to see if he was dead, and finish him off if he wasn't, but Frank shot him with a pistol he happened to be carrying just in case something like this happened. Harrison arrived to help Frank to his feet. McSwain was still alive, so Frank and Harrison took off running. McSwain went into the house and came back with what's described as a buffalo gun, perhaps a Sharps .50, and he went looking for the boys on horseback but Frank and Harrison remained out of sight. Eventually, McSwain gave up.
It took a long time for Frank's wounds to heal. When they did he saddled up and rode over to McSwain's house to even things up. Frank Hamer's arrival amazed McSwain. He told Frank, "I thought I killed you."
"Not by a damned sight. I've come to settle accounts."
Both men went for their guns. We don't know who shot first, but we do know that McSwain was the one who fell to the ground, dead.
A year after shooting McSwain, Frank found himself working on the Pecos Ranch near Sheffield for Barry Ketchum, the brother of notorious outlaw "Black Jack" Ketchum. Later, while cowboying on the Carr Ranch, he offered the local sheriff his services in apprehending a horse thief. After Hamer apprehended said thief the sheriff enthusiastically recommended Frank as a Texas Ranger.
Frank Hamer worked the border around Del Rio for a couple of years then took a job as a city marshal in Navasota, which had been gripped by racially-motivated riots and killings. Three years later, he had worked himself out of a job. When he rejoined the Rangers again in 1915, he was stationed again along the border until he quit to be a prohibition agent. He was back with the Rangers by 1921.
In 1932, when the Texas Ranger-hating Miriam "Ma" Ferguson was elected governor, Hamer quit the Rangers for good. The prison system hired him as a special investigator to hunt down Bonnie and Clyde, which he dutifully and historically did. By that time automobiles had replaced horses and tommy guns had taken the place of buffalo guns. Hamer fascinates us today because he lived forcefully in both of those worlds, spanning the era of the Old West with the Roaring Twenties.
Against all odds, Frank Hamer died of natural causes in July of 1955, at the age of 71. His body was sprinkled with bullet and knife scars, including several from when McSwain shot Hamer and learned the hard way that Hamer was not one to back down from a fight or go down easy.
