BALLINGER -- The saying "one riot, one ranger" could have been written for his father, Garrett "Mac" McWilliams said.

The 83-year-old Hill Country resident, whose friends call him Mac, is the son of West Texas lawman R.E. "Earl" McWilliams.

"Dad was a Texas Ranger and a law officer nearly all of his life," Mac said.

The Texas Ranger Memorial Cross Program will place a cross with the Ranger circle star badge on Earl McWilliams' grave Aug. 2.

Perhaps his father's best -- and worst -- moments as a lawman occurred early in his career in 1925, the year he was elected Runnels County sheriff.

That was the year an escaping prisoner threatened McWilliams, who shot the convict in self-defense.

The sheriff later said the incident was one of the biggest regrets of his life.

But the same year he also single-handedly stopped a mob of would-be lynchers.

After a man named John Smith shot McWilliams' close friend Sheriff Richard Pauley of Coleman, mobs threatened to lynch the suspect.

Officials moved Smith from Coleman to Ballinger's newer, stronger jail, where Sheriff McWilliams agreed to protect the man who killed his friend.

Trouble followed.

Mac wrote this about his father's encounter with the angry mob:

"Word traveled as fast as the transfer was made, and a large lynch mob, with some wearing white hoods, gathered in front of the jail in Ballinger, demanding Sheriff McWilliams turn over his prisoner to them.

"Earl McWilliams held a shotgun in his hands as he stood on the steps to the jail. He recognized the leader of the mob, the 'tough drunk' he had arrested for disturbing the peace at the City Cafe.

"'My gun is loaded with scatter shot,' the sheriff said. 'If I have to shoot, it will most likely kill some and seriously hurt others. I hope that doesn't happen.'

"He looked directly at the leader. 'I'm not turning my prisoner over to a mob. He will be tried by a jury. Justice will be served. Now I think it best for everyone to just go home.'

"'And if we don't?' the leader shouted. 'What are you going to do about it?'

"'Then I say you'll be the first to know.'

"The mob leader waited for someone to back him up, and when they didn't, he yelled, 'He's bluffing.'

"The sheriff cocked the shotgun and pointed it directly at the leader's head.

"'Try me,' he said in a calm voice."

McWilliams was named a Texas Ranger in 1931 and served in San Angelo and elsewhere. He was honored as the "most typical" Ranger during the 1936 Texas Centennial Celebration.

He resigned from the Rangers in 1944 and returned to West Texas to serve as a deputy sheriff in Reagan County, Ozona and McCamey.

He never slowed down. Even in his later years, the 6-foot, 155-pound lawman was a force to be reckoned with.

"Dad was a fighter," Mac said. "He was tough. As a deputy sheriff in Ozona, when Dad was in his 60s, he walked into a bar to make an arrest, and the men there tried to mob him. Dad pulled out his blackjack, and by the time he was through, four of them were on the floor, and he was making his arrest."

Even a tough Texas lawman can't dodge death forever.

Cancer killed Earl McWilliams in 1949 in San Angelo. He was 66.

Mac has many fond memories of his father and of growing up in the Runnels County Jail, the stone building that still stands beside the courthouse.

Mac, his parents and his nine brothers and sisters all lived on the bottom floor of the jail.

"Mom cooked food for the prisoners -- the same food she served us," he remembered. "The prisoners loved Mom. They didn't care for Dad too much."

Mac and one of his three surviving siblings will return to Ballinger for the special ceremony.

Mac estimates as many as 70 of the sheriff's descendants will attend as well as friends, law officers and history buffs.

"We'll all tell stories about Dad," Mac said. "A lot of them will be funny."