Sheriff Smith, who was called into the country with his hounds Monday night to hunt down a negro charged with raping a white lady near Forney, returned yesterday after a wild goose chase of about forty miles. Nobody could tell him the name of the lady or of the fiend, but parties attempted to describe the latter, on the strength of which description the Sheriff arrested three colored men, two at Mesquite and one at the depot, none of whom could be identified, and all of whom were consequently discharged.

Note: There's a Sheriff John A. Smith living in Forney in the 1880 Census, born 1841 in Tennessee.