These were rangers in the bes European and American traditions, local men who were adapted to their environment and skilled in war on the plains, willing to protect their families and friends at all costs, usually by preemptive strikes against the Comanche, Kiowa, and Lipan Apache deep in their sanctuary of grass, the llano estacado. These guerilla fighters rode fast horses and carried lances, smoothbore shotguns, and sharp knives. They terrified the Comanche and Lipan Apaches when few men could.
Hang on Doc, if yer gonna partake of hyperbole ya gotta back it up.
Throughout the ENTIRE North American Frontier period the "kill ratio" was heavily in favor of the Natives, Indian warfare routinely involving feats of hardship to which only a handfull of Euros ever aspired.
In the Texas period the Comanches and Kiowas were routinely faced with enemies on the scale of Placido and his Tonkawas, who would RUN to the fight, planning on equipping themselves with the mounts of dead Comanches, and did.
In the Texas period the Comanches were being absolutely hammered by a variety of Native enemies, who inflicted a collective Comanche death toll far exceeding the best efforts of the Texas Rangers. Ya Captains Moore, Hays, Ford and their ilk were remarkable men who succeeded in inflicting losses, but so was a Placido of the Tonkawas, or a Wildcat of the Seminoles, or any number of Cherokee, Shawnee, Pawnee or Delaware enemies, to name just some.
Worth noting too that most times, when the Rangers DID connect, most often it was when following Native guides. Those expeditions WITHOUT such guides were most often a swing-and-a-miss.
Likewise you'll be hard pressed to come up with unusual Comanche slaughter even after the vaunted introduction of the revolver. Before ya can shoot someone, ya gotta get within range. All through even the Hays period, Comanches were raiding at will all along the Texas Frontier in general, and within the city limts of Austin (even small as it was back then) in particular.
Why did the Texans prevail? Same old story; disease, and population demographics, the majority of Indians died without ever seeing a White man, and all the time the country was filling up with a veritable flood of Euros.
Read Smithwick concerning the sad and sordid murder by White horse thieves of Flacco, the Lipan Apache who rode with the Rangers, for his horse, and the subsequent abandonment of the country by Castro's band of Lipans. Typical, and they weren't "terror stricken", rather there were so many hostile Whites moving in it just weren't safe, is all.
During and after the War Between the States, that remnant of Comanches that were still alive and raiding were driving off THOUSANDS of stolen cattle from Texas with impunity, and if ya cant even catch a stolen cattle drive it means you ain't offering much opposition at all.
Birdwatcher
