A Texas Ranger

A Texas Ranger

The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Texas Ranger, by William
MacLeod Raine (#5 in our series by William MacLeod Raine)
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Title: A Texas Ranger
Author: William MacLeod Raine
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4993] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 7,
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Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A TEXAS
RANGER ***

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A Texas Ranger
By William MacLeod Raine, 1910
FOREWORD TO YE GENTLE READER.
Within the memory of those of us still on the sunny side of forty the
more remote West has passed from rollicking boyhood to its
responsible majority. The frontier has gone to join the good Indian. In
place of the ranger who patrolled the border for "bad men" has come
the forest ranger, type of the forward lapping tide of civilization. The
place where I write this-- Tucson, Arizona-- is now essentially more
civilized than New York. Only at the moving picture shows can the old
West, melodramatically overpainted, be shown to the manicured sons
and daughters of those, still living, who brought law and order to the
mesquite.
As Arthur Chapman, the Western poet, has written:
No loopholes now are framing Lean faces, grim and brown; No more
keen eyes are aiming To bring the redskin down. The plough team's
trappings jingle Across the furrowed field, And sounds domestic
mingle Where valor hung its shield. But every wind careering Seems
here to breathe a song-- A song of brave frontiering-- A saga of the
strong.

Part I
(In Which Steve Plays Second Fiddle)
THE MAN FROM THE PANHANDLE

CHAPTER I
A DESERT MEETING
As she lay crouched in the bear-grass there came to the girl clearly the
crunch of wheels over disintegrated granite. The trap had dipped into a
draw, but she knew that presently it would reappear on the winding
road. The knowledge smote her like a blast of winter, sent chills racing
down her spine, and shook her as with an ague. Only the desperation of
her plight spurred her flagging courage.
Round the bend came a pair of bays hitched to a single-seated open rig.
They were driven by a young man, and as he reached the summit he
drew up opposite her and looked down into the valley.
It lay in a golden glow at their feet, a basin of pure light and silence
stretching mile on mile to the distant edge of jagged mountain-line
which formed its lip. Sunlight strong as wine flooded a clean world, an
amber Eden slumbering in an unbroken, hazy dream primeval.
"Don't move!"
At the summons the driver swung his head sharply to a picture he will
never forget. A young woman was standing on the bank at the edge of
the road covering him with a revolver, having apparently just stepped
from behind the trunk of the cottonwood beside her. The color had fled
her cheeks even to the edge of the dull red-copper waves of hair, but he
could detect in her slim young suppleness no doubt or uncertainty. On
the contrary, despite her girlish freshness, she looked very much like
business. She was like some young wild creature of the forest cornered
and brought to bay, but the very terror in her soul rendered her more
dangerous. Of the heart beating like a trip-hammer the gray unwinking
eyes that looked into hers read nothing. She had schooled her taut
nerves to obedience, and they answered her resolute will steadily
despite fluttering pulses.
"Don't move!" she said again.

"What do you want?" he asked harshly.
"I want your team," she panted.
"What for?"
"Never mind. I want it."
The rigor of his gaze slowly softened to a smile compound both of
humor and grimness. He was a man to appreciate a piquant situation,
none the less because