The Lone Star Ranger: A Romance of the Border, Zane Grey [free ebook reader for iphone .txt] 📗

The rustlers let me hang on to a breedin' herd. Kind of them, ain't it?”

“Sort of kind. All I hear is rustlers, Morton,” replied Duane, with impatience. “You see, I haven't ever lived long in a rustler-run county. Who heads the gang, anyway?”

Morton looked at Duane with a curiously amused smile, then snapped his big jaw as if to shut in impulsive words.

“Look here, Morton. It stands to reason, no matter how strong these rustlers are, how hidden their work, however involved with supposedly honest men—they CAN'T last.”

“They come with the pioneers, an' they'll last till thar's a single steer left,” he declared.

“Well, if you take that view of circumstances I just figure you as one of the rustlers.”

Morton looked as if he were about to brain Duane with the butt of his whip. His anger flashed by then, evidently as unworthy of him, and, something striking him as funny, he boomed out a laugh.

“It's not so funny,” Duane went on. “If you're going to pretend a yellow streak, what else will I think?”

“Pretend?” he repeated.

“Sure. I know men of nerve. And here they're not any different from those in other places. I say if you show anything like a lack of sand it's all bluff. By nature you've got nerve. There are a lot of men around Fairdale who're afraid of their shadows—afraid to be out after dark—afraid to open their mouths. But you're not one. So I say if you claim these rustlers will last you're pretending lack of nerve just to help the popular idea along. For they CAN'T last. What you need out here is some new blood. Savvy what I mean?”

“Wal, I reckon I do,” he replied, looking as if a storm had blown over him. “Stranger, I'll look you up the next time I come to town.”

Then he went out.

Laramie had eyes like flint striking fire.

He breathed a deep breath and looked around the room before his gaze fixed again on Duane.

“Wal,” he replied, speaking low. “You've picked the right men. Now, who in the hell are you?”

Reaching into the inside pocket of his buckskin vest, Duane turned the lining out. A star-shaped bright silver object flashed as he shoved it, pocket and all, under Jim's hard eyes.

“RANGER!” he whispered, cracking the table with his fist. “You sure rung true to me.”

“Laramie, do you know who's boss of this secret gang of rustlers hereabouts?” asked Duane, bluntly. It was characteristic of him to come sharp to the point. His voice—something deep, easy, cool about him—seemed to steady Laramie.

“No,” replied Laramie.

“Does anybody know?” went on Duane.

“Wal, I reckon there's not one honest native who KNOWS.”

“But you have your suspicions?”

“We have.”

“Give me your idea about this crowd that hangs round the saloons—the regulars.”

“Jest a bad lot,” replied Laramie, with the quick assurance of knowledge. “Most of them have been here years. Others have drifted in. Some of them work, odd times. They rustle a few steers, steal, rob, anythin' for a little money to drink an' gamble. Jest a bad lot!”

“Have you any idea whether Cheseldine and his gang are associated with this gang here?”

“Lord knows. I've always suspected them the same gang. None of us ever seen Cheseldine—an' thet's strange, when Knell, Poggin, Panhandle Smith, Blossom Kane, and Fletcher, they all ride here often. No, Poggin doesn't come often. But the others do. For thet matter, they're around all over west of the Pecos.”

“Now I'm puzzled over this,” said Duane. “Why do men—apparently honest men—seem to be so close-mouthed here? Is that a fact, or only my impression?”

“It's a sure fact,” replied Laramie, darkly. “Men have lost cattle an' property in Fairdale—lost them honestly or otherwise, as hasn't been proved. An' in some cases when they talked—hinted a little—they was found dead. Apparently held up an robbed. But dead. Dead men don't talk! Thet's why we're close mouthed.”

Duane felt a dark, somber sternness. Rustling cattle was not intolerable. Western Texas had gone on prospering, growing in spite of the hordes of rustlers ranging its vast stretches; but a cold, secret, murderous hold on a little struggling community was something too strange, too terrible for men to stand long.

The ranger was about to speak again when the clatter of hoofs interrupted him. Horses halted out in front, and one rider got down. Floyd Lawson entered. He called for tobacco.

If his visit surprised Laramie he did not show any evidence. But Lawson showed rage as he saw the ranger, and then a dark glint flitted from the eyes that shifted from Duane to Laramie and back again. Duane leaned easily against the counter.

“Say, that was a bad break of yours,” Lawson said. “If you come fooling round the ranch again there'll be hell.”

It seemed strange that a man who had lived west of the Pecos for ten years could not see in Duane something which forbade that kind of talk. It certainly was not nerve Lawson showed; men of courage were seldom intolerant. With the matchless nerve that characterized the great gunmen of the day there was a cool, unobtrusive manner, a speech brief, almost gentle, certainly courteous. Lawson was a hot-headed Louisianian of French extraction; a man, evidently, who had never been crossed in anything, and who was strong, brutal, passionate, which qualities in the face of a situation like this made him simply a fool.

“I'm saying again, you used your ranger bluff just to get near Ray Longstreth,” Lawson sneered. “Mind you, if you come up there again there'll be hell.”

“You're right. But not the kind you think,” Duane retorted, his voice sharp and cold.

“Ray Longstreth wouldn't stoop to know a dirty blood-tracker like you,” said Lawson, hotly. He did not seem to have a deliberate intention to rouse Duane; the man was simply rancorous, jealous. “I'll call you right. You cheap bluffer! You four-flush! You damned interfering, conceited ranger!”

“Lawson, I'll not take offense, because you seem to be championing your beautiful cousin,” replied Duane, in slow speech. “But let me return your compliment. You're a fine Southerner! Why, you're only a cheap four-flush—damned, bull-headed RUSTLER!”

Duane hissed the last word. Then for him there was the truth in Lawson's working passion-blackened face.

Lawson jerked, moved, meant to draw. But how slow! Duane lunged forward. His long arm swept up. And Lawson staggered backward, knocking table and chairs, to fall hard, in a half-sitting posture against the wall.