CLEANING OUT LINROCK
Not much sleep visited me that night. In the morning, the young ladies
not stirring and no prospects of duty for me, I rode down to town.
Sight of the wide street, lined by its hitching posts and saddled
horses, the square buildings with their ugly signs, unfinished yet old,
the lounging, dust-gray men at every corner--these awoke in me a
significance that had gone into oblivion overnight.
That last talk with Miss Sampson had unnerved me, wrought strangely upon
me. And afterward, waking and dozing, I had dreamed, lived in a warm,
golden place where there were music and flowers and Sally's spritelike
form leading me on after two tall, beautiful lovers, Diane and Vaughn,
walking hand in hand.
Fine employment of mind for a Ranger whose single glance down a quiet
street pictured it with darkgarbed men in grim action, guns spouting
red, horses plunging!
In front of Hoden's restaurant I dismounted and threw my bridle. Jim was
unmistakably glad to see me.
"Where've you been? Morton was in an' powerful set on seein' you. I
steered him from goin' up to Sampson's. What kind of a game was you
givin' Frank?"
"Jim, I just wanted to see if he was a safe rancher to make a stock deal
for me."
"He says you told him he didn't have no yellow streak an' that he was a
rustler. Frank can't git over them two hunches. When he sees you he's
goin' to swear he's no rustler, but he _has_ got a yellow streak,
unless..."
This little, broken-down Texan had eyes like flint striking fire.
"Unless?" I queried sharply.
Jim breathed a deep breath and looked around the room before his gaze
fixed again on mine.
"Wal," he replied, speaking low, "Me and Frank allows you've picked the
right men. It was me that sent them letters to the Ranger captain at
Austin. Now who in hell are you?"
It was my turn to draw a deep breath.
I had taken six weeks to strike fire from a Texan whom I instinctively
felt had been prey to the power that shadowed Linrock. There was no one
in the room except us, no one passing, nor near.
Reaching into the inside pocket of my buckskin vest, I turned the lining
out. A star-shaped, bright, silver object flashed as I shoved it, pocket
and all, under Jim's hard eyes.
He could not help but read; United States Deputy Marshall.
"By golly," he whispered, cracking the table with his fist. "Russ, you
sure rung true to me. But never as a cowboy!"
"Jim, the woods is full of us!"
Heavy footsteps sounded on the walk. Presently Steele's bulk darkened
the door.
"Hello," I greeted. "Steele, shake hands with Jim Hoden."
"Hello," replied Steele slowly. "Say, I reckon I know Hoden."
"Nit. Not this one. He's the old Hoden. He used to own the Hope So
saloon. It was on the square when he ran it. Maybe he'll get it back
pretty soon. Hope so!"
I laughed at my execrable pun. Steele leaned against the counter, his
gray glance studying the man I had so oddly introduced.
Hoden in one flash associated the Ranger with me--a relation he had not
dreamed of. Then, whether from shock or hope or fear I know not, he
appeared about to faint.
"Hoden, do you know who's boss of this secret gang of rustlers
hereabouts?" asked Steele bluntly.
It was characteristic of him to come sharp to the point. His voice,
something deep, easy, cool about him, seemed to steady Hoden.
"No," replied Hoden.
"Does anybody know?" went on Steele.
"Wal, I reckon there's not one honest native of Pecos who _knows_."
"But you have your suspicions?"
"We have."
"You can keep your suspicions to yourself. But you can give me your idea
about this crowd that hangs round the saloons, the regulars."
"Jest a bad lot," replied Hoden, 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 steer, steal, rob, anythin' for a
little money to drink an' gamble. Jest a bad lot!
"But the strangers as are always comin' an' goin'--strangers that never
git acquainted--some of them are likely to be _the_ rustlers. Bill an'
Bo Snecker are in town now. Bill's a known cattle-thief. Bo's no good,
the makin' of a gun-fighter. He heads thet way.
"They might be rustlers. But the boy, he's hardly careful enough for
this gang. Then there's Jack Blome. He comes to town often. He lives up
in the hills. He always has three or four strangers with him. Blome's
the fancy gun fighter. He shot a gambler here last fall. Then he was in
a fight in Sanderson lately. Got two cowboys then.
"Blome's killed a dozen Pecos men. He's a rustler, too, but I reckon
he's not the brains of thet secret outfit, if he's in it at all."
Steele appeared pleased with Hoden's idea. Probably it coincided with
the one he had arrived at himself.
"Now, I'm puzzled over this," said Steele. "Why do men, apparently
honest men, seem to be so close-mouthed here? Is that a fact or only my
impression?"
"It's sure a fact," replied Hoden darkly. "Men have lost cattle an'
property in Linrock--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."
Steele's face wore a dark, somber sternness.
Rustling cattle was not intolerable. Western Texas had gone on
prospering, growing in spite of the horde of rustlers ranging its vast
stretches; but this cold, secret, murderous hold on a little struggling
community was something too strange, too terrible for men to stand long.
It had waited for a leader like Steele, and now it could not last.
Hoden's revived spirit showed that.
The ranger was about to speak again when the clatter of hoofs
interrupted him. Horses halted out in front.
A motion of Steele's hand caused me to dive through a curtained door
back of Hoden's counter. I turned to peep out and was in time to see
George Wright enter with the red-headed cowboy called Brick.
That was the first time I had ever seen Wright come into Hoden's. He
called for tobacco.
If his visit surprised Jim he did not show any evidence. But Wright
showed astonishment as he saw the Ranger, and then a dark glint flitted
from the eyes that shifted from Steele to Hoden and back again.
Steele leaned easily against the counter, and he said good morning
pleasantly. Wright deigned no reply, although he bent a curious and hard
scrutiny upon Steele. In fact, Wright evinced nothing that would lead
one to think he had any respect for Steele as a man or as a Ranger.
"Steele, that was the second break of yours last night," he said
finally. "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 Steele something which forbade that kind of talk.
It certainly was not nerve Wright showed; men of courage were seldom
intolerant; and with the matchless nerve that characterized Steele or
the great gunmen of the day there went a cool, unobtrusive manner, a
speech brief, almost gentle, certainly courteous. Wright 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!
The way Steele looked at Wright was joy to me. I hated this smooth,
dark-skinned Southerner. But, of course, an ordinary affront like
Wright's only earned silence from Steele.
"I'm thinking you used your Ranger bluff just to get near Diane
Sampson," Wright sneered. "Mind you, if you come up there again there'll
be hell!"
"You're damn right there'll be hell!" retorted Steele, a kind of high
ring in his voice. I saw thick, dark red creep into his face.
Had Wright's incomprehensible mention of Diane Sampson been an instinct
of love--of jealousy? Verily, it had pierced into the depths of the
Ranger, probably as no other thrust could have.
"Diane Sampson wouldn't stoop to know a dirty blood-tracker like
you," said Wright hotly. His was not a deliberate intention to rouse
Steele; the man was simply rancorous. "I'll call you right, you cheap
bluffer! You four-flush! You damned interfering conceited Ranger!"
Long before Wright ended his tirade Steele's face had lost the tinge of
color, so foreign to it in moments like this; and the cool shade, the
steady eyes like ice on fire, the ruthless lips had warned me, if they
had not Wright.
"Wright, I'll not take offense, because you seem to be championing your
beautiful cousin," replied Steele in slow speech, biting. "But let me
return your compliment. You're a fine Southerner! Why, you're only a
cheap four-flush--damned bull-headed--_rustler_"
Steele hissed the last word. Then for him--for me--for Hoden--there was
the truth in Wright's working passion-blackened face.
Wright jerked, moved, meant to draw. But how slow! Steele lunged
forward. His long arm swept up.
And Wright staggered backward, knocking table and chairs, to fall hard,
in a half-sitting posture, against the wall.
"Don't draw!" warned Steele.
"Wright, get away from your gun!" yelled the cowboy Brick.
But Wright was crazed by fury. He tugged at his hip, his face corded
with purple welts, malignant, murderous, while he got to his feet.
I was about to leap through the door when Steele shot. Wright's gun went
ringing to the floor.
Like a beast in pain Wright screamed. Frantically he waved a limp arm,
flinging blood over the white table-cloths. Steele had crippled him.
"Here, you cowboy," ordered Steele; "take him out, quick!"
Brick saw the need of expediency, if Wright did not realize it, and he
pulled the raving man out of the place. He hurried Wright down the
street, leaving the horses behind.
Steele calmly sheathed his gun.
"Well, I guess that opens the ball," he said as I came out.
Hoden seemed fascinated by the spots of blood on the table-cloths. It
was horrible to see him rubbing his hands there like a ghoul!
"I tell you what, fellows," said Steele, "we've just had a few pleasant
moments with the man who has made it healthy to keep close-mouthed in
Linrock."
Hoden lifted his shaking hands.
"What'd you wing him for?" he wailed. "He was drawin' on you. Shootin'
arms off men like him won't do out here."
I was inclined to agree with Hoden.
"That bull-headed fool will roar and butt himself with all his gang
right into our hands. He's just the man I've needed to meet. Besides,
shooting him would have been murder for me!"
"Murder!" exclaimed Hoden.
"He was a fool, and slow at that. Under such circumstances could I kill
him when I didn't have to?"
"Sure it'd been the trick." declared Jim positively. "I'm not allowin'
for whether he's really a rustler or not. It just won't do, because
these fellers out here ain't goin' to be afraid of you."
"See here, Hoden. If a man's going to be afraid of me at all, that trick
will make him more afraid of me. I know it. It works out. When Wright
cools down he'll remember, he'll begin to think, he'll realize that I
could more easily have killed him than risk a snapshot at his arm. I'll
bet you he goes pale to the gills next time he even sees me."
"That may be true, Steele. But if Wright's the man you think he is he'll
begin that secret underground bizness. It's been tolerable healthy these
last six months. You can gamble on this. If thet secret work does
commence you'll have more reason to suspect Wright. I won't feel very
safe from now on.
"I heard you call him rustler. He knows thet. Why, Wright won't sleep at
night now. He an' Sampson have always been after me."
"Hoden, what are your eyes for?" demanded Steele. "Watch out. And now
here. See your friend Morton. Tell him this game grows hot. Together you
approach four or five men you know well and can absolutely trust.
"Hello, there's somebody coming. You meet Russ and me to-night, out in
the open a quarter of a mile, straight from the end of this street.
You'll find a pile of stones. Meet us there to-night at ten o'clock."
The next few days, for the several hours each day that I was in town, I
had Steele in sight all the time or knew that he was safe under cover.
Nothing happened. His presence in the saloons or any place where men
congregated was marked by a certain uneasy watchfulness on the part of
almost everybody, and some amusement on the part of a few.
It was natural to suppose that the lawless element would rise up in a
mass and slay Steele on sight. But this sort of thing never happened. It
was not so much that these enemies of the law awaited his next move, but
just a slowness peculiar to the frontier.
The ranger was in their midst. He was interesting, if formidable. He
would have been welcomed at card tables, at the bars, to play and drink
with the men who knew they were under suspicion.
There was a rude kind of good humor even in their open hostility.
Besides, one Ranger, or a company of Rangers could not have held the
undivided attention of these men from their games and drinks and
quarrels except by some decided move. Excitement, greed, appetite were
rife in them.
I marked, however, a striking exception to the usual run of strangers I
had been in the habit of seeing. The Sneckers had gone or were under
cover. Again I caught a vague rumor of the coming of Jack Blome, yet he
never seemed to arrive.
Moreover, the goings-on among the habitues of the resorts and the
cowboys who came in to drink and gamble were unusually mild in
comparison with former conduct.
This lull, however, did not deceive Steele and me. It could not last.
The wonder was that it had lasted so long.
There was, of course, no post office in Linrock. A stage arrived twice
a week from Sanderson, if it did not get held up on the way, and the
driver usually had letters, which he turned over to the elderly keeper
of a little store.
This man's name was Jones, and everybody liked him. On the evenings the
stage arrived there was always a crowd at his store, which fact was a
source of no little revenue to him.
One night, so we ascertained, after the crowd had dispersed, two thugs
entered his store, beat the old man and robbed him. He made no
complaint; however, when Steele called him he rather reluctantly gave
not only descriptions of his assailants, but their names.
Steele straightaway went in search of the men and came across them in
Lerett's place. I was around when it happened.
Steele strode up to a table which was surrounded by seven or eight men
and he tapped Sim Bass on the shoulder.
"Get up, I want you," he said.
Bass looked up only to see who had accosted him.
"The hell you say!" he replied impudently.
Steele's big hand shifted to the fellow's collar. One jerk, seemingly no
effort at all, sent Bass sliding, chair and all, to crash into the bar
and fall in a heap. He lay there, wondering what had struck him.
"Miller, I want you. Get up," said Steele.
Miller complied with alacrity. A sharp kick put more life and
understanding into Bass.
Then Steele searched these men right before the eyes of their comrades,
took what money and weapons they had, and marched them out, followed by
a crowd that gathered more and more to it as they went down the street.
Steele took his prisoners into Jones' store, had them identified;
returned the money they had stolen, and then, pushing the two through
the gaping crowd, he marched them down to his stone jail and locked them
up.
Obviously the serious side of this incident was entirely lost upon the
highly entertained audience. Many and loud were the coarse jokes cracked
at the expense of Bass and Miller and after the rude door had closed
upon them similar remarks were addressed to Steele's jailer and guard,
who in truth, were just as disreputable looking as their prisoners.
Then the crowd returned to their pastimes, leaving their erstwhile
comrades to taste the sweets of prison life.
When I got a chance I asked Steele if he could rely on his hired hands,
and with a twinkle in his eye which surprised me as much as his reply,
he said Miller and Bass would have flown the coop before morning.
He was right. When I reached the lower end of town next morning, the
same old crowd, enlarged by other curious men and youths, had come to
pay their respects to the new institution.
Jailer and guard were on hand, loud in their proclamations and
explanations. Naturally they had fallen asleep, as all other hard
working citizens had, and while they slept the prisoners made a hole
somewhere and escaped.
Steele examined the hole, and then engaged a stripling of a youth to see
if he could crawl through. The youngster essayed the job, stuck in the
middle, and was with difficulty extricated.
Whereupon the crowd evinced its delight.
Steele, without more ado, shoved his jailer and guard inside his jail,
deliberately closed, barred and chained the iron bolted door, and put
the key in his pocket. Then he remained there all day without giving
heed to his prisoners' threats.
Toward evening, having gone without drink infinitely longer than was
customary, they made appeals, to which Steele was deaf.
He left the jail, however, just before dark, and when we met he told me
to be on hand to help him watch that night. We went around the outskirts
of town, carrying two heavy double-barreled shotguns Steele had gotten
somewhere and taking up a position behind bushes in the lot adjoining
the jail; we awaited developments.
Steele was not above paying back these fellows.
All the early part of the evening, gangs of half a dozen men or more
came down the street and had their last treat at the expense of the jail
guard and jailer. These prisoners yelled for drink--not water but drink,
and the more they yelled the more merriment was loosed upon the night
air.
About ten o'clock the last gang left, to the despair of the hungry and
thirsty prisoners.
Steele and I had hugely enjoyed the fun, and thought the best part of
the joke for us was yet to come. The moon had arisen, and though
somewhat hazed by clouds, had lightened the night. We were hidden about
sixty paces from the jail, a little above it, and we had a fine command
of the door.
About eleven o'clock, when all was still, we heard soft steps back of
the jail, and soon two dark forms stole round in front. They laid down
something that gave forth a metallic clink, like a crowbar. We heard
whisperings and then, low, coarse laughs.
Then the rescuers, who undoubtedly were Miller and Bass, set to work to
open the door. Softly they worked at first, but as that door had been
put there to stay, and they were not fond of hard work, they began to
swear and make noises.
Steele whispered to me to wait until the door had been opened, and then
when all four presented a good target, to fire both barrels. We could
easily have slipped down and captured the rescuers, but that was not
Steele's game.
A trick met by a trick; cunning matching craft would be the surest of
all ways to command respect.
Four times the workers had to rest, and once they were so enraged at the
insistence of the prisoners, who wanted to delay proceedings to send one
of them after a bottle, that they swore they would go away and cut the
job altogether.
But they were prevailed upon to stay and attack the stout door once
more. Finally it yielded, with enough noise to have awakened sleepers a
block distant, and forth into the moonlight came rescuers and rescued
with low, satisfied grunts of laughter.
Just then Steele and I each discharged both barrels, and the reports
blended as one in a tremendous boom.
That little compact bunch disintegrated like quicksilver. Two stumbled
over; the others leaped out, and all yelled in pain and terror. Then the
fallen ones scrambled up and began to hobble and limp and jerk along
after their comrades.
Before the four of them got out of sight they had ceased their yells,
but were moving slowly, hanging on to one another in a way that
satisfied us they would be lame for many a day.
Next morning at breakfast Dick regaled me with an elaborate story about
how the Ranger had turned the tables on the jokers. Evidently in a night
the whole town knew it.
Probably a desperate stand of Steele's even to the extreme of killing
men, could not have educated these crude natives so quickly into the
realization that the Ranger was not to be fooled with.
That morning I went for a ride with the girls, and both had heard
something and wanted to know everything. I had become a news-carrier,
and Miss Sampson never thought of questioning me in regard to my fund of
information.
She showed more than curiosity. The account I gave of the jail affair
amused her and made Sally laugh heartily.
Diane questioned me also about a rumor that had come to her concerning
George Wright.
He had wounded himself with a gun, it seemed, and though not seriously
injured, was not able to go about. He had not been up to the ranch for
days.
"I asked papa about him," said, Diane, "and papa laughed like--well,
like a regular hyena. I was dumbfounded. Papa's so queer. He looked
thunder-clouds at me.
"When I insisted, for I wanted to know, he ripped out: 'Yes, the damn
fool got himself shot, and I'm sorry it's not worse.'
"Now, Russ, what do you make of my dad? Cheerful and kind, isn't he?"
I laughed with Sally, but I disclaimed any knowledge of George's
accident. I hated the thought of Wright, let alone anything concerning
the fatal certainty that sooner or later these cousins of his were to
suffer through him.
Sally did not make these rides easy for me, for she was sweeter than
anything that has a name. Since the evening of the dance I had tried to
avoid her. Either she was sincerely sorry for her tantrum or she was
bent upon utterly destroying my peace.
I took good care we were never alone, for in that case, if she ever got
into my arms again I would find the ground slipping from under me.
Despite, however, the wear and constant strain of resisting Sally, I
enjoyed the ride. There was a charm about being with these girls.
Then perhaps Miss Sampson's growing unconscious curiosity in regard to
Steele was no little satisfaction to me.
I pretended a reluctance to speak of the Ranger, but when I did it was
to drop a subtle word or briefly tell of an action that suggested such.
I never again hinted the thing that had been such a shock to her. What
was in her mind I could not guess; her curiosity, perhaps the greater
part, was due to a generous nature not entirely satisfied with itself.
She probably had not abandoned her father's estimate of the Ranger but
absolute assurance that this was just did not abide with her. For the
rest she was like any other girl, a worshipper of the lion in a man, a
weaver of romance, ignorant of her own heart.
Not the least talked of and speculated upon of all the details of the
jail incident was the part played by Storekeeper Jones, who had informed
upon his assailants. Steele and I both awaited results of this
significant fact.
When would the town wake up, not only to a little nerve, but to the
usefulness of a Ranger?
Three days afterward Steele told me a woman accosted him on the street.
She seemed a poor, hardworking person, plain spoken and honest.
Her husband did not drink enough to complain of, but he liked to gamble
and he had been fleeced by a crooked game in Jack Martin's saloon. Other
wives could make the same complaints. It was God's blessing for such
women that Ranger Steele had come to Linrock.
Of course, he could not get back the lost money, but would it be
possible to close Martin's place, or at least break up the crooked game?
Steele had asked this woman, whose name was Price, how much her husband
had lost, and, being told, he assured her that if he found evidence of
cheating, not only would he get back the money, but also he would shut
up Martin's place.
Steele instructed me to go that night to the saloon in question and get
in the game. I complied, and, in order not to be overcarefully sized up
by the dealer, I pretended to be well under the influence of liquor.
By nine o'clock, when Steele strolled in, I had the game well studied,
and a more flagrantly crooked one I had never sat in. It was barefaced
robbery.
Steele and I had agreed upon a sign from me, because he was not so adept
in the intricacies of gambling as I was. I was not in a hurry, however,
for there was a little frecklefaced cattleman in the game, and he had
been losing, too. He had sold a bunch of stock that day and had
considerable money, which evidently he was to be deprived of before he
got started for Del Rio.
Steele stood at our backs, and I could feel his presence. He thrilled
me. He had some kind of effect on the others, especially the dealer, who
was honest enough while the Ranger looked on.
When, however, Steele shifted his attention to other tables and players
our dealer reverted to his crooked work. I was about to make a
disturbance, when the little cattleman, leaning over, fire in his eye
and gun in hand, made it for me.
Evidently he was a keener and nervier gambler than he had been taken
for. There might have been gun-play right then if Steele had not
interfered.
"Hold on!" he yelled, leaping for our table. "Put up your gun!"
"Who are you?" demanded the cattleman, never moving. "Better keep out of
this."
"I'm Steele. Put up your gun."
"You're thet Ranger, hey?" replied the other. "All right! But just a
minute. I want this dealer to sit quiet. I've been robbed. And I want my
money back."
Certainly the dealer and everyone else round the table sat quiet while
the cattleman coolly held his gun leveled.
"Crooked game?" asked Steele, bending over the table. "Show me."
It did not take the aggrieved gambler more than a moment to prove his
assertion. Steele, however, desired corroboration from others beside the
cattleman, and one by one he questioned them.
To my surprise, one of the players admitted his conviction that the game
was not straight.
"What do you say?" demanded Steele of me.
"Worse'n a hold-up, Mr. Ranger," I burst out. "Let me show you."
Deftly I made the dealer's guilt plain to all, and then I seconded the
cattleman's angry claim for lost money. The players from other tables
gathered round, curious, muttering.
And just then Martin strolled in. His appearance was not prepossessing.
"What's this holler?" he asked, and halted as he saw the cattleman's gun
still in line with the dealer.
"Martin, you know what it's for," replied Steele. "Take your dealer and
dig--unless you want to see me clean out your place."
Sullen and fierce, Martin stood looking from Steele to the cattleman
and then the dealer. Some men in the crowd muttered, and that was a
signal for Steele to shove the circle apart and get out, back to the
wall.
The cattleman rose slowly in the center, pulling another gun, and he
certainly looked business to me.
"Wal, Ranger, I reckon I'll hang round an' see you ain't bothered none,"
he said. "Friend," he went on, indicating me with a slight wave of one
extended gun, "jest rustle the money in sight. We'll square up after the
show."
I reached out and swept the considerable sum toward me, and, pocketing
it, I too rose, ready for what might come.
"You-all give me elbow room!" yelled Steele at Martin and his cowed
contingent.
Steele looked around, evidently for some kind of implement, and, espying
a heavy ax in a corner, he grasped it, and, sweeping it to and fro as if
it had been a buggy-whip, he advanced on the faro layout. The crowd fell
back, edging toward the door.
One crashing blow wrecked the dealer's box and table, sending them
splintering among the tumbled chairs. Then the giant Ranger began to
spread further ruin about him.
Martin's place was rough and bare, of the most primitive order, and like
a thousand other dens of its kind, consisted of a large room with adobe
walls, a rude bar of boards, piles of kegs in a corner, a stove, and a
few tables with chairs.
Steele required only one blow for each article he struck, and he
demolished it. He stove in the head of each keg.
When the dark liquor gurgled out, Martin cursed, and the crowd followed
suit. That was a loss!
The little cattleman, holding the men covered, backed them out of the
room, Martin needing a plain, stern word to put him out entirely. I went
out, too, for I did not want to miss any moves on the part of that gang.
Close behind me came the cattleman, the kind of cool, nervy Texan I
liked. He had Martin well judged, too, for there was no evidence of any
bold resistance.
But there were shouts and loud acclamations; and these, with the
crashing blows of Steele's ax, brought a curious and growing addition to
the crowd.
Soon sodden thuds from inside the saloon and red dust pouring out the
door told that Steele was attacking the walls of Martin's place. Those
adobe bricks when old and crumbly were easily demolished.
Steele made short work of the back wall, and then he smashed out half of
the front of the building. That seemed to satisfy him.
When he stepped out of the dust he was wet with sweat, dirty, and
disheveled, hot with his exertion--a man whose great stature and
muscular development expressed a wonderful physical strength and energy.
And his somber face, with the big gray eyes, like open furnaces,
expressed a passion equal to his strength.
Perhaps only then did wild and lawless Linrock grasp the real
significance of this Ranger.
Steele threw the ax at Martin's feet.
"Martin, don't reopen here," he said curtly. "Don't start another place
in Linrock. If you do--jail at Austin for years."
Martin, livid and scowling, yet seemingly dazed with what had occurred,
slunk away, accompanied by his cronies. Steele took the money I had
appropriated, returned to me what I had lost, did likewise with the
cattleman, and then, taking out the sum named by Mrs. Price, he divided
the balance with the other players who had been in the game.
Then he stalked off through the crowd as if he knew that men who slunk
from facing him would not have nerve enough to attack him even from
behind.
"Wal, damn me!" ejaculated the little cattleman in mingled admiration
and satisfaction. "So thet's that Texas Ranger, Steele, hey? Never seen
him before. All Texas, thet Ranger!"
I lingered downtown as much to enjoy the sensation as to gain the
different points of view.
No doubt about the sensation! In one hour every male resident of
Linrock and almost every female had viewed the wreck of Martin's place.
A fire could not have created half the excitement.
And in that excitement both men and women gave vent to speech they might
not have voiced at a calmer moment. The women, at least, were not afraid
to talk, and I made mental note of the things they said.
"Did he do it all alone?"
"Thank God a _man's_ come to Linrock."
"Good for Molly Price!"
"Oh, it'll make bad times for Linrock."
It almost seemed that all the women were glad, and this was in itself a
vindication of the Ranger's idea of law.
The men, however--Blandy, proprietor of the Hope So, and others of his
ilk, together with the whole brood of idle gaming loungers, and in fact
even storekeepers, ranchers, cowboys--all shook their heads sullenly or
doubtfully.
Striking indeed now was the absence of any joking. Steele had showed his
hand, and, as one gambler said: "It's a hard hand to call."
The truth was, this Ranger Service was hateful to the free-and-easy
Texan who lived by anything except hard and honest work, and it was
damnably hateful to the lawless class. Steele's authority, now obvious
to all, was unlimited; it could go as far as he had power to carry it.
From present indications that power might be considerable. The work of
native sheriffs and constables in western Texas had been a farce, an
utter failure. If an honest native of a community undertook to be a
sheriff he became immediately a target for rowdy cowboys and other
vicious elements.
Many a town south and west of San Antonio owed its peace and prosperity
to Rangers, and only to them. They had killed or driven out the
criminals. They interpreted the law for themselves, and it was only such
an attitude toward law--the stern, uncompromising, implacable
extermination of the lawless--that was going to do for all Texas what it
had done for part.
Steele was the driving wedge that had begun to split Linrock--split the
honest from dominance by the dishonest. To be sure, Steele might be
killed at any moment, and that contingency was voiced in the growl of
one sullen man who said: "Wot the hell are we up against? Ain't somebody
goin' to plug this Ranger?"
It was then that the thing for which Steele stood, the Ranger
Service--to help, to save, to defend, to punish, with such somber menace
of death as seemed embodied in his cold attitude toward resistance--took
hold of Linrock and sunk deep into both black and honest hearts.
It was what was behind Steele that seemed to make him more than an
officer--a man.
I could feel how he began to loom up, the embodiment of a powerful
force--the Ranger Service--the fame of which, long known to this lawless
Pecos gang, but scouted as a vague and distant thing, now became an
actuality, a Ranger in the flesh, whose surprising attributes included
both the law and the enforcement of it.
When I reached the ranch the excitement had preceded me. Miss Sampson
and Sally, both talking at once, acquainted me with the fact that they
had been in a store on the main street a block or more from Martin's
place.
They had seen the crowd, heard the uproar; and, as they had been
hurriedly started toward home by their attendant Dick, they had
encountered Steele stalking by.
"He looked grand!" exclaimed Sally.
Then I told the girls the whole story in detail.
"Russ, is it true, just as you tell it?" inquired Diane earnestly.
"Absolutely. I know Mrs. Price went to Steele with her trouble. I was in
Martin's place when he entered. Also I was playing in the crooked game.
And I saw him wreck Martin's place. Also, I heard him forbid Martin to
start another place in Linrock."
"Then he does do splendid things," she said softly, as if affirming to
herself.
I walked on then, having gotten a glimpse of Colonel Sampson in the
background. Before I reached the corrals Sally came running after me,
quite flushed and excited.
"Russ, my uncle wants to see you," she said. "He's in a bad temper.
Don't lose yours, please."
She actually took my hand. What a child she was, in all ways except that
fatal propensity to flirt. Her statement startled me out of any further
thought of her. Why did Sampson want to see me? He never noticed me. I
dreaded facing him--not from fear, but because I must see more and more
of the signs of guilt in Diane's father.
He awaited me on the porch. As usual, he wore riding garb, but evidently
he had not been out so far this day. He looked worn. There was a furtive
shadow in his eyes. The haughty, imperious temper, despite Sally's
conviction, seemed to be in abeyance.
"Russ, what's this I hear about Martin's saloon being cleaned out?" he
asked. "Dick can't give particulars."
Briefly and concisely I told the colonel exactly what had happened. He
chewed his cigar, then spat it out with an unintelligible exclamation.
"Martin's no worse than others," he said. "Blandy leans to crooked faro.
I've tried to stop that, anyway. If Steele can, more power to him!"
Sampson turned on his heel then and left me with a queer feeling of
surprise and pity.
He had surprised me before, but he had never roused the least sympathy.
It was probably that Sampson was indeed powerless, no matter what his
position.
I had known men before who had become involved in crime, yet were too
manly to sanction a crookedness they could not help.
Miss Sampson had been standing in her door. I could tell she had heard;
she looked agitated. I knew she had been talking to her father.
"Russ, he hates the Ranger," she said. "That's what I fear. It'll bring
trouble on us. Besides, like everybody here, he's biased. He can't see
anything good in Steele. Yet he says: 'More power to him!' I'm
mystified, and, oh, I'm between two fires!"
* * * * *
Steele's next noteworthy achievement was as new to me as it was strange
to Linrock. I heard a good deal about it from my acquaintances, some
little from Steele, and the concluding incident I saw and heard myself.
Andy Vey was a broken-down rustler whose activity had ceased and who
spent his time hanging on at the places frequented by younger and better
men of his kind. As he was a parasite, he was often thrown out of the
dens.
Moreover, it was an open secret that he had been a rustler, and the men
with whom he associated had not yet, to most of Linrock, become known as
such.
One night Vey had been badly beaten in some back room of a saloon and
carried out into a vacant lot and left there. He lay there all that
night and all the next day. Probably he would have died there had not
Steele happened along.
The Ranger gathered up the crippled rustler, took him home, attended to
his wounds, nursed him, and in fact spent days in the little adobe house
with him.
During this time I saw Steele twice, at night out in our rendezvous. He
had little to communicate, but was eager to hear when I had seen Jim
Hoden, Morton, Wright, Sampson, and all I could tell about them, and the
significance of things in town.
Andy Vey recovered, and it was my good fortune to be in the Hope So when
he came in and addressed a crowd of gamesters there.
"Fellers," he said, "I'm biddin' good-by to them as was once my friends.
I'm leavin' Linrock. An' I'm askin' some of you to take thet good-by an'
a partin' word to them as did me dirt.
"I ain't a-goin' to say if I'd crossed the trail of this Ranger years
ago thet I'd of turned round an' gone straight. But mebbe I
would--mebbe. There's a hell of a lot a man doesn't know till too late.
I'm old now, ready fer the bone pile, an' it doesn't matter. But I've
got a head on me yet, an' I want to give a hunch to thet gang who done
me. An' that hunch wants to go around an' up to the big guns of Pecos.
"This Texas Star Ranger was the feller who took me in. I'd of died like
a poisoned coyote but fer him. An' he talked to me. He gave me money to
git out of Pecos. Mebbe everybody'll think he helped me because he
wanted me to squeal. To squeal who's who round these rustler diggin's.
Wal, he never asked me. Mebbe he seen I wasn't a squealer. But I'm
thinkin' he wouldn't ask a feller thet nohow.
"An' here's my hunch. Steele has spotted the outfit. Thet ain't so much,
mebbe. But I've been with him, an' I'm old figgerin' men. Jest as sure
as God made little apples he's a goin' to put thet outfit through--or
he's a-goin' to kill them!"