WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE OH, YOU TEX! TEXAS OH, YOU TEX! BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE n AUTHOR OF A MAN FOUR SQUARE, THE SHERIFF'S SON, THE YUKON TRAIL, ETC. GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Made in the United States of America IQIO, BY THE STORY-PRESS CORPORATION COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAXNB AW. RIGHTS RESERVED T0 SAM F. DUNN OF AMABILLO, TEXAS INSPECTOR OP CATTLE IN THE DAYS OF THE LONGHORN DRIVES TO WHOSE EXPERIENCE AND GENEROUS I AM INDEBTED FOR AID IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS BOOK 913933 CONTENTS I. THE LINE-RIDER ....... 3 II. "I'LL BE SEVENTEEN, COMING GRASS" . . 12 III. TEX TAKES AN INTEREST 18 IV. TEX GRANDSTANDS 26 V. CAPTAIN ELLISON HIRES A HAND ... 38 VI. CLINT WADLEY'S MESSENGER .... 44 VII. THE DANCE 54 VIII. RUTHERFORD MAKES A MISTAKE .... 62 IX. MURDER IN THE CHAPARRAL .... 69 X. "A DAMNED POOR APOLOGY FOR A MAN" . 75 XI. ONE TO FOUR , 79 XII. TEX REARRANGES THE SEATING .... 89 XIII. "ONLY ONE MOB, AIN'T THERE ?" . . .99 XIV. JACK SERVES NOTICE 108 XV. A CLOSE SHAVE 113 XVI. WADLEY GOES HOME IN A BUCKBOARD . . 122 XVII. OLD-TIMERS 132 XVIII. A SHOT OUT OF THE NIGHT 138 XIX. TRAPPED 146 XX. KlOWAS ON THE WARPATH 156 XXI. TEX TAKES A LONG WALK 166 XXII. THE TEST 174 XXIII. A SHY YOUNG MAN DINES 179 XXIV. TEX BORROWS A BLACKSNAKE .... 184 XXV. "THEY'RE RUNNIN' ME OUTA TOWN" . 191 Contents XXVI. FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES . XXVII. CLINT FREES HIS MIND 203 XXVIII. ON A COLD TRAIL 211 XXIX. BURNT BRANDS c 219 XXX. ROGUES DISAGREE 226 XXXI. A PAIR OF DEUCES 237 XXXII. THE HOLD-UP 245 XXXIII. THE MAN WITH THE YELLOW STREAK . 251 XXXIV. RAMONA GOES DUCK-HUNTING . . . 258 XXXV. THE DESERT 266 XXXVI. HOMER DINSMORE ESCORTS RAMONA . . 272 XXXVII. ON A HOT TRAIL 279 XXXVIII. DINSMORE TO THE RESCUE . 287 XXXIX. A CRY OUT OF THE NIGHT .... 292 XL. GURLEY'S GET-AWAY 296 XLI. HOMING HEARTS 302 XLII. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION . . . .310 XLIIL TEX RESIGNS 319 XLIV. DINSMORE GIVES INFORMATION . . . 328 XLV. RAMONA DESERTS HER FATHER ... 332 XLVI. LOOSE THREADS . . 338 OH, YOU TEX! OH, YOU TEX! CHAPTER I THE LINE-RIDER DAT- was breaking in the Panhandle. The line- rider finished his breakfast of buffalo-hump, eoffee, and biscuits. He had eaten heartily, for it would be long after sunset before he touched food again. Cheerfully and tunelessly he warbled a cow- boy ditty as he packed his supplies and prepared to go. "Oh, it's bacon and beans most every day, I'd as lief be eatin' prairie hay." While he washed his dishes in the fine sand and rinsed them in the current of the creek he announced jocundly to a young world glad with spring: "I'll sell my outfit soon as I can, Won't punch cattle for no damn* man." The tin cup beat time against the tin plate to accompany a kind of shuffling dance. Jack Rob- erts was fifty miles from nowhere, alone on the desert, but the warm blood of youth set his feet to moving. Why should he not dance? He was one and twenty, stood five feet eleven in his 4 Oh, You Tex! socks, and weighed one hundred and seventy pounds of bone, sinew, and well-packed muscle. A son of blue skies and wide, wind-swept spaces, he had never been ill in his life. Wherefore the sun-kissed world looked good to him. He mounted a horse picketed near the camp and rode out to a remuda of seven cow-ponies grazing in a draw. Of these he roped one and brought it back to camp, where he saddled it with deft swiftness. The line-rider swung to the saddle and put his pony at a jog-trot. He topped a hill and looked across the sunlit mesas which rolled in long swells far as the eye could see. The desert flowered gayly with the purple, pink, and scarlet blos- soms of the cacti and with the white, lilylike buds of the Spanish bayonet. The yucca and the prickly pear were abloom. He swept the panorama with trained eyes. In the distance a little bunch of antelope was moving down to water in single file. On a slope two miles away grazed a small herd of buffalo. No sign of human habitation was written on that vast solitude of space. The cowboy swung to the south and held a steady road gait. With an almost uncanny accu- racy he recognized all signs that had to do with cattle. Though cows, half hidden in the brush, melted into the color of the hillside, he picked them out unerringly. Brands, at a distance so Oh, You Tex! 5 great that a tenderfoot could have made of them only a blur, were plain as a primer to him. Cows that carried on their flanks the A T O, ke turned and started northward. As he re- turned, he would gather up these strays and drive them back to their own range. For in those days, before the barbed wire had reached Texas and crisscrossed it with boundary lines, the cow- boy was a fence more mobile than the wandering stock. It was past noon when Roberts dropped into a draw where an immense man was lying sprawled under a bush. The recumbent man was a moun- tain of flesh; how he ever climbed to a saddle was a miracle; how a little cow-pony carried him was another. Yet there was n* better line-rider in the Panhandle than Jumbo Wilkins. " 'Lo, Texas," the fat man greeted. The young line-rider had won the nickname of "Texas " in New Mexico a year or two before by his aggressive championship of his native State. Somehow the sobriquet had clung to him even after his return to the Panhandle. "'Lo, Jumbo," returned the other. "How?" "Fat like a match. I'm sure losin' flesh. Took up another notch in my belt yestiddy."* Roberts shifted in the saddle, resting his weight on the horn and the ball of one foot for ease. He was a slim, brown youth, hard as nails and tough as whipcord. His eyes were quick and 6 Oh, You Tex! wary. In spite of the imps of mischief that just now lighted them, one got an impression of strength. He might or might not be, in the phrase of the country, a "bad hombre," but it was safe to say he was an efficient one. "Quick consumption, sure," pronounced the younger man promptly. "You don't look to me like you weigh an ounce over three hundred an' fifty pounds. Appetite kind o' gone?" "You're damn whistlin'. I got an ailment, I tell you, Tex. This mo'nin' I did n't eat but a few slices of bacon an' some liT steaks an' a pan or two o' flapjacks an' mebbe nine or ten biscuitSo Afterward I felt kind o' bloated like. I need some sa'saparilla. Now, if I could make out to get off for a few days " "You could get tLat sarsaparilla across the bar at the Bird Cage, couldn't you, Jumbo?" the boy grinned. The whale of a man looked at him reproach- fully. "You never seen me shootin' up no towns or raisin' hell when I was lit up. I can take a drink or leave it alone." "That's right too. Nobody lets it alone more than you do when it can't be got. I've noticed that." "You cayn't devil me, boy. I was punchin' longhorns when yore mammy was paddlin' you for stealin' the sugar. Say, that reminds me. I 'm plumb out o' sugar. Can you loan me some till Oh, You Tex! 7 Pedro gits around? I got to have sugar or I begin to fall off right away," the big man whined. 1 The line-riders chatted casually of the topics that interest men in the land of wide, empty frontiers. Of Indians they had something to say, of their diminishing grub supply more. Jumbo mentioned that he had found an A T O cow dead by a water-hole. They spoke incidentally of the Dinsmore gang, a band of rustlers operating in No Man's Land. They had little news of people, since neither of them had for three weeks seen another human being except Quint Sullivan, the line-rider who fenced the A T O cattle to the east of Roberts. Presently Roberts nodded a good-bye and passed again into the solitude of empty spaces. The land-waves swallowed him. Once more he followed draws, crossed washes, climbed cow- backed hills, picking up drift-cattle as he rode. It was late afternoon when he saw a thin spiral of smoke from a rise of ground. Smoke meant that some human being was abroad in the land, and every man on the range called for investiga- tion. The rider moved forward to reconnoiter. He saw a man, a horse, a cow, a calf, and a fire. When' these five things came together, it meant that somebody was branding. The present busi- ness of Roberts was to find out what brand was on the cow and what one was being run on the flank of the calf. He rode forward at a slow canter. 8 Oh, You Tex! The man beside the fire straightened. He took @ff his hat and swept it in front of him in a semi- circle from left to right. The line-rider under- stood the sign language of the plains. He was being "waved around." The man was serving no- tice upon him to pass in a wide circle. It meant that the dismounted man did not intend to let himself be recognized. The easy deduction was that he was a rustler. The cowboy rode steadily forward. The man beside the fire picked up a rifle lying at his feet and dropped a bullet a few yards in front of tbe advancing man. Roberts drew to a halt. He was armed with a six-shooter, but a revolver was of no use at this distance. For a moment he hesitated. Another bullet lifted a spurt of dust almost at his horse's feet. The line-rider waited for no more definite warning. He waved a hand toward the rustler and shouted down the wind: "Some other day." Quickly he swung his horse to the left and van- ished into an arroyo. Then, without an instant's loss of time, he put his pony swiftly up the rV toward a "rim-rock" edging a mesa. Over to the right was Box Canon, which led to the rough lands of a terrain unknown to Roberts. It was a three-to-one chance that the rustler would disap- pear into the canon. The young man rode fast, putting his bronco Oh, You Tex! 9 at the hills with a rush. He was in a treeless coun- try, covered with polecat brush. Through this he plunged recklessly, taking breaks in the ground without slackening speed in the least. Near the summit of the rise Roberts swung from the saddle and ran forward through the brush, crouching as he moved. With a minimum of noise and a maximum of speed he negotiated the thick shrubbery and reached the gorge. He crept forward cautiously and looked down. Through the shin-oak which grew thick on the edge of the bluff he made out a man on horse- back driving a calf. The mount was a sorrel with white stockings and a splash of white on the nose. The distance was too great for Roberts to make out the features of the rider clearly, though he could see the fellow was dark and slender. The line-rider watched him out of sight, then slithered down the face of the bluff to the sandy wash. He knelt down and studied intently the hoof prints written in the soil. They told him that the left hind hoof of the animal was broken in an odd way. 0/1 2ack Roberts clambered up the steep edge of the gulch and returned to the cow-pony waiting for him with drooping hip and sleepy eyes. "Oh, you Two Bits, we'll amble along and see where our friend is headin' for/% He picked a way down into the canon and fol- lowed the rustler. At the head of the gulch the 10 Oh, You Tex! man on the sorrel had turned to the left. The cowboy turned also in that direction. A sign by the side of the trail confronted him. THIS IS PETE DINSMORE'S ROAD TAKE ANOTHER "The plot sure thickens," grinned Jack* "Reckon I won't take Pete's advice to-day. It don't listen good." He spoke aloud, to himself or to his horse or to the empty world at large, as lonely riders often do on the plains or in the hills, but from the heavens above an answer dropped down to him in a heavy, masterful voice: "Git back along that trail pronto!" Roberts looked up. A flat rock topped the bluff above. From the edge of it the barrel of a rifle projected. Behind it was a face masked by a bandana handkerchief. The combination was a sinister one. If the line-rider was dismayed or even sur- prised, he gave no evidence of it. "Just as you say, stranger. I reckon you're callin' this dance," he admitted. 'You'll be lucky if you don't die of lead-poi^ sonin' inside o' five minutes. No funny business! Git!" The cowboy got. He whirled his pony in its tracks and sent it jogging down the back trail. A tenderfoot would have taken the gulch at break- Oh, You Tex! 11 neck speed. Most old-timers would have found a canter none too fast. But Jack Roberts held to a steady road gait. Not once did he look back but every foot of the way till he had turned a bend in the canon there was an ache in the small of his back. It was a purely sympathetic sensa- tion, for at any moment a bullet might come crashing between the shoulders. Once safely out of range the rider mopped a perspiring face. "Wow! This is your lucky day, Jack. Ain't you got better sense than to trail rustlers with no weapon but a Sunday-School text? Well, here's hopin'! Maybe we'll meet again in the sweet by an' by. You never can always tell." CHAPTER II "I'LL BE SEVENTEEN, COMING GRASS " THE camper looked up from the antelope steak he was frying, to watch a man cross the shallow creek. In the clear morning light of the South- west his eyes had picked the rider out of the sur- rounding landscape nearly an hour before. For at least one fourth of the time since this discov- ery he had been aware that his approaching vis- itor was Pedro Menendez, of the A T O ranch. "Better 'light, son," suggested Roberts. The Mexican flashed a white-toothed smile at the sizzling steak, took one whiff of the coffee and slid from the saddle. Eating was one of the things that Pedro did best. "The ol' man he sen' me," the boy ex- plained. "He wan' you at the ranch." Further explanation waited till the edge of Pedro's appetite was blunted. The line-rider lighted a cigarette and casually asked a question, "Whyfor does he want me?" It developed that the Mexican had been sent to relieve Roberts because the latter was needed to take charge of a trail herd. Not by the flicker of an eyelash [did the line-rider show that this news meant anything to him. It was promotion better pay, a better chance for advancement, Oh, You Tex! 13 an easier life. But Jack Roberts had learned to take good and ill fortune with the impassive face of a gambler. "Keep an eye out for rustlers, Pedro," he ad- vised before he left. "You want to watch Box Canon. Unless I'm 'way off, the Dinsmore gang are operatin' through it. I 'most caught one red- handed the other day. Lucky for me I did n't. You an' Jumbo would 'a' had to bury me out on the lone prairee." Nearly ten hours later Jack Roberts dis- mounted in front of the whitewashed adobe house that was the headquarters of the A T O ranch. On the porch an old cattleman sat slouched in a chair tilted back against the wall, a rundown heel of his boot hitched in the rung. The wrinkled coat he wore hung on him like a sack, and one leg of his trousers had caught at the top of the high boot. The owner of the A T O was a heavy- set, powerful man in the early fifties. Just now he was smoking a corncob pipe. The keen eyes of the cattleman watched lazily the young line-rider come up the walk. Most cowboys walked badly; on horseback they might be kings of the earth, but out of the saddle they rolled like sailors. Clint Wadley noticed that the legs of this young fellow were straight and that he trod the ground lightly as a buck in mating- season. "He'll make a hand," was Wadley's verdict. 14 Oh, You Tex! one he had arrived at after nearly a year of shrewd observation. But no evidence of satisfaction in his employee showed itself in the greeting of the "old man." He grunted what might pass for "Howdy!" if one were an optimist. Roberts explained his presence by saying; "You sent for me, Mr. Wadley." "H'm! That durned fool York done bust his laig. Think you can take a herd up the trail to Tascosa?" "Yes, sir." "That's the way all you brash young colts talk. But how many of 'em will you lose on the way? How sorry will they look when you deliver the herd? That's what I'd like to know." Jack Roberts was paying no attention to the grumbling of his boss for a young girl had come out of the house. She was a slim little thing, with a slender throat that carried the small head like the stem of a rose. Dark, long-lashed eyes, eager and bubbling with laughter, were fixed on Wadley. She had slipped out on tiptoe to sur- prise him. Her soft fingers covered his eyes. "Guess who!" she ordered. "Quit yore foolishness," growled the cattle- man. "Don't you-all see I'm talkin' business?" But the line-rider observed that his arm encir- cled the waist of the girl. With a flash of shy eyes the girl caught sight Oh, You Tex! 15 of Roberts, who had been half hidden from her behind the honeysuckle foliage. "Oh! I did n't know," she cried. The owner of the A T O introduced them. "This is Jack Roberts, one of my trail foremen. Roberts my daughter Ramona. I reckon you can see for yoreself she's plumb spoiled." A soft laugh welled from the throat of the girl. She knew that for her at least her father was all bark and no bite. "It's you that is spoiled, Dad," she said in the slow, sweet voice of the South. "I've been away too long, but now I'm back I mean to bring you up right. Now I'll leave you to your business." The eyes of the girl rested for a moment on those of the line-rider as she nodded good-bye. Jack had never before seen Ramona Wadley, nor for that matter had he seen her brother Ruther- ford. Since he had been in the neighborhood, both of them had been a good deal of the time in Ten- nessee at school, and Jack did not come to the ranch-house once in three months. It was hard to believe that this dainty child was the daughter of such a battered hulk as Clint Wadley. He was what the wind and the sun and the tough South- west had made him. And she she was a daugh- ter of the morning. But Wadley did not release Ramona. "Since you're here you might as well go through with it," he said, "What do you want?" 16 Oh, You Tex! "What does a woman always want?" she asked sweetly, and then answered her own ques- tion. "Clothes and money to buy them lots of it. I'm going to town to-morrow, you know." "H'm!" His grunt was half a chuckle, half a growl. "Do you call yoreself a woman a little bit of a trick like you? Why, I could break you in two." She drew herself up very straight. "I'll be seventeen, coming grass. And it's much more likely, sir, that I'll break you as you'll find out when the bills come in after I've been to town." With that she swung on her heel and vanished inside the house. The proud, fond eyes of the cattleman followed her. It was an easy guess that she was the apple of his eye. But when he turned to business again his man- ner was gruffer than usual. He was a trifle crisper to balance the effect of his new foreman having discovered that he was as putty in the hands of this slip of a girl. "Well, you know where you're at, Roberts. Deliver that herd without any loss for strays, fat, an' in good condition, an' you won't need to go back to line-ridin'. Fall down on the job, an* you'll never get another chance to drive A T O eows." Oh, You Tex! 17 "That's all I ask, Mr. Wadley," the cowboy answered. "An' much obliged for the chance." "Don't thank me. Thank York's busted laig," snapped his chief. "We'll make the gather for the drive to-morrow an' Friday." CHAPTER TEX TAKES AN INTEREST JACK ROBERTS was in two minds whether to stop at the Longhorn saloon. He needed a cook in his trail outfit, and the most likely employment agency in Texas during that decade was the bar- room of a gambling-house. Every man out of a job naturally drifted to the only place of enter- tainment. The wandering eye of the foreman decided the matter for him. It fell upon a horse, and instantly ceased to rove. The cow-pony was tied to a hitching-rack^worn shiny by thousands of reins. On the nose of the bronco was a splash of white. Stockings of the same color marked its legs. The left hind hoof was gashed and broken. The rider communed with himself. "I reckon we'll 'light and take an interest, Jack. Them that looks for, 'finds." He slid from the saddle and rolled a cigarette, after which he made friends with the sorrel and examined carefully the damaged foot. "It's a HT bit of a world after all," he com- mented. "You never can tell who you're liable to meet up with." The foreman drew from its scabbard a revolver and slid it back into place to make sure that it lay easy in its case. "You can't Oh, You Tex! 19 guess for sure what 's likely to happen. I 'd a heap rather be too cautious than have flowers sent me." He sauntered through the open door into the gambling-house. It was a large hall, in the front part of which was the saloon. In the back the side wall to the next building had been ripped out to give more room. There was a space for dancing, as well as roulette, faro, chuckaluck, and poker tables. In one corner a raised stand for the musi- cians had been built. The Longhorn was practically deserted. Not even a game of draw was in progress. The dance- girls were making up for lost sleep, and the patrons of the place were either at work or still in bed. Three men were lined up in front of the bar. One was a tall, lank person, hatchet-faced and sallow. He had a cast in his eye that gave him a sinister expression. The second was slender and trim, black of hair and eye and mustache. His clothes were very good and up to date. The one farthest from the door was a heavy-set, un- wieldy man in jeans, slouchy as to dress and bearing. Perhaps it was the jade eyes of the man that made Roberts decide instantly he was one tough citizen. The line-rider ordered a drink. "Hardware, please," said the bartender curtly. "Enforcin 5 that rule, are they? " asked Roberts casually as his eyes swept over the other men. 20 Oh, You Tex! "That's whatever. Y'betcha. We don't want no *gay cowboys shootin' out our lights. No re- flections, y 'understand." The latest arrival handed over his revolver, and the man behind the bar hung the scabbard on a nail. Half a dozen others were on a shelf be- side it. For the custom on the frontier was that each rider from the range should deposit his weapons at the first saloon he entered. They were returned to him when he called for them just before leaving town. This tended to lessen the number of sudden deaths. "Who you ridin' for, young fellow?" asked the sallow man of Roberts. "For the A T O." The dark young man turned and looked at the cowboy. "So? How long have you been riding for Wadley?" "Nine months." "Don't think I've seen you before." "I'm a line-rider don't often get to the ranch-house." "What ground do you cover?" "From Dry Creek to the rim-rock, and south past Box Canon." Three pair of eyes were focused watchfully on Roberts. The sallow man squirted tobacco at a knot in the floor and rubbed his bristly chin with the palm of a hand. Oh, You Tex! 21 "Kinda lonesome out there, ain't it?" he ven- tured. "That's as how you take it. The country is filled with absentees," admitted Roberts. "Reckoned it was. Never been up that way myself. A sort of a bad-lands proposition, I 've heard tell country creased with arroyos, packed with rocks an' rattlesnakes mostly." The heavy-set man broke in harshly. "Any- body else run cattle there except old man Wad- ley?" "Settlers are comin' in on the other side of the rim-rock. Cattle drift across. I can count half a dozen brands 'most any day." "But you never see strangers." "Don't I?" "I'm askin', do you?" The voice of the older man was heavy and dominant. It occurred to Roberts that he had heard that voice before. "Oh!" Unholy imps of mirth lurked in the alert eyes of the line-rider. "Once in a while I do last Thursday, for instance." The graceful, dark young man straightened as does a private called to attention. "A trapper, maybe?" he said. The cowboy brought his level gaze back from a barefoot negro washing the floor. "Not this time. He was a rustler." j "How do you know?" The high voice of the questioner betrayed excitement. W Oh, You Tex! "I caught him brandin' a calf. He waved me round. I beat him to the Box Canon and saw him ridin' through." "You saw him ridin' through? Where were you?" The startled eyes of the dark young man were fixed on him imperiously. "From the bluff above." "You don't say ! " The voice of the heavy man cut in with jeering irony. The gleam of his jade eyes came through narrow-slitted lids. "Well, did you take him back to the ranch for a necktie party, or did you bury him in the gulch?" The dark young man interrupted irritably. "I'm askin' these questions, Dinsmore. Now you, young fellow what's your name?" "Jack Roberts," answered the cowboy meekly. "About this rustler woulcj you know him again?" The line-rider smiled inscrutably. He did not intend to tell all that he did not know. "He was ridin' a sorrel with a white splash on its nose, white stockin's, an' a bad hoof, the rear one" "You're a damn' liar." The words, flung out from some inner compulsion, as it were, served both as a confession and a challenge. There was a moment of silence, tense and ominous. This was fighting talk. The lank man leaned forward and whispered some remonstrance in the ear of the young fel- Oh, You Tex! 23 low, but his suggestion was waved aside. "I'm runnin' this, Gurley." The rider for the A T O showed neither sur- prise nor anger. He made a business announce- ment without stress or accent. "I expect it's you or me one for a lickin'. Hop to it, Mr. Rustler!" Roberts did not wait for an acceptance of his invitation. He knew that the first two rules of battle are to strike first and to strike hard. His brown fist moved forward as though it had been shot from a gun. The other man crashed back against the wall and hung there dazed for a mo- ment. The knuckles of that lean fist had caught him on the chin. "Give him hell, Ford. You can curry a KT shorthorn like this guy with no trouble a-tall," urged Dinsmore. The [young man needed no urging. He gath- ered himself together and plunged forward. Al- ways he had prided himself on being an athlete. He was the champion boxer of the small town where he had gone to school. Since he had re- turned to the West, he had put on flesh and muscle. But he had dissipated a good deal too, and no man not in the pink of condition had any right to stand up to tough Jack Roberts. While the fight lasted, there was rapid action. Roberts hit harder and cleaner, but the other was the better boxer. He lunged and sidestepped cleverly, showing good foot-work and a nice * Oh, You Tex! judgment of distance. For several minutes he peppered the line-rider with neat hits. Jack bored in for more. He drove a straight left home and closed one of his opponent's eyes. He smashed through the defense of his foe with a power that would not be denied. "Keep a-comin', Ford. You shore have got him goin' south," encouraged Gurley. But the man he called Ford knew it was not true. His breath was coming raggedly. His arms were heavy as though weighted with lead. The science upon which he had prided himself was of no use against this man of steel. Already his head was singing so that he saw hazily. The finish came quickly. The cowboy saw his chance, feinted with his left and sent a heavy body blow to the heart. The knees of the other sagged. He sank down and did not try to rise again. Presently his companions helped him to his feet. "He he took me by surprise," explained the beaten man with a faint attempt at bluster. "I'll bet I did," assented Jack cheerfully. "An' I'm liable to surprise you again if you call me a liar a second time." "You've said about enough, my friend, 5 * snarled the man who had been spoken to as Dins- more. "You get away with this because the fight was on the square, but don't push yore luck too far." Oh, You Tex! 25 The three men passed out of the front door. Roberts turned to the barkeeper. "I reckon the heavy-set one is Pete Dinsmore. The cock-eyed guy must be Steve Gurley. But who is the young fellow I had the mixup with?" The man behind the bar gave information promptly. "He's Rutherford Wadley son of the man who signs yore pay-checks. Say, I heard Buck Nelson needs a mule-skinner, in case you're lookin' for a job." Jack felt a sudden sinking of the heart. He had as good as told the son of his boss that he was a rustler, and on top of that he had given him a first-class lacing. The air-castles he had been building came tumbling down with a crash. He had already dreamed himself from a trail fore- man to the majordomo of the A T O ranch. In- stead of which he was a line-rider out of a job. "Where can I find Nelson?" he asked with a grin that found no echo in his heart. "Lead ine to him/' CHAPTER IV TEX GRANDSTANDS CUNT WADLEY, massive and powerful, slouched back in his chair with one leg thrown over an arm of it. He puffed at a corncob pipe, and through the smoke watched narrowly with keen eyes from under heavy grizzled brows a young man stand- ing on the porch steps. "So now you know what I expect, young fel- low/' he said brusquely. "Take it or leave it; but if you take it, go through." Arthur Ridley smiled. "Thanks, I'll take it.'* The boy was not so much at ease as his man- ner suggested. He knew that the owner of the A T O was an exacting master. The old cattle- man was game himself. Even now he would fight at the drop of the hat if necessary. In the phrase which he had just used, he would "go through" anything he undertook. Men who had bucked blizzards with him in the old days admitted that Clint would do to take along. But Ridley's awe of him was due less to his roughness and to the big place he filled in the life of the Panhandle than to the fact that he was the father of his daughter. It was essential to Arthur's plans that he stand well with the old-timer. Though he did not happen to know it, young Oh, You Tex! 27 Ridley was a favorite of the cattle king. He had been wished on him by an old friend, but there was something friendly and genial about the boy that won a place for him. His smile was modest and disarming, and his frank face was better than any letter of recommendation. But though Wadley was prepared to like him, his mind held its reservations. The boy had come from the East, and the standards of that section are not those of the West. The East asks of a man good family, pleasant manners, a decent reputa- tion, and energy enough to carry a man to suc- cess along conventional lines. In those days the frontier West demanded first that a man be game, and second that he be one to tie to. He might be good or bad, but whichever he was, he must be efficient to make any mark in the turbu- lent country of the border. Was there a hint of slackness in the jaw of this good-looking boy? Wadley was not sure, but he intended to find out. "You'll start Saturday. I'll meet you at Tas- cosa two weeks from to-day. Understand?" The cattleman knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose. The interview was at an end. Young Ridley nodded. "I'll be there, sir with the six thousand dollars safe as if they were in a vault." "H'm! I see you carry a six-shooter. Can you shoot?" Wadley flung at him abruptly. 28 Oh, You Tex! Arthur Ridley had always fancied himself as a shot. He had belonged to a gun-club at home, and since coming to the Southwest he had prac- ticed a good deal with the revolver. "Pretty well, sir." "Would you if it was up to you?" The youngster looked into the steel-gray eyes roofed by the heavy thatch of brow. "I think so. I never have had to yet. In the East " Wadley waved the East back to where it be- longed. "Yes, I know. But we're talkin' about Texas. Still, I reckon you ought not to have any trouble on this trip. Don't let anybody know why you are at the fort. Don't gamble or drink. Get the money from Major Ponsford and melt away inconspicuous into the brush. Hit the trail hard. A day and a night ought to bring you to Tascosa." The cattleman was leading the way with long strides into an open space back of the house. A pile of empty cans, symbol of the arid lands, lay beside the path. He picked up one and put it on a post. Then he stepped off fifteen paces. "Ventilate it," he ordered. The boy drew his revolver, took a long, steady aim, and fired. The bullet whistled past across the prairie. His second shot scored a clean hit. With pardonable pride he turned to the cattle- man. "Set up another can," commanded Wadley Oh, You Tex! 29 From the pile of empties the young man picked another and put it on the post. Wadley, known in Texas as a two-gun man, flashed into sight a pair of revolvers almost quicker than the eye could follow. Both shots came instantly and together. The cattleman had fired from the hips. Before the can had reached the ground the weapons barked again. Ridley ran forward and picked up the can. It was torn and twisted with jagged holes, but the evidence was written there that all four bullets had pierced the tin. The Easterner could hardly believe his eyes. Such shooting was almost be- yond human skill. The owner of the A T O thrust into place his two forty-fives. "If you're goin' to wear six-shooters, learn to use 'em, son. If you don't, some bad -man is lia- ble to bump you off for practice." As the two men stepped around the corner of the house a girl came down the steps of the porch. She was dressed in summer white, but she herself was spring. Slim and lissome, the dew of childhood was still on her lips, and the mist of it in her eyes. But when she slanted her long lashes toward Arthur Ridley, it was not the child that peeped shyly and eagerly out from beneath them. Her heart was answering the world-old call of youth to youth. "I'm going downtown, Dad," she announced. ro Oh, You Tex! Ridley stepped forward and lifted his hat.