by Zane Grey
“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!”
CHAPTER 6
ENTER JACK BLOME
Strange that the narrating of this incident made Diane Sampson unhappy.
When I told her she exhibited one flash of gladness, such as any woman might have shown for a noble deed and then she became thoughtful, almost gloomy, sad. I could not understand her complex emotions. Perhaps she contrasted Steele with her father; perhaps she wanted to believe in Steele and dared not; perhaps she had all at once seen the Ranger in his true light, and to her undoing.
She bade me take Sally for a ride and sought her room. I had my misgivings when I saw Sally come out in that trim cowgirl suit and look at me as if to say this day would be my Waterloo.
But she rode hard and long ahead of me before she put any machinations into effect. The first one found me with a respectful demeanor but an internal conflict.
“Russ, tighten my cinch,” she said when I caught up with her.
Dismounting, I drew the cinch up another hole and fastened it.
“My boot’s unlaced, too,” she added, slipping a shapely foot out of the stirrup.
To be sure, it was very much unlaced. I had to take off my gloves to lace it up, and I did it heroically, with bent head and outward calm, when all the time I was mad to snatch the girl out of the saddle and hold her tight or run off with her or do some other fool thing.
“Russ, I believe Diane’s in love with Steele,” she said soberly, with the sweet confidence she sometimes manifested in me.
“Small wonder. It’s in the air,” I replied.
She regarded me doubtfully.
“It was,” she retorted demurely.
“The fickleness of women is no new thing to me. I didn’t expect Waters to last long.”
“Certainly not when there are nicer fellows around. One, anyway, when he cares.”
A little brown hand slid out of its glove and dropped to my shoulder.
“Make up. You’ve been hateful lately. Make up with me.”
It was not so much what she said as the sweet tone of her voice and the nearness of her that made a tumult within me. I felt the blood tingle to my face.
“Why should I make up with you?” I queried in self defense. “You are only flirting. You won’t—you can’t ever be anything to me, really.”
Sally bent over me and I had not the nerve to look up.
“Never mind things—really,” she replied. “The future’s far off. Let it alone. We’re together. I—I like you, Russ. And I’ve got to be—to be loved. There. I never confessed that to any other man. You’ve been hateful when we might have had such fun. The rides in the sun, in the open with the wind in our faces. The walks at night in the moonlight. Russ, haven’t you missed something?”
The sweetness and seductiveness of her, the little luring devil of her, irresistible as they were, were no more irresistible than the naturalness, the truth of her.
I trembled even before I looked up into her flushed face and arch eyes; and after that I knew if I could not frighten her out of this daring mood I would have to yield despite my conviction that she only trifled. As my manhood, as well as duty to Steele, forced me to be unyielding, all that was left seemed to be to frighten her.
The instant this was decided a wave of emotion—love, regret, bitterness, anger—surged over me, making me shake. I felt the skin on my face tighten and chill. I grasped her with strength that might have need to hold a plunging, unruly horse. I hurt her. I held her as in a vise.
And the action, the feel of her, her suddenly uttered cry wrought against all pretense, hurt me as my brutality hurt her, and then I spoke what was hard, passionate truth.
“Girl, you’re playing with fire!” I cried out hoarsely. “I love you—love you as I’d want my sister loved. I asked you to marry me. That was proof, if it was foolish. Even if you were on the square, which you’re not, we couldn’t ever be anything to each other. Understand? There’s a reason, besides your being above me. I can’t stand it. Stop playing with me or I’ll—I’ll…”
Whatever I meant to say was not spoken, for Sally turned deathly white, probably from my grasp and my looks as well as my threat.
I let go of her, and stepping back to my horse choked down my emoti
on.
“Russ!” she faltered, and there was womanliness and regret trembling with the fear in her voice. “I—I am on the square.”
That had touched the real heart of the girl.
“If you are, then play the game square,” I replied darkly.
“I will, Russ, I promise. I’ll never tease or coax you again. If I do, then I’ll deserve what you—what I get. But, Russ, don’t think me a—a four-flush.”
All the long ride home we did not exchange another word. The traveling gait of Sally’s horse was a lope, that of mine a trot; and therefore, to my relief, she was always out in front.
As we neared the ranch, however, Sally slowed down until I caught up with her; and side by side we rode the remainder of the way. At the corrals, while I unsaddled, she lingered.
“Russ, you didn’t tell me if you agreed with me about Diane,” she said finally.
“Maybe you’re right. I hope she’s fallen in love with Steele. Lord knows I hope so,” I blurted out.
I bit my tongue. There was no use in trying to be as shrewd with women as I was with men. I made no reply.
“Misery loves company. Maybe that’s why,” she added. “You told me Steele lost his head over Diane at first sight. Well, we all have company. Good night, Russ.”
That night I told Steele about the singular effect the story of his treatment of Vey had upon Miss Sampson. He could not conceal his feelings. I read him like an open book.
If she was unhappy because he did something really good, then she was unhappy because she was realizing she had wronged him.
Steele never asked questions, but the hungry look in his eyes was enough to make even a truthful fellow exaggerate things.
I told him how Diane was dressed, how her face changed with each emotion, how her eyes burned and softened and shadowed, how her voice had been deep and full when she admitted her father hated him, how much she must have meant when she said she was between two fires. I divined how he felt and I tried to satisfy in some little measure his craving for news of her.
When I had exhausted my fund and stretched my imagination I was rewarded by being told that I was a regular old woman for gossip.
Much taken back by this remarkable statement I could but gape at my comrade. Irritation had followed shortly upon his curiosity and pleasure, and then the old sane mind reasserted itself, the old stern look, a little sad now, replaced the glow, the strange eagerness of youth on his face.
“Son, I beg your pardon,” he said, with his hand on my shoulder. “We’re Rangers, but we can’t help being human. To speak right out, it seems two sweet and lovable girls have come, unfortunately for us all, across the dark trail we’re on. Let us find what solace we can in the hope that somehow, God only knows how, in doing our duty as Rangers we may yet be doing right by these two innocent girls. I ask you, as my friend, please do not speak again to me of—Miss Sampson.”
I left him and went up the quiet trail with the thick shadows all around me and the cold stars overhead; and I was sober in thought, sick at heart for him as much as for myself, and I tortured my mind in fruitless conjecture as to what the end of this strange and fateful adventure would be.
I discovered that less and less the old wild spirit abided with me and I become conscious of a dull, deep-seated ache in my breast, a pang in the bone.
From that day there was a change in Diane Sampson. She became feverishly active. She wanted to ride, to see for herself what was going on in Linrock, to learn of that wild Pecos county life at first hand.
She made such demands on my time now that I scarcely ever found an hour to be with or near Steele until after dark. However, as he was playing a waiting game on the rustlers, keeping out of the resorts for the present, I had not great cause for worry. Hoden was slowly gathering men together, a band of trustworthy ones, and until this organization was complete and ready, Steele thought better to go slow.
It was of little use for me to remonstrate with Miss Sampson when she refused to obey a distracted and angry father. I began to feel sorry for Sampson. He was an unscrupulous man, but he loved this daughter who belonged to another and better and past side of his life.
I heard him appeal to her to go back to Louisiana; to let him take her home, giving as urgent reason the probability of trouble for him. She could not help, could only handicap him.
She agreed to go, provided he sold his property, took the best of his horses and went with her back to the old home to live there the rest of their lives. He replied with considerable feeling that he wished he could go, but it was impossible. Then that settled the matter for her, she averred.
Failing to persuade her to leave Linrock, he told her to keep to the ranch. Naturally, in spite of his anger, Miss Sampson refused to obey; and she frankly told him that it was the free, unfettered life of the country, the riding here and there that appealed so much to her.
Sampson came to me a little later and his worn face showed traces of internal storm.
“Russ, for a while there I wanted to get rid of you,” he said. “I’ve changed. Diane always was a spoiled kid. Now she’s a woman. Something’s fired her blood. Maybe it’s this damned wild country. Anyway, she’s got the bit between her teeth. She’ll run till she’s run herself out.
“Now, it seems the safety of Diane, and Sally, too, has fallen into your hands. The girls won’t have one of my cowboys near them. Lately they’ve got shy of George, too. Between you and me I want to tell you that conditions here in Pecos are worse than they’ve seemed since you-all reached the ranch. But bad work will break out again—it’s coming soon.
“I can’t stop it. The town will be full of the hardest gang in western Texas. My daughter and Sally would not be safe if left alone to go anywhere. With you, perhaps, they’ll be safe. Can I rely on you?”
“Yes, Sampson, you sure can,” I replied. “I’m on pretty good terms with most everybody in town. I think I can say none of the tough set who hang out down there would ever made any move while I’m with the girls. But I’ll be pretty careful to avoid them, and particularly strange fellows who may come riding in.
“And if any of them do meet us and start trouble, I’m going for my gun, that’s all. There won’t be any talk.”
“Good! I’ll back you,” Sampson replied. “Understand, Russ, I didn’t want you here, but I always had you sized up as a pretty hard nut, a man not to be trifled with. You’ve got a bad name. Diane insists the name’s not deserved. She’d trust you with herself under any circumstances. And the kid, Sally, she’d be fond of you if it wasn’t for the drink. Have you been drunk a good deal? Straight now, between you and me.”
“Not once,” I replied.
“George’s a liar then. He’s had it in for you since that day at Sanderson. Look out you two don’t clash. He’s got a temper, and when he’s drinking he’s a devil. Keep out of his way.”
“I’ve stood a good deal from Wright, and guess I can stand more.”
“All right, Russ,” he continued, as if relieved. “Chuck the drink and cards for a while and keep an eye on the girls. When my affairs straighten out maybe I’ll make you a proposition.”
Sampson left me material for thought. Perhaps it was not only the presence of a Ranger in town that gave him concern, nor the wilfulness of his daughter. There must be internal strife in the rustler gang with which we had associated him.
Perhaps a menace of publicity, rather than risk, was the cause of the wearing strain on him. I began to get a closer insight into Sampson, and in the absence of any conclusive evidence of his personal baseness I felt pity for him.
In the beginning he had opposed me just because I did not happen to be a cowboy he had selected. This latest interview with me, amounting in some instances to confidence, proved absolutely that he had not the slightest suspicion that I was otherwise than the cowboy I pretended to be.
Another interesting deduction was that he appeared to be out of patience with Wright. In fact, I imagined I sensed something of fear a
nd distrust in this spoken attitude toward his relative. Not improbably here was the internal strife between Sampson and Wright, and there flashed into my mind, absolutely without reason, an idea that the clash was over Diane Sampson.
I scouted this intuitive idea as absurd; but, just the same, it refused to be dismissed.
As I turned my back on the coarse and exciting life in the saloons and gambling hells, and spent all my time except when sleeping, out in the windy open under blue sky and starry heaven, my spirit had an uplift.
I was glad to be free of that job. It was bad enough to have to go into these dens to arrest men, let alone living with them, almost being one.
Diane Sampson noted a change in me, attributed it to the absence of the influence of drink, and she was glad. Sally made no attempt to conceal her happiness; and to my dismay, she utterly failed to keep her promise not to tease or tempt me further.
She was adorable, distracting.
We rode every day and almost all day. We took our dinner and went clear to the foothills to return as the sun set. We visited outlying ranches, water-holes, old adobe houses famous in one way or another as scenes of past fights of rustlers and ranchers.
We rode to the little village of Sampson, and half-way to Sanderson, and all over the country.
There was no satisfying Miss Sampson with rides, new places, new faces, new adventures. And every time we rode out she insisted on first riding through Linrock; and every time we rode home she insisted on going back that way.
We visited all the stores, the blacksmith, the wagon shop, the feed and grain houses—everywhere that she could find excuse for visiting. I had to point out to her all the infamous dens in town, and all the lawless and lounging men we met.
She insisted upon being shown the inside of the Hope So, to the extreme confusion of that bewildered resort.
I pretended to be blind to this restless curiosity. Sally understood the cause, too, and it divided her between a sweet gravity and a naughty humor.
