William Shakespeare - "Twelfth Night; or What You Will"

Thomas H. Huxley - "On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge"

ARNOLD BENNETT - "LITERARY TASTE"

George MacDonald - "What's Mine's Mine V2"

A Texas Ranger

W >> William MacLeod Raine >> A Texas Ranger




In that moment, while he looked away toward Lost Valley, he sickened
of the task that lay before him. What would she think of him if she
knew?

Arlie, too, had been looking down the gulch toward the valley. Now her
gaze came slowly round to him and caught the expression of his face.

"What's the matter?" she cried.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. An old heart pain that caught me suddenly."

"I'm sorry. We'll soon be home now. We'll travel slowly."

Her voice was tender with sympathy; so, too, were her eyes when he met
them.

He looked away again and groaned in his heart.

CHAPTER IV

THE WARNING OF MANTRAP GULCH

They followed the trail down into the cañon. As the ponies slowly
picked their footing on the steep narrow path, he asked:

"Why do they call it Mantrap Gulch?"

"It got its name before my time in the days when outlaws hid here. A
hunted man came to Lost Cañon, a murderer wanted by the law for more
crimes than one. He was well treated by the settlers. They gave him
shelter and work. He was safe, and he knew it. But he tried to make
his peace with the law outside by breaking the law of the valley. He
knew that two men were lying hid in a pocket gulch, opening from the
valley-- men who were wanted for train robbery. He wrote to the
company offering to betray these men if they would pay him the reward
and see that he was not punished for his crimes.

"It seems he was suspected. His letter was opened, and the exits from
the valley were both guarded. Knowing he was discovered, he tried to
slip out by the river way. He failed, sneaked through the settlement
at night, and slipped into the cañon here. At this end of it he found
armed men on guard. He ran back and found the entrance closed. He was
in a trap. He tried to climb one of the walls. Do you see that point
where the rock juts out?"

"About five hundred feet up? Yes."

"He managed to climb that high. Nobody ever knows how he did it, but
when morning broke there he was, like a fly on a wall. His hunters
came and saw him. I suppose he could hear them laughing as their
voices came echoing up to him. They shot above him, below him, on
either side of him. He knew they were playing with him, and that they
would finish him when they got ready. He must have been half crazy
with fear. Anyhow, he lost his hold and fell. He was dead before they
reached him. From that day this has been called Mantrap Gulch."

The ranger looked up at the frowning walls which shut out the
sunlight. His imagination pictured the drama-- the hunted man's wild
flight up the gulch; his dreadful discovery that it was closed; his
desperate attempt to climb by moonlight the impossible cliff, and the
tragedy that overtook him.

The girl spoke again softly, almost as if she were in the presence of
that far-off Nemesis. "I suppose he deserved,it. It's an awful thing
to be a traitor; to sell the people who have befriended you. We can't
put ourselves in his place and know why he did it. All we can say is
that we're glad-- glad that we have never known men who do such
things. Do you think people always felt a sort of shrinking when they
were near him, or did he seem just like other men?"

Glancing at the man who rode beside her, she cried out at the stricken
look on his face. "It's your heart again. You're worn out with anxiety
and privations. I should have remembered and come slower," she
reproached herself.

"I'm all right-- now. It passes in a moment," he said hoarsely.

But she had already slipped from the saddle and was at his bridle
rein. "No-- no. You must get down. We have plenty of time. We'll rest
here till you are better."

There was nothing for it but to obey. He dismounted, feeling himself a
humbug and a scoundrel. He sat down on a mossy rock, his back against
another, while she trailed the reins and joined him.

"You are better now, aren't you?" she asked, as she seated herself on
an adjacent bowlder.

Gruffly he answered: "I'm all right."

She thought she understood. Men do not like to be coddled. She began
to talk cheerfully of the first thing that came into her head. He made
the necessary monosyllabic responses when her speech put it up to him,
but she saw that his mind was brooding over something else. Once she
saw his gaze go up to the point on the cliff reached by the fugitive.

But it was not until they were again in the saddle that he spoke.

"Yes, he got what was coming to him. He had no right to complain."

"That's what my father says. I don't deny the justice of it, but
whenever I think of it, I feel sorry for him."

"Why?"

Despite the quietness of the monosyllable, she divined an eager
interest back of his question.

"He must have suffered so. He wasn't a brave man, they say. And he was
one against many. They didn't hunt him. They just closed the trap and
let him wear himself out trying to get through. Think of that awful
week of hunger and exposure in the hills before the end!"

"It must have been pretty bad, especially if he wasn't a game man. But
he had no legitimate kick coming. He took his chance and lost. It was
up to him to pay."

"His name was David Burke. When he was a little boy I suppose his
mother used to call him Davy. He wasn't bad then; just a little boy to
be cuddled and petted. Perhaps he was married. Perhaps he had a
sweetheart waiting for him outside, and praying for him. And they
snuffed his life out as if he had been a rattlesnake."

"Because he was a miscreant and it was best he shouldn't live. Yes,
they did right. I would have helped do it in their place."

"My father did," she sighed.

They did not speak again until they had passed from between the chill
walls to the warm sunshine of the valley beyond. Among the rocks above
the trail, she glimpsed some early anemones blossoming bravely.

She drew up with a little cry of pleasure. "They're the first I have
seen. I must have them."

Fraser swung from the saddle, but he was not quick enough. She reached
them before he did, and after they had gathered them she insisted upon
sitting down again.

He had his suspicions, and voiced them. "I believe you got me off just
to make me sit down."

She laughed with deep delight. "I didn't, but since we are here we
shall." And she ended debate by sitting down tailor-fashion, and
beginning to arrange her little bouquet.

A meadow lark, troubadour of spring, trilled joyously somewhere in the
pines above. The man looked up, then down at the vivid creature busy
with her flowers at his feet. There was kinship between the two. She,
too, was athrob with the joy note of spring.

"You're to sit down," she ordered, without looking up from the sheaf
of anemone blossoms she was arranging.

He sank down beside her, aware vaguely of something new and poignant
in his life.

CHAPTER V

JED BRISCOE TAKES A HAND

Suddenly a footfall, and a voice:

"Hello, Arlie! I been looking for you everywhere."

The Texan's gaze took in a slim dark man, goodlooking after a fashion,
but with dissipation written on the rather sullen face.

"Well, you've found me," the girl answered coolly.

"Yes, I've found you," the man answered, with a steady, watchful eye
on the Texan.

Miss Dillon was embarrassed at this plain hostility, but indignation
too sparkled in her eye. "Anything in particular you want?"

The newcomer ignored her question. His hard gaze challenged the
Southerner; did more than challenge-- weighed and condemned.

But this young woman was not used to being ignored. Her voice took on
an edge of sharpness.

"What can I do for you, Jed?"

"Who's your friend?" the man demanded bluntly, insolently.

Arlie's flush showed the swift, upblazing resentment she immediately
controlled. "Mr. Fraser-- just arrived from Texas. Mr. Fraser, let me
introduce to you Mr. Briscoe."

The Texan stepped forward to offer his hand, but Briscoe deliberately
put both of his behind him.

"Might I ask what Mr. Fraser, just arrived from Texas, is doing here?"
the young man drawled, contriving to make an insult of every syllable.

The girl's eyes flashed dangerously. "He is here as my guest."

"Oh, as your guest!"

"Doesn't it please you, Jed?"

"Have I said it didn't please me?" he retorted smoothly.

"Your looks say it."

He let out a sudden furious oath. "Then my looks don't lie any."

Fraser was stepping forward, but with a gesture Arlie held him back.
This was her battle, not his.

"What have you got to say about it?" she demanded.

"You had no right to bring him here. Who is he anyhow?"

"I think that is his business, and mine."

"I make it mine," he declared hotly. "I've heard about this fellow
from your father. You met up with him on the trail. He says his name
is Fraser. You don't even know whether that is true. He may be a spy.
How do you know he ain't?"

"How do I know you aren't?" she countered swiftly.

"You've known me all my life. Did you ever see him before?"

"Never."

"Well, then!"

"He risked his life to save ours."

"Risked nothing! It was a trick, I tell you."

"It makes no difference to me what you tell me. Your opinion can't
affect mine."

"You know the feeling of the valley just now about strangers," said
Briscoe sullenly.

"It depends on who the stranger is."

"Well, I object to this one."

"So it seems; but I don't know any law that makes me do whatever you
want me to." Her voice, low and clear, cut like a whiplash.

Beneath the dust of travel the young man's face burned with anger.
"We're not discussing that just now. What I say is that you had no
right to bring him here-- not now, especially. You know why," he
added, almost in a whisper.

"If you had waited and not attempted to brow-beat me, I would have
shown you that that is the very reason I had to bring him."

"How do you mean?"

"Never mind what I mean. You have insulted my friend, and through him,
me. That is enough for one day." She turned from him haughtily and
spoke to the Texan. "If you are ready, Mr. Fraser, we'll be going
now."

The ranger, whose fingers had been itching to get at the throat of
this insolent young man, turned without a word and obediently brought
the girl's pony, then helped her to mount. Briscoe glared, in a silent
tempest of passion.

"I think I have left a glove and my anemones where we were sitting,"
the girl said sweetly to the Texan.

Fraser found them, tightened the saddle girth, and mounted Teddy. As
they cantered away, Arlie called to him to look at the sunset behind
the mountains.

From the moment of her dismissal of Briscoe the girl had apparently
put him out of her thoughts. No fine lady of the courts could have
done it with more disdainful ease. And the Texan, following her lead,
played his part in the little comedy, ignoring the other man as
completely as she did.

The young cattleman, furious, his teeth set in impotent rage, watched
it all with the lust to kill in his heart. When they had gone, he
flung himself into the saddle and rode away in a tumultuous fury.

Before they had covered two hundred yards Arlie turned to her
companion, all contrition. "There! I've done it again. My fits of
passion are always getting me into trouble. This time one of them has
given you an enemy, and a bad one, too."

"No. He would have been my enemy no rnatter what you said. Soon as he
put his eyes on me, I knew it."

"Because I brought you here, you mean?"

"I don't mean only that. Some folks are born to be enemies, just as
some are born to be friends. They've only got to look in each other's
eyes once to know it."

"That's strange. I never heard anybody else say that. Do you really
mean it?"

"Yes."

"And did you ever have such an enemy before? Don't answer me if I
oughtn't to ask that," she added quickly.

"Yes."

"Where?"

"In Texas. Why, here we are at a ranch!"

"Yes. It's ours, and yours as long as you want to stay. Did you feel
that you were enemies the moment you saw this man in Texas?"

"I knew we were going to have trouble as soon as we looked at each
other. I had no feeling toward him, but he had toward me."

"And did you have trouble?"

"Some, before I landed him. The way it turned out he had most of it."

She glanced quickly at him. "What do you mean by 'landed'?"

"I am an officer in the Texas Rangers."

"What are they? Something like our forest rangers?"

"No. The duty of a Texas Ranger is to enforce the law against
desperadoes. We prevent crime if we can. When we can't do that, we
hunt down the criminals."

Arlie looked at him in a startled silence.

"You are an officer of the law-- a sort of sheriff?" she said, at
last.

"Yes, in Texas. This is Wyoming." He made his distinction, knowing it
was a false one. Somehow he had the feeling of a whipped cur.

"I wish I had known. If you had only told me earlier," she said, so
low as to be almost a whisper.

"I'm sorry. If you like, I'll go away again," he offered.

"No, no. I'm only thinking that it gives Jed a hold, gives him
something to stir up his friends with, you know. That is, it would if
he knew. He mustn't find out."

"Be frank. Don't make any secret of it. That's the best way," he
advised.

She shook her head. "You don't know Jed's crowd. They'd be suspicious
of any officer, no matter where he came from."

"Far as I can make out, that young man is going to be loaded with
suspicions of me anyhow," he laughed.

"It isn't anything to laugh at. You don't know him," she told him
gravely.

"And can't say I'm suffering to," he drawled.

She looked at him a little impatiently, as if he were a child playing
with gunpowder and unaware of its potentialities.

"Can't you understand? You're not in Texas with your friends all
around you. This is Lost Valley-- and Lost Valley isn't on the map.
Men make their own law here. That is, some of them do. I wouldn't give
a snap of my fingers for your life if the impression spread that you
are a spy. It doesn't matter that I know you're not. Others must feel
it, too."

"I see. And Mr. Briscoe will be a molder of public opinion?"

"So far as he can he will. We must forestall him."

"Beat him to it, and give me a clean bill of moral health, eh?"

She frowned. "This is serious business, my friend."

"I'm taking it that way," he said smilingly.

"I shouldn't have guessed it."

Yet for all his debonair ease the man had an air of quiet competence.
His strong, bronzed face and neck, the set of his shoulders, the light
poise of him in the saddle, the steady confidence of the gray eyes,
all told her as much. She was aware of a curiosity about what was
hidden behind that stone-wall face of his.

"You didn't finish telling me about that enemy in Texas," she
suggested suddenly.

"Oh, there ain't much to tell. He broke out from the pen, where I had
put him when I was a kid. He was a desperado wanted by the
authorities, so I arrested him again."

"Sounds easy."

"He made some trouble, shot up two or three men first." Fraser lifted
his hand absently.

"Is that scar on your hand where he shot you?" Arlie asked.

He looked up in quick surprise. "Now, how did you know that?"

"You were talking of the trouble he made and you looked at your hand,"
she explained. "Where is he now? In the penitentiary?"

"No. He broke away before I got him there."

She had another flash of inspiration. "And you came to Wyoming to get
him again."

"Good gracious, ma'am, but you're ce'tainly a wizard! That's why I
came, though it's a secret."

"What is he wanted for?"

"Robbing a train, three murders and a few other things."

As she swung from her pony in front of the old-fashioned Southern log
house, Artie laughed at him over her shoulder.

"You're a fine officer! Tell all you know to the first girl you meet!"

"Well, you see, the girl happened to be-- you!"

After the manner of the old-fashioned Southern house a wide "gallery"
bisected it from porch to rear. Saddles hung from pegs in the gallery.
Horse blankets and bridles, spurs and saddlebags, lay here and there
in disarray. A disjointed rifle which some one had started to clean
was on the porch. Swiftly Arlie stripped saddle, bridle, and blanket
from her pony and flung them down as a contribution to the general
disorder, and at her suggestion Fraser did the same. A half-grown lad
came running to herd the horses into a corral close at hand.

"I want you when you've finished feeding, Bobbie," Arlie told the lad.
Then briefly to her guest: "This way, please."

She led him into a large, cheerful living room, into which, through
big casement windows, the light streamed. It was a pleasant room,
despite its barbaric touch. There was a grizzly bear skin before the
great open, stone fireplace, and Navajo rugs covered the floor and
hung on the walls. The skin of a silver-tip bear was stretched beneath
a writing desk, a trophy of Arlie's rifle, which hung in a rack above.
Civilization had furnished its quota to the room in a piano, some
books, and a few photographs.

The Texan observed that order reigned here, even though it did not
interfere with the large effect of comfort.

The girl left him, to return presently with her aunt, to whom she
introduced him. Miss Ruth Dillon was a little, bright-eyed old lady,
whose hair was still black, and her step light. Evidently she had her
instructions, for she greeted their guest with charming cordiality,
and thanked him for the service he had rendered her brother and her
niece.

Presently the boy Bobbie arrived for further orders. Arlie went to her
desk and wrote hurriedly.

"You're to give this note to my father," she directed. "Be sure he
gets it himself. You ought to find him down in Jackson's Pocket, if
the drive is from Round Top to-day. But you can ask about that along
the road."

When the boy had gone, Arlie turned to Fraser.

"I want to tell father you're here before Jed gets to him with his
story," she explained. "I've asked him to ride down right away. He'll
probably come in a few hours and spend the night here."

After they had eaten supper they returned to the living room, where a
great fire, built by Jim the negro horse wrangler, was roaring up the
chimney.

It was almost eleven o'clock when horses galloped up and Dillon came
into the house, followed by Jed Briscoe. The latter looked triumphant,
the former embarrassed as he disgorged letters and newspapers from his
pocket.

"I stopped at the office to get the mail as I came down. Here's yore
paper, Ruth."

Miss Dillon pounced eagerly upon the Gimlet Butte Avalanche, and
disappeared with it to her bedroom. She had formerly lived in Gimlet
Butte, and was still keenly interested in the gossip of the town.

Briscoe had scored one against Arlie by meeting her father, telling
his side of the story, and returning with him to the house.
Nevertheless Arlie, after giving him the slightest nod her duty as
hostess would permit, made her frontal attack without hesitation.

"You'll be glad to know, dad, that Mr. Fraser is our guest. He has had
rather a stormy time since we saw him last, and he has consented to
stay with us a few days till things blow over."

Dillon, very ill at ease, shook hands with the Texan, and was
understood to say that he was glad to see him.

"Then you don't look it, dad," Arlie told him, with a gleam of vexed
laughter.

Her father turned reproachfully upon her. "Now, honey, yo' done wrong
to say that. Yo' know Mr. Fraser is welcome to stay in my house long
as he wants. I'm proud to have him stay. Do you think I forgot already
what he done for us?"

"Of course not. Then it's all settled," Arlie cut in, and rushed on to
another subject. "How's the round-up coming, dad?"

"We'll talk about the round-up later. What I'm saying is that Mr,
Fraser has only got to say the word, and I'm there to he'p him till
the cows come home."

"That's just what I told him, dad."

"Hold yore hawsses, will yo', honey? But, notwithstanding which, and
not backing water on that proposition none, we come to another p'int."

"Which Jed made to you carefully on the way down," his daughter
interrupted scornfully.

"It don't matter who made it. The p'int is that there are reasons why
strangers ain't exactly welcome in this valley right now, Mr. Fraser.
This country is full o' suspicion. Whilst it's onjust, charges are
being made against us on the outside. Right now the settlers here have
got to guard against furriners. Now I know yo're all right, Mr.
Fraser. But my neighbors don't know it."

"It was our lives he saved, not our neighbors'," scoffed Arlie.

"K'rect. So I say, Mr. Fraser, if yo' are out o' funds, I'll finance
you. Wherever you want to go I'll see you git there, but I hain't got
the right to invite you to stay in Lost Valley."

"Better send him to Gimlet Butte, dad! He killed a man in helping us
to escape, and he 's wanted bad! He broke jail to get here! Pay his
expenses back to the Butte! Then if there's a reward, you and Jed can
divide it!" his daughter jeered.

"What's that? Killed a man, yo' say?"

"Yes. To save us. Shall we send him back under a rifle guard? Or shall
we have Sheriff Brandt come and get him?"

"Gracious goodness, gyurl, shet up whilst I think. Killed a man, eh?
This valley has always been open to fugitives. Ain't that right, Jed?"

"To fugitives, yes," said Jed significantly. "But that fact ain't
proved."

"Jed's getting right important. We'll soon be asking him whether we
can stay here," said Arlie, with a scornful laugh. "And I say it is
proved. We met the deputies the yon side of the big cañon."

Briscoe looked at her out of dogged, half-shuttered eyes. He said
nothing, but he looked the picture of malice.

Dillon rasped his stubbly chin and looked at the Texan. Far from an
alert-minded man, he came to conclusions slowly. Now he arrived at
one.

"Dad burn it, we'll take the 'fugitive' for granted. Yo' kin lie up
here long as yo' like, friend. I'll guarantee yo' to my neighbors. I
reckon if they don't like it they kin lump it. I ain't a-going to give
up the man that saved my gyurl's life."

The door opened and let in Miss Ruth Dillon. The little old lady had
the newspaper in her hand, and her beady eyes were shining with
excitement.

"It's all in here, Mr. Fraser-- about your capture and escape. But you
didn't tell us all of it. Perhaps you didn't know, though, that they
had plans to storm the jail and hang you?"

"Yes, I knew that," the Texan answered coolly. "The jailer told me
what was coming to me. I decided not to wait and see whether he was
lying. I wrenched a bar from the window, lowered myself by my bedding,
flew the coop, and borrowed a horse. That's the whole story, ma'am,
except that Miss Arlie brought me here to hide me."

"Read aloud what the paper says," Dillon ordered.

His sister handed the Avalanche to her niece. Arlie found the article
and began to read:

"A dastardly outrage occurred three miles from Gimlet Butte last
night. While on their way home from the trial of the well-known Three
Pines sheep raid case, a small party of citizens were attacked by
miscreants presumed to be from the Cedar Mountain country. How many of
these there were we have no means of knowing, as the culprits
disappeared in the mountains after murdering William Faulkner, a
well-known sheep man, and wounding Tom Long."

There followed a lurid account of the battle, written from the point
of view of the other side. After which the editor paid his respects to
Fraser, though not by name.

"One of the ruffians, for some unknown reason-- perhaps in the hope of
getting a chance to slay another victim-- remained too long near the
scene of the atrocity and was apprehended early this morning by that
fearless deputy, James Schilling. He refused to give his name or any
other information about himself. While the man is a stranger to Gimlet
Butte, there can be no doubt that he is one of the Lost Valley
desperadoes implicated in the Squaw Creek raid some months ago. Since
the bullet that killed Faulkner was probably fired from the rifle
carried by this man, it is safe to assume that the actual murderer was
apprehended. The man is above medium height, well built and muscular,
and carries all the earmarks of a desperate character."

Arlie glanced up from her reading to smile at Fraser. "Dad and I are
miscreants, and you are a ruffian and a desperate character," she told
him gayly.

"Go on, honey," her father urged.

The account told how the prisoner had been confined in the jail, and
how the citizens, wrought up by the continued lawlessness of the Lost
Valley district, had quietly gathered to make an example of the
captured man. While condemning lynching in general, the Avalanche
wanted to go on record as saying that if ever it was justifiable this
was the occasion. Unfortunately, the prisoner, giving thus further
evidence of his desperate nature, had cut his way out of prison with a
pocketknife and escaped from town by means of a horse he found saddled
and did not hesitate to steal. At the time of going to press he had
not yet been recaptured, though Sheriff Brandt had several posses on
his trail. The outlaw had cut the telephone wires, but it was
confidently believed he would be captured before he reached his
friends in the mountains.

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