by Zane Grey
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 dea
th 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.