The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey (red white and royal blue hardcover .txt) đ
- Author: Zane Grey
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Next morning Duane found that the little town was called Sanderson. It was larger than he had at first supposed. He walked up the main street and back again. Just as he arrived some horsemen rode up to the inn and dismounted. And at this juncture the Longstreth party came out. Duane heard Colonel Longstreth utter an exclamation. Then he saw him shake hands with a tall man. Longstreth looked surprised and angry, and he spoke with force; but Duane could not hear what it was he said. The fellow laughed, yet somehow he struck Duane as sullen, until suddenly he espied Miss Longstreth. Then his face changed, and he removed his sombrero. Duane went closer.
âFloyd, did you come with the teams?â asked Longstreth, sharply.
âNot me. I rode a horse, good and hard,â was the reply.
âHumph! Iâll have a word to say to you later.â Then Longstreth turned to his daughter. âRay, hereâs the cousin Iâve told you about. You used to play with him ten years agoâFloyd Lawson. Floyd, my daughterâand my niece, Ruth Herbert.â
Duane always scrutinized every one he met, and now with a dangerous game to play, with a consciousness of Longstrethâs unusual and significant personality, he bent a keen and searching glance upon this Floyd Lawson.
He was under thirty, yet gray at his templesâdark, smooth-shaven, with lines left by wildness, dissipation, shadows under dark eyes, a mouth strong and bitter, and a square chinâa reckless, careless, handsome, sinister face strangely losing the hardness when he smiled. The grace of a gentleman clung round him, seemed like an echo in his mellow voice. Duane doubted not that he, like many a young man, had drifted out to the frontier, where rough and wild life had wrought sternly but had not quite effaced the mark of good family.
Colonel Longstreth apparently did not share the pleasure of his daughter and his niece in the advent of this cousin. Something hinged on this meeting. Duane grew intensely curious, but, as the stage appeared ready for the journey, he had no further opportunity to gratify it.
Duane followed the stage through the town, out into the open, on to a wide, hard-packed road showing years of travel. It headed northwest. To the left rose a range of low, bleak mountains he had noted yesterday, and to the right sloped the mesquite-patched sweep of ridge and flat. The driver pushed his team to a fast trot, which gait surely covered ground rapidly.
The stage made three stops in the forenoon, one at a place where the horses could be watered, the second at a chuck-wagon belonging to cowboys who were riding after stock, and the third at a small cluster of adobe and stone houses constituting a hamlet the driver called Longstreth, named after the Colonel. From that point on to Fairdale there were only a few ranches, each one controlling great acreage.
Early in the afternoon from a ridge-top Duane sighted Fairdale, a green patch in the mass of gray. For the barrens of Texas it was indeed a fair sight. But he was more concerned with its remoteness from civilization than its beauty. At that time, in the early seventies, when the vast western third of Texas was a wilderness, the pioneer had done wonders to settle there and establish places like Fairdale.
It needed only a glance for Duane to pick out Colonel Longstrethâs ranch. The house was situated on the only elevation around Fairdale, and it was not high, nor more than a few minutesâ walk from the edge of the town. It was a low, flat-roofed structure made of red adobe bricks, and covered what appeared to be fully an acre of ground. All was green about it, except where the fenced corrals and numerous barns or sheds showed gray and red.
Duane soon reached the shady outskirts of Fairdale, and entered the town with mingled feelings of curiosity, eagerness, and expectation. The street he rode down was a main one, and on both sides of the street was a solid row of saloons, resorts, hotels. Saddled horses stood hitched all along the sidewalk in two long lines, with a buckboard and team here and there breaking the continuity. This block was busy and noisy.
From all outside appearances Fairdale was no different from other frontier towns, and Duaneâs expectations were scarcely realized. As the afternoon was waning he halted at a little inn. A boy took charge of his horse. Duane questioned the lad about Fairdale and gradually drew to the subject most in mind.
âColonel Longstreth has a big outfit, eh?â
âReckon he has,â replied the lad. âDoan know how many cowboys. Theyâre always cominâ and goinâ. I ainât acquainted with half of them.â
âMuch movement of stock these days?â
âStockâs always movinâ,â he replied, with a queer look.
âRustlers?â
But he did not follow up that look with the affirmative Duane expected.
âLively place, I hearâFairdale is?â
âAinât so lively as Sanderson, but itâs bigger.â
âYes, I heard it was. Fellow down there was talking about two cowboys who were arrested.â
âSure. I heered all about that. Joe Bean anâ Brick Higginsâ they belong heah, but they ainât heah much. Longstrethâs boys.â
Duane did not want to appear over-inquisitive, so he turned the talk into other channels.
After getting supper Duane strolled up and down the main street. When darkness set in he went into a hotel, bought cigars, sat around, and watched. Then he passed out and went into the next place. This was of rough crude exterior, but the inside was comparatively pretentious and ablaze with lights. It was full of men coming and goingâa dusty-booted crowd that smelled of horses and smoke. Duane sat down for a while, with wide eyes and open ears. Then he hunted up the bar, where most of the guests had been or were going. He found a great square room lighted by six huge lamps, a bar at one side, and all the floor-space taken up by tables and chairs. This was the only gambling place of any size in southern Texas in which he had noted the absence of Mexicans. There was some card-playing going on at this moment. Duane stayed in there for a while, and knew that strangers were too common in Fairdale to be conspicuous. Then he returned to the inn where he had engaged a room.
Duane sat down on the steps of the dingy little restaurant. Two men were conversing inside, and they had not noticed Duane.
âLaramie, whatâs the strangerâs name?â asked one.
âHe didnât say,â replied the other.
âSure was a strappinâ big man. Struck me a little odd, he did. No cattleman, him. Howâd you size him?â
âWell, like one of them cool, easy, quiet Texans whoâs been lookinâ for a man for yearsâto kill him when he found him.â
âRight you are, Laramie; and, between you anâ me, I hope heâs lookinâ for Longââ
ââSâsh!â interrupted Laramie. âYou must be half drunk, to go talkieâ that way.â
Thereafter they conversed in too low a tone for Duane to hear, and presently Laramieâs visitor left. Duane went inside, and, making himself agreeable, began to ask casual questions about Fairdale. Laramie was not communicative.
Duane went to his room in a thoughtful frame of mind. Had Laramieâs visitor meant he hoped some one had come to kill Longstreth? Duane inferred just that from the interrupted remark. There was something wrong about the Mayor of Fairdale. Duane felt it. And he felt also, if there was a crooked and dangerous man, it was this Floyd Lawson. The innkeeper Laramie would be worth cultivating. And last in Duaneâs thoughts that night was Miss Longstreth. He could not help thinking of herâhow strangely the meeting with her had affected him. It made him remember that long-past time when girls had been a part of his life. What a sad and dark and endless void lay between that past and the present! He had no right even to dream of a beautiful woman like Ray Longstreth. That conviction, however, did not dispel her; indeed, it seemed perversely to make her grow more fascinating. Duane grew conscious of a strange, unaccountable hunger, a something that was like a pang in his breast.
Next day he lounged about the inn. He did not make any overtures to the taciturn proprietor. Duane had no need of hurry now. He contented himself with watching and listening. And at the close of that day he decided Fairdale was what MacNelly had claimed it to be, and that he was on the track of an unusual adventure. The following day he spent in much the same way, though on one occasion he told Laramie he was looking for a man. The innkeeper grew a little less furtive and reticent after that. He would answer casual queries, and it did not take Duane long to learn that Laramie had seen better daysâthat he was now broken, bitter, and hard. Some one had wronged him.
Several days passed. Duane did not succeed in getting any closer to Laramie, but he found the idlers on the corners and in front of the stores unsuspicious and willing to talk. It did not take him long to find out that Fairdale stood parallel with Huntsville for gambling, drinking, and fighting. The street was always lined with dusty, saddled horses, the town full of strangers. Money appeared more abundant than in any place Duane had ever visited; and it was spent with the abandon that spoke forcibly of easy and crooked acquirement. Duane decided that Sanderson, Bradford, and Ord were but notorious outposts to this Fairdale, which was a secret center of rustlers and outlaws. And what struck Duane strangest of all was the fact that Longstreth was mayor here and held court daily. Duane knew intuitively, before a chance remark gave him proof, that this court was a sham, a farce. And he wondered if it were not a blind. This wonder of his was equivalent to suspicion of Colonel Longstreth, and Duane reproached himself. Then he realized that the reproach was because of the daughter. Inquiry had brought him the fact that Ray Longstreth had just come to live with her father. Longstreth had originally been a planter in Louisiana, where his family had remained after his advent in the West. He was a rich rancher; he owned half of Fairdale; he was a cattle-buyer on a large scale. Floyd Lawson was his lieutenant and associate in deals.
On the afternoon of the fifth day of Duaneâs stay in Fairdale he returned to the inn from his usual stroll, and upon entering was amazed to have a rough-looking young fellow rush by him out of the door. Inside Laramie was lying on the floor, with a bloody bruise on his face. He did not appear to be dangerously hurt.
âBo Snecker! He hit me and went after the cash-drawer,â said Laramie, laboring to his feet.
âAre you hurt much?â queried Duane.
âI guess not. But Bo neednât to have soaked me. Iâve been robbed before without that.â
âWell, Iâll take a look after Bo,â replied Duane.
He went out and glanced down the street toward the center of the town. He did not see any one he could take for the innkeeperâs assailant. Then he looked up the street, and he
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