A Texas Ranger | Page 7

word I say."
"You spoke the truth that time," said one.
"If you ever want to do any explaining now's the hour," added another.
"I'll do mine later, gentlemen."
They looked at each other and one of them spoke.
"It will be too late to explain then."
"Too late?"
Some inkling of the man's hideous meaning seared him and ran like an
ice-blast through him.
"You've done all the meanness you'll ever do in this world. Poor Dave
Long is the last man you'll ever kill. We're going to do justice right
now."

"Dave Long! I never heard of him," the prisoner repeated mechanically.
"Good God, do you think I'm a murderer?"
One of the men thrust himself forward. "We know it. Y'u and that
hellish partner of yours shot him while he was locking the gate. But y'u
made a mistake when y'u come to Fort Lincoln. He lived there before
he went to be a guard at the Arizona penitentiary. I'm his brother. These
gentlemen are his neighbors. Y'u're not going back to prison. Y'u're
going to stay right here under this cottonwood."
If the extraordinary menace of the man appalled Neill he gave no sign
of it. His gray eye passed from one to another of them quietly without
giving any sign of the impotent tempest raging within him.
"You're going to lynch me then?"
"Y'u've called the turn."
"Without giving me a chance to prove my innocence?"
"Without giving y'u a chance to escape or sneak back to the
penitentiary."
The thing was horribly unthinkable. The warm mellow afternoon
sunshine wrapped them about. The horses grazed with quiet unconcern.
One of these hard-faced frontiersmen was chewing tobacco with
machine-like regularity. Another was rolling a cigarette. There was
nothing of dramatic effect. Not a man had raised his voice. But Neill
knew there was no appeal. He had come to the end of the passage
through a horrible mistake. He raged in bitter resentment against his
fate, against these men who stood so quietly about him ready to execute
it, most of all against the girl who had let him sacrifice himself by
concealing the vital fact that her brother had murdered a guard to effect
his escape. Fool that he had been, he had stumbled into a trap, and she
had let him do it without a word of warning. Wild, chaotic thoughts
crowded his brain furiously.
But the voice with which he addressed them was singularly even and

colorless.
"I am a stranger to this country. I was born in Tennessee, brought up in
the Panhandle. I'm an irrigation engineer by profession. This is my
vacation. I'm headed now for the Mal Pais mines. Friends of mine are
interested in a property there with me and I have been sent to look the
ground over and make a report. I never heard of Kinney till to-day.
You've got the wrong man, gentlemen."
"We'll risk it," laughed one brutally. "Bring that riata, Tom."
Neill did not struggle or cry out frantically. He stood motionless while
they adjusted the rope round his bronzed throat. They had judged him
for a villain; they should at least know him a man. So he stood there
straight and lithe, wide-shouldered and lean-flanked, a man in a
thousand. Not a twitch of the well-packed muscles, not a quiver of the
eyelash nor a swelling of the throat betrayed any fear. His cool eyes
were quiet and steady.
"If you want to leave any message for anybody I'll see it's delivered,"
promised Duffield.
"I'll not trouble you with any."
"Just as you like."
"He didn't give poor Dave any time for messages," cried Tom Long
bitterly.
"That's right," assented another with a curse.
It was plain to the victim they were spurring their nerves to hardihood.
"Who's that?" cried one of the men, pointing to a rider galloping toward
them.
The newcomer approached rapidly, covered by their weapons, and
flung himself from his pony as he dragged it to a halt beside the group.

"Steve Fraser," cried Duffield in surprise, and added, "He's an officer in
the rangers."
"Right, gentlemen. Come to claim my prisoner," said the ranger
promptly.
"Y'u can't have him, Steve. We took him and he's got to hang."
The lieutenant of rangers shook his dark curly head.
"Won't do, Duffield. Won't do at all," he said decisively. "You'd ought
to know law's on top in Texas these days."
Tom Long shouldered his way to the front. "Law! Where was the law
when this ruffian Kinney shot down my poor brother Dave? I guess a
rope and a cottonwood's good enough law for him. Anyhow, that's what
he gits."
Fraser, hard-packed, lithe, and graceful, laid a friendly hand on the
other's shoulder and smiled sunnily at him.
"I know how you feel,