Oh, You Tex!

Oh, You Tex!, by William Macleod Raine

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Title: Oh, You Tex!
Author: William Macleod Raine
Release Date: August 15, 2007 [EBook #22328]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BOOKS BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE Published By HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
THE SHERIFF'S SON. Illustrated. THE YUKON TRAIL. Illustrated. STEVE YEAGER. Illustrated. A MAN FOUR-SQUARE. With colored frontispiece. OH, YOU TEX!
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OH, YOU TEX!
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[Illustration: TEXAS]
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OH, YOU TEX!
By WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE
Author of "A Man Four-Square," "The Sheriff's Son," "The Yukon Trail," Etc.
Boston and New York HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1920
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COPYRIGHT, 1919, by THE STORY-PRESS CORPORATION COPYRIGHT, 1920, by WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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TO SAM F. DUNN OF AMARILLO, TEXAS INSPECTOR OF CATTLE IN THE DAYS OF THE LONGHORN DRIVES TO WHOSE EXPERIENCE AND GENEROUS CRITICISM I AM INDEBTED FOR AID IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS BOOK
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CONTENTS
I. THE LINE-RIDER 3 II. "I'LL BE SEVENTEEN, COMING GRASS" 12 III. TEX TAKES AN INTEREST 18 IV. TEX GRANDSTANDS 26 V. CAPTAIN ELLISON HIRES A HAND 38 VI. CLINT WADLEY'S MESSENGER 44 VII. THE DANCE 54 VIII. RUTHERFORD MAKES A MISTAKE 62 IX. MURDER IN THE CHAPARRAL 69 X. "A DAMNED POOR APOLOGY FOR A MAN" 75 XI. ONE TO FOUR 79 XII. TEX REARRANGES THE SEATING 89 XIII. "ONLY ONE MOB, AIN'T THERE?" 99 XIV. JACK SERVES NOTICE 108 XV. A CLOSE SHAVE 113 XVI. WADLEY GOES HOME IN A BUCKBOARD 122 XVII. OLD-TIMERS 132 XVIII. A SHOT OUT OF THE NIGHT 138 XIX. TRAPPED 146 XX. KIOWAS ON THE WARPATH 155 XXI. TEX TAKES A LONG WALK 166 XXII. THE TEST 174 XXIII. A SHY YOUNG MAN DINES 179 XXIV. TEX BORROWS A BLACKSNAKE 184 XXV. "THEY'RE RUNNIN' ME OUTA TOWN" 191 XXVI. FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES 199 XXVII. CLINT FREES HIS MIND 203 XXVIII. ON A COLD TRAIL 211 XXIX. BURNT BRANDS 219 XXX. ROGUES DISAGREE 226 XXXI. A PAIR OF DEUCES 237 XXXII. THE HOLD-UP 245 XXXIII. THE MAN WITH THE YELLOW STREAK 251 XXXIV. RAMONA GOES DUCK-HUNTING 258 XXXV. THE DESERT 266 XXXVI. HOMER DINSMORE ESCORTS RAMONA 272 XXXVII. ON A HOT TRAIL 279 XXXVIII. DINSMORE TO THE RESCUE 287 XXXIX. A CRY OUT OF THE NIGHT 292 XL. GURLEY'S GET-AWAY 296 XLI. HOMING HEARTS 302 XLII. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 310 XLIII. TEX RESIGNS 319 XLIV. DINSMORE GIVES INFORMATION 328 XLV. RAMONA DESERTS HER FATHER 332 XLVI. LOOSE THREADS 338
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OH, YOU TEX!
CHAPTER I
THE LINE-RIDER
Day was breaking in the Panhandle. The line-rider finished his breakfast of buffalo-hump, coffee, and biscuits. He had eaten heartily, for it would be long after sunset before he touched food again.
Cheerfully and tunelessly he warbled a cowboy ditty as he packed his supplies and prepared to go.
"Oh, it's bacon and beans most every day, I'd as lief be eatin' prairie hay."
While he washed his dishes in the fine sand and rinsed them in the current of the creek he announced jocundly to a young world glad with spring:
"I'll sell my outfit soon as I can, Won't punch cattle for no damn' man."
The tin cup beat time against the tin plate to accompany a kind of shuffling dance. Jack Roberts was fifty miles from nowhere, alone on the desert, but the warm blood of youth set his feet to moving. Why should he not dance? He was one and twenty, stood five feet eleven in his socks, and weighed one hundred and seventy pounds of bone, sinew, and well-packed muscle. A son of blue skies and wide, wind-swept spaces, he had never been ill in his life. Wherefore the sun-kissed world looked good to him.
He mounted a horse picketed near the camp and rode out to a remuda of seven cow-ponies grazing in a draw. Of these he roped one and brought it back to camp, where he saddled it with deft swiftness.
The line-rider swung to the saddle and put his pony at a jog-trot. He topped a hill and looked across the sunlit mesas which rolled in long swells far as the eye could see. The desert flowered gayly with the purple, pink, and scarlet blossoms of the cacti and with the white, lilylike buds of the Spanish bayonet. The yucca and the prickly pear were abloom. He swept the panorama with trained eyes. In the distance a little bunch of antelope was moving down to water in single file. On a slope two miles away grazed a small herd of buffalo. No sign of human habitation