The Lone Star Ranger | Page 3

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The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey This etext was prepared by Ken
Smidge of Mt. Clemens, MI.

THE LONE STAR RANGER

To CAPTAIN JOHN HUGHES and his Texas Rangers

It may seem strange to you that out of all the stories I heard on the Rio
Grande I should choose as first that of Buck Duane--outlaw and
gunman.
But, indeed, Ranger Coffee's story of the last of the Duanes has haunted
me, and I have given full rein to imagination and have retold it in my
own way. It deals with the old law--the old border days--therefore it is
better first. Soon, perchance, I shall have the pleasure of writing of the

border of to-day, which in Joe Sitter's laconic speech, "Shore is 'most as
bad an' wild as ever!"
In the North and East there is a popular idea that the frontier of the
West is a thing long past, and remembered now only in stories. As I
think of this I remember Ranger Sitter when he made that remark,
while he grimly stroked an unhealed bullet wound. And I remember the
giant Vaughn, that typical son of stalwart Texas, sitting there quietly
with bandaged head, his thoughtful eye boding ill to the outlaw who
had ambushed him. Only a few months have passed since then--when I
had my memorable sojourn with you--and yet, in that short time,
Russell and Moore have crossed the Divide, like Rangers.
Gentlemen,--I have the honor to dedicate this book to you, and the hope
that it shall fall to my lot to tell the world the truth about a strange,
unique, and misunderstood body of men--the Texas Rangers--who
made the great Lone Star State habitable, who never know peaceful rest
and sleep, who are passing, who surely will not be forgotten and will
some day come into their own.
ZANE GREY

BOOK 1 THE OUTLAW
CHAPTER I
So it was in him, then--an inherited fighting instinct, a driving intensity
to kill. He was the last of the Duanes, that old fighting stock of Texas.
But not the memory of his dead father, nor the pleading of his
soft-voiced mother, nor the warning of this uncle who stood before him
now, had brought to Buck Duane so much realization of the dark
passionate strain in his blood. It was the recurrence, a hundred-fold
increased in power, of a strange emotion that for the last three years
had arisen in him.
"Yes, Cal Bain's in town, full of bad whisky an' huntin' for you,"

repeated the elder man, gravely.
"It's the second time," muttered Duane, as if to himself.
"Son, you can't avoid a meetin'. Leave town till Cal sobers up. He ain't
got it in for you when he's not drinkin'."
"But what's he want me for?" demanded Duane. "To insult me again? I
won't stand that twice."
"He's got a fever that's rampant in Texas these days, my boy. He wants
gun-play. If he meets you he'll try to kill you."
Here it stirred in Duane again, that bursting gush of blood, like a wind
of flame shaking all his inner being, and subsiding to leave him
strangely chilled.
"Kill me! What for?" he asked.
"Lord knows there ain't any reason. But what's that to do with most of
the shootin' these days? Didn't five cowboys over to Everall's kill one
another dead all because they got to jerkin' at a quirt among themselves?
An' Cal has no reason to love you. His girl was sweet on you."
"I quit when I found out she was his girl."
"I reckon she ain't quit. But never mind her or reasons. Cal's here, just
drunk enough to be ugly. He's achin' to kill somebody. He's one of
them four-flush gun-fighters. He'd like to be thought bad. There's a lot
of wild cowboys who're ambitious for a reputation. They talk about
how quick they are on the