The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lone Star Ranger, by Zane Grey

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Lone Star Ranger

Author: Zane Grey

Posting Date: July 27, 2008 [EBook #1027]
Release Date: August 1997

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONE STAR RANGER ***

Produced by Ken Smidge

THE LONE STAR RANGER

By Zane Grey

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 I. 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