ld the Dinsmores was the right one.

"She thought a heap o' Ford, 'Mona did," the cattleman went on. "He was
all she had except me. The boy was wild. Most young colts are. My fault.
I made things too easy for him--gave him too much money to spend. But
outside of bein' wild he was all right. I'd hate to have her hear
anything against him." He sighed. "Well, I reckon what must be must."

"Stories the Dinsmores tell won't count with honest folks. Pete is one
bad _hombre_. Everybody will know why he talks--if he does. That's a big
_if_ too. He knows we've got evidence to tie his gang up with the
killin' of Ford. He doesn't know how much. Consequence is he'll not want
to raise any question about the boy. We might come back at him too
strong."

"Mebbeso." Wadley looked at the Ranger and his gaze appraised Roberts a
man among men. He wished that he had been given a son like this. "Boy,
you kept yore wits fine to-night. That idea of makin' 'Mona walk alone
to the house an' keepin' her singin' so's a bushwhacker couldn't make
any mistake an' think she was a man was a jim-dandy."

The Ranger rose. He had not the same difficulty in parting from Wadley
or any other man that he found in making his adieux to a woman. He
simply reached for his hat, nodded almost imperceptibly, and walked out
of the house.

CHAPTER XIX

TRAPPED

The territory which Captain Ellison had to cover to find the Dinsmore
gang was as large as Maine. Over this country the buffalo-hunter had
come and gone; the cattleman was coming and intended to stay. Large
stretches of it were entirely uninhabited; here and there sod or adobe
houses marked where hardy ranchers had located on the creeks; and in a
few places small settlements dotted the vast prairies.

There were in those days three towns in the Panhandle. If you draw a
line due east from Tascosa, it will pass very close to Mobeetie, a
hundred miles away. Clarendon is farther to the south. In the seventies
Amarillo was only what Jumbo Wilkins would have called "a whistlin'-post
in the desert," a place where team outfits camped because water was
handy. The official capital of the Panhandle was Mobeetie, the seat of
government of Wheeler County, to which were attached for judicial
purposes more than a score of other counties not yet organized or even
peopled.

To the towns of the Panhandle were drifting in cowboys, freighters,
merchants, gamblers, cattle outfits, and a few rustlers from Colorado