you
please. I'm not goin' to beg you on my knees to take the best job in the
Panhandle. Plenty of good men want it."

The frank smile of the Ranger was disarming. "They don't want it any
worse than I do, Mr. Wadley. I'm not a fool. Just because we had a
difference oncet, I'm not standin' on my dignity. Nothin' like that.
You're offerin' me a big chance--the biggest I'm ever likely to get.
When you pick me to boss the A T O under yore orders, you pay me a
sure-enough compliment, an' I'd be plumb glad to say yes."

"Well, why don't you?"

"Because the Rangers have got an unfinished job before them here, an'
I'm not goin' to leave Captain Ellison in the lurch. I'll stick to my
dollar a day till we've made a round-up."

The cattleman clapped him on the shoulder. "That's right, boy. That's
the way to talk. Make yore clean-up, then come see me. I won't promise
to hold this job open, but I want you to talk with me before you sign up
with any one else."

But the weeks passed, and the Dinsmores still operated in the land. They
worked under cover, less openly than in the old days, but still a
storm-center of trouble. It was well known that they set the law at
defiance, but no man who could prove it would produce evidence.

Meanwhile spring had made way for summer, and summer was beginning to
burn into autumn. The little force of Rangers rode the land and watched
for that false move which some day the Dinsmores would make to bring
them within reach of the law.

On one of its trips in the early fall, the Clarendon stage left town
almost half an hour late. It carried with it a secret, but everybody on
board had heard a whisper of it. There was a gold shipment in the box
consigned to Tascosa. A smooth-faced Ranger sat beside the driver with a
rifle across his knees. He had lately been appointed to the force, and
this was one of his first assignments. Perhaps that was why Arthur
Ridley was a little conscious of his new buckskin suit and the
importance of his job.

The passengers were three. One was a jolly Irish mule-skinner with a
picturesque vocabulary and an inimitable brogue. The second wore the
black suit and low-crowned hat of a clergyman, and yellow goggles to
protect his eyes from the sun. He carried a roll of Scriptural charts
such as are used in Sunday-Schools. The third was an angular and
spectacled schoolmarm, for Tascosa was going to celebrate by starting a
school.

Most of those on board were a trifle nervou