Texas Tales

Taken From Real Life from An Old Stove Up Cow Puncher Who Has Spent Nearly A Life Time On The Great Western Cattle Ranges. "My excuse for writing this book is money-and lots of it. I suppose the above would suffice, but as time is not very precious I will continue and tell how the idea of writing a book first got into my head.

The report of Blue Bonnet's ranch party had spread like wildfire through the town, and the going away of so many of its most prominent citizens to far-off Texas, had aroused quiet Woodford to a pitch of excitement equalled only by that of a prohibition election, or a visit from the President.

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.

Exactly twenty minutes after young Benton dismounted from his big rangy black before the door of a low adobe saloon that fronted upon one of the narrow crooked streets of old Las Vegas, he glanced into the eyes of the thin-lipped croupier and laughed. "You've got 'em. Seventy-four good old Texas dollars." He held up a coin between his thumb and forefinger. "I've got another one left, an' your boss is goin' to get that, too-but he's goin' to get it in legitimate barter an' trade."

Within the memory of those of us still on the sunny side of forty the more remote West has passed from rollicking boyhood to its responsible majority. The frontier has gone to join the good Indian. In place of the ranger who patrolled the border for "bad men" has come the forest ranger, type of the forward lapping tide of civilization.

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.

Based upon the Texan struggle for liberty against the power of Mexico, this revolution, epic in its nature, and crowded with heroism and great events, divides itself naturally into three parts.