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NABOURS, Del Williams and old Sanchez spurred down the saucerlike flat in which the Del Sol herd was held. They arrived none too soon.

A party of six strangers, all armed, were engaged in argument with as many of the Del Sol men, who had ridden between them and the edge of the herd. The plunging of the horses and the loud voices began to make the wild cattle uneasy. Other riders were doing all they could to hold the herd from a run, which might have been precisely what the intruders desired. Their leader, a heavy-set, dark-bearded, handsomely dressed man, spurred out to meet Nabours, who came straight in and with no ceremony jerked his mount almost against him.

“Who are you, and what do you want here?” he demanded angrily. The stranger coolly turned.

“Since you ride up and ask,” rejoined he, “we’re cowmen, and we want our property.”

“You’re no cowman!” hotly retorted the old foreman. “Else you wouldn’t be hollering and riding around the aidge of another man’s herd. What you trying to do—start our cattle back in the brush again? Your property be damned! Get on away from the aidge of our herd while you got time!”

The numbers of the Del Sol riders, thus increased and led by a determined man, impressed the brusque stranger; but he did not lack assurance.

“You buck the law, friend?” said he. “I’ve got certified records of eight brands, and powers of attorney from the owners to comb any herd going off this range. We’re taking no chances.”

“You’re taking damned long chances if you keep one more minute where you’re at,” remarked Jim Nabours. “Git back now, if you want to talk this over!”

He spurred between the strangers and the herd, threw the weight of his horse against the nearest rider, his eye never leaving the leader’s eye, and his hand always ready. His men followed him, pushing straight into the others. Any second a half dozen men might have been killed.

“Come on, boys!” called the bearded leader suddenly. “Pull off till I tell this fellow what’s what.”

They reined off, confused, a hundred yards or so one side; but Nabours clung against his man, knee to knee.

“You can’t tell us nothing!” said he. “You can’t cut a critter out of this herd! You can’t look at ary brand we got! You savvy?”

“I savvy you’re running a right high blaze, neighbor. You reckon you’re above the law?”

“Damn the law! The law ain’t got in here yet. Ef it had, our range wouldn’t of been skinned by a lot of lowdown thieves that wasn’t above robbing a girl when her own men was away. I’ve knowed all this year that our range was skinned. What cows we got we need. We’re a-going to trail ’em all north, jest like they lay, and no outfit’s going to cut that herd, law or no law. ’Tain’t no cow thieves is going to work over a brand in our herd, or even look at one.”

“You can’t hang that on me! Cow thieves?”

“I do hang it on you, and it goes! You look like a cow thief to me, and act like one. You come from Austin, but you never was raised in Texas. Pull out or we’ll work you over, and do it the old way!”

The two bands, about equal in numbers—for the bulk of the Del Sol men dared not leave the held herd—now faced each other, roughly divided by a line constantly changing as the horses shifted and plunged. Every man was armed. The insult had been passed. The smile on Nabours’ lined face, showing his snarling white teeth, the scowl on the face of the other partisan meant now only maneuvering for the first break. None of the stern-faced group thought of anything else. Eye watched hand. Revolvers lay itching and corded nerves were taut above them. Each man waited for the break.

The thunder of hoofs coming down the slope at their rear made a new factor. Jim Nabours dared not lift an eye to see who or what it was. He had to watch the other man’s eye, his hand. But the voice of old Sanchez rose, calling to the newcomers.

“Pronto, capitan! Vien aqui, pronto! Pronto!”

The intruders whirled, not daring to begin an encounter with new assailants at their rear. The crisis was broken.

Now Nabours saw five men, splendidly armed and mounted, who swept on, spurring. They wore the riding-garb of the newly reorganized Texas Rangers, that strange constabulary of the border soon to make more history of their own. A beardless boy, apparently their lieutenant, led them now.

“Hands up, you men!” commanded he.

The five men were halted in line, their perfectly broken mounts steady. A repeating carbine of the new Spencer type was in the hands of each, and each of the five had a man covered, his rifle leveled from his own waist.

“Sanchez, throw their guns on the ground!” ordered Nabours suddenly. The young lieutenant nodded.

“Don’t move, any of you, or we’ll have to shoot.”

Quietly he sat his motionless horse while the old Mexican, dismounting, walked to each saddle of the herd cutters and, drawing out each rifle, threw it and the man’s pistols in a heap on the ground.

“What does this mean?” demanded the burly leader of the invaders, still blustering. “We’re here peaceable. We’ve broke no law. We’re only after our own property that these men are about to drive out of the country.”

“Back to Austin!” replied the armed youth tersely. “If there’s a court left worth the name I’m going to get justice for you some time, Mr. Rudabaugh.”

“What on earth do you mean by that?” rejoined the ruffian. “We got papers to take up cows in these brands. Looky here. Don’t you never think you can hold up a state officer of Texas! I’ll have you damned rangers disbanded!”

“All right,” replied the youngster. “We ain’t disbanded yet.”

“But look here!”

The leader produced from the long tin case at his cantle a series of papers purporting to be brand descriptions and authorizations. The impassive young lieutenant shuffled them through, his rifle across his saddle.

“Yes?” said he. “Brands? What brands? Gonzales County? How old is the Six Slash E in Gonzales?”

“Twelve years,” asserted the chief of the interlopers.

“You’re a liar, Mister Treasurer,” smiled the boy. “There isn’t and never was any such brand in Gonzales. I think your names are forged. What are you doing in here, so far south?”

The partisan showed a sudden perturbation in his eyes.

“Well, who are you?” he demanded. “You seem to know mighty much for a upstart. I tell you, I’ll have you and your robbers all disbanded!”

“Never mind! I just happened to meet up with these other boys. You ride along as far as Austin and rest your hat there a while. We’ll see what the court says, if there are any courts now. You’ve worked this range long enough and close enough.”

The youth never lost his calm.

“You’ll wish you’d never pulled this sort of play with me!” flared Rudabaugh. “I’ve got friends——”

“Yes, the state treasurer does have friends. Don’t you steal enough that way, in your river-improvement ring and your other deals, without coming away south to rob a girl? What grudge you got against her or against her family? I wouldn’t let you cut that herd if I knowed it was full of brands besides the T. L.”

“You’re getting out of your depth now, young fellow,” sneered Rudabaugh. “What’s more, this is Caldwell and not Gonzales. You got no right to arrest anybody here.”

“As a state Ranger I shore have. I’m nastier to run on than any carpetbag sheriff that tallies in at Austin.

“Take them in, boys,” he concluded. “Work the old ley fuga if they break—but they’re damned cowards and will go quiet. Just make them ride in front.

“That’s the horse!” he added to one of his men as he rode apart and looked down on the dusty ground. “Shoe off, right front, and hoof split. They was plumb up to the gate of Del Sol.”

“Yes, and we’ll get our cows yet,” exclaimed Rudabaugh savagely, as a ranger nodded to old Sanchez, who now deftly bound each man’s feet together under his horse’s belly with a Spanish knot that bid fair to stay set.

“So?” The young rider’s smile was pleasant. “Now, how’d you all like to have back your guns and an even break, you to begin right now to cut that Del Sol herd?”

“I know there’s cows in that herd that ain’t in the T. L. Brand.”

“Well, they’ll all be in our road brand before sundown two days,” cut in Jim Nabours now. “You lying, low-down dog, I wish to God these boys hadn’t came! There’s only one way to handle people like you. Git out of jail—and come back! That’s all we hope.

“McCullough, do you want any more men?” he added.

“Why?” The youth laughed and rode away. “Fall in there, prisoners!” he commanded. “Ride for the ferry trail. I wouldn’t try to ride too fast.”

“Oh, we’ll be back!” called the gang captain, defiant still.

“I certainly do hope you will!” replied Nabours fervently. “I’ll come all the way back from Aberlene, ef I ever get there, just to be around here when you-all do come!”

A chorus of jeers and curses came back from the prisoners. The Rangers said never a word, but herded their men on ahead.

Jim Nabours jerked up his mount—a sign to the herd riders, and the latter swung away, glad enough to have the herd still under control. The animals began to edge out, to thin, to spread, to graze. Old Jim Nabours rode to the edge, singing a song of his own, as he sometimes did when especially wrathful:

“Bud Dunk, he was a Ranger, a Ranger of renown,

But says he to the cashier when he ride into the town.

Says he, ‘I need some money that the bank here owes to me.

So please to make it plenty, fer I’m broke ez I kin be——’ ”

A scattering chorus came to him, roared out of the rising dust cloud:

“Oh, please, sir, make it plenty, fer we’re broke ez we kin be!”