The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-02-08
~r Ranger
 By HAMLIN GARLAND
Copyright. Ielo. by Hamiin Garland

as we contemptuousiy cAs1ed the small farmer. began sitting in here and there in spite of our guns. but he was only mosquito bite in comparison with the trouble which our cowpunchefs stirred up. Perhaps you remember enough about the business to know that an unbranded yearling calf without its mother is called a maverick"
 "Yes; remember that. 1t belongs to the man who finds him and brands him."
 Precisely. Now. that law worked very nicely so long as the poor cow boy was willing to catch and brand him for his employer, but it proved a joker when he woke up and said to his fellows, Why brand these nav ericks at s5 per head for this or that outfit when the law says they belong to the man who finds themY"
 Lee Virginia looked up brightly. '"That seems right to me-"
 "Ah, yes. but wait. We cattlemen had large herds, and the probabilities were that the calf belonged to some one of US whereas the cowboy, having no herd at all. knew the maverick be- longed to some one's herd. True, the law said it was his, but the law did not mean to reward the freebooter. Yet that is exactly what it did At first only a few outlaws took advan- tage of 1t. but hard years came on, the cattle business became less and less profitable. we were forced to lay of our men. and so at last the range swarmed with idle cowpunchers. Then came the breakdown in our scheme. The cowboys took to 'mavericiSing on their own account. Some of them had the grace to go into partnership with some farmer and so claim a small bunch of cows. but others suddenly and miracukously acquired herds of their own. From keeping within the law they passed to violent methods. They slit the tongues of calves for the purpose of separating them from their mothers Finding he could not suck, bossy would at last wander away from his dam and so become maverick. In short, anarchy reigned on the range"
 "But surely my father had nothing to do with this?"
 "No; your father up to this time had been on good terms with everybody. He had a small herd of cattle down the river, which he owned in common with 8 man named Hart"
 T remember him"
 'He was we'll thought of by all the big outfits. and when the situation be- came intolerable and we got together to weed out the rustlers.' as these cat tie thieves were called, your father was approached and converted to a belief in drastic measures. He had suffered less than the rest of us be- cause of his small herd and the fact that he was very popular among the cowboys. So far as I was concerned, the use of violent methods revolted me. My training in the east had made me a respecter of the law. Change the law said. The law is all right. they replied; the trouble is with these rustlers. We'll hang few of 'em, and that will break up the business
 Parts of this story came back to the girls mind. producing momentary flashes of perfect recollection. She heard again the voices of excited men arguing over and over the question of '.mavericking," and she saw her fa- ther as he rode up to the house that last day before he went south.
 Redf1eld went on. "The whole plan as developed was silly, and l wonder still that Ed Wetherford. who knew the hester and the cowboy so well. should have lent his aid to it. The cattlemen. some from Cheyenne. some from Denver and a few from New York and Chicago, agreed to finance a a sort of vigildnte corps composed of men from the outside on the under standing that this policing body should be commanded by one of their own number. Your father was chosen sec ond in command and was to guide the party. for he knew almost every one of the rustlers andocould ride directly to their doors."
 "I wish he hadn't done that" mur- mured the girl.
 "I must be frank with you. Virginia, I can't excuse that in him. It was a kind of treachery. He must have been warped by his associates. They con- vinced him by some means that 1t was his duty. and one fine day the Fork was startled by messenger who rode in to say that the cattle barons were coming with hundred Texas bad men 'to clean out the town and to put their own men into office. This last was silly rot to me, but tho people believed it."
 The girl was tingling now. "l re. member! I remember the men who rode into the town to give the alarm I was scared almost breathless."
 'I was in Sulphur City and did not hear of 1t till it was nearly all over" Redfield resG-"ed. his speech showing a little of the excitement which thrill ed through the girls voice. "Well. the first act of vengeance was so ill con- sidered that 1t practically ended the whole campaign. The invaders fell upon and killed two ranchers, one of whom was probably not a rustler at all, but q peaceable settler, and the other one they most barbarously hanged. More than this. they attack ed and vainly tried to kill two settlers whom they met on the road-German
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