The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1941-04-24
CHAPTER VIII

neat across the plains, the Tanner
men who held the Graham ranch
were already saddling. All over
Texas. cowmen were throwing to
gether the last trail herds of the
year; it was time for these Tanner
men to roll their chuck wagons
again, to round up the last of the
trail-fit stock that remained in the
herds which had belonged to Bob
Graham.
Out from what had been the Gra-
ham corral, three riders swept
through the dusty dawn; but they
had hardly left the pole fences be.
hind when six other riders confront.
ed them, rising into their saddles
like Comanches, out of the brush.
The strangers closed in a semi-cir-
Gle, unhurriedly, their carbines in
their hands. In another minute o,
two the three Tanner riders were.
grouped in a defensive knot, while
from the semi-circle of the raiders
Nate Liggett logged forward to talk
1t over.
81 don't think you want to go on"
he said. Il don't even think you
want to work for this outfit any
more"
Tsco nights later, one hundred and fjt,
miles aioay-
With the approach of dusk, Pc
culiar light lay upon the valley Of
the Potreros. In reach of open
grass a herd of five hundred head
punched loosely-tame, heavy cat
tie, already well removed by breed.
ing from the old, wild, long-horn
strain. But they had not punched
voluntarily. They shuffied restless
ly, watching the brush! something
was happening around them that
they did NOT understand.
AS the light failed, the figures OF
horsemen emerged from the brush,
cutting mile-long shadows into the
fiat rays of sunset; the huge, heavy.
shouldered man who signaled to his
spread-out cowboys by turning his
horse this way or that, in Indian
horse language, was Dave Shannon.
They did not harass the cattle.
Only, between sunset and the next
daylight, no COW took a step other
than in the direction of the Mexi-
can border
Dry.grass season; Texas scorched by
the hot srinds-
All across the southern ranges a
peculiar thing was happening. AS
word spread from twenty points Of
disturbance, certain of the older cat
tlemen began to sense that there
was a curious, almost systematic
order to what in itself seemed a
widespread disruption. All over the
Big Bend country, eastward almost
to the well settled Nueces, west
ward beyond the barren Pecos,
northward to the fever line, was
breaking a spotty wave of raids of
an unparalleled boldness. Far apart,
but almost simultaneously, hell had
busted loose in great number of
places, covering more than half Of
Texas.
Presently it began to appear that
the tough, notoriously trouble-mak-
ing outfits under Cleve Tanner were
not holding together as they always
had before. Here and there men
were beginning to desert the Tanner
outfits sometimes fired because
they had failed, sometimes volun-
tarily deserting to the ranks of the
raiders who were now almost open
ly Furnishing the Thorpe-Tanner
holdings.
Mid-Augusf, in the season OF driest
heat
Into the Potreros, by little used
trail, black-sombreroed horseman
rode. He was tested gunman, a
proved man whose name was known
and feared half the length of the
Great Trail. Trouble-shooting for
Cleve Tanner now, he was moving
into the Potreros to find out what had
gone wrong with some of Tanners
choicest herds. He had come fast,
changing horses frequently, riding
far into the night.
Looping down the almost invisible
trail through the dark, his horse sud-
denly dropped from under him, head
long into nothingness. The pony
might have stepped into prairie
dog hole-or it could have been the
loop of rope. But as the dazed
rider struggled up, his mouth full
of dirt, a rifle was proddin~ his. bell
ly, and a voice was sayinG Don't
you think you might have took the
wrong way? -
Vest Texas, far up the lonely Pecos-
One of Cleve Tanners outfit bosses
was talking to the Ranger stationed
at Mustang Point.
stSuch damn outbust of lawless-
ness has cut loose here as I never
seen BEFORE" he said.
The ranger here was Val McDon-
aid. He had gone out nineteen times
in battle, sometimes against Mexi-
cans, sometimes against the Conan
ches, and he had hunted white rem
egades galore.
lawfully tough" he said in his
own sympathetic way.
The foreman of the outfit that was
busted up was fit to be tied. Il
tell you, we're being stolen blind, =
he raved. mot just a calf here
and there, either-they take 'em in
swoops and punches. It's the bold
est thing I've ever seen. Even when
there's no chance of getting clear
with any cattle, they're game to
stampede a cut herd that it's took
weeks to round up, and scatter II
from hell to-"