CHAPTER XIX
TRAPPED
The territory which Captain Ellison had to cover to find the Dinsmoregang was as large as Maine. Over this country the buffalo-hunter hadcome and gone; the cattleman was coming and intended to stay. Largestretches of it were entirely uninhabited; here and there sod or adobehouses marked where hardy ranchers had located on the creeks; and in afew places small settlements dotted the vast prairies.
There were in those days three towns in the Panhandle. If you draw aline due east from Tascosa, it will pass very close to Mobeetie, ahundred miles away. Clarendon is farther to the south. In the seventiesAmarillo was only what Jumbo Wilkins would have called "a whistlin'-postin the desert," a place where team outfits camped because water washandy. The official capital of the Panhandle was Mobeetie, the seat ofgovernment of Wheeler County, to which were attached for judicialpurposes more than a score of other counties not yet organized or evenpeopled.
To the towns of the Panhandle were drifting in cowboys, freighters,merchants, gamblers, cattle outfits, and a few rustlers from Colorado,New Mexico, and the more settled parts of Texas. They were the hardiersons of an adventurous race, for each man had to make good his footingby his own strength. At first there had been no law except that whichlay in the good-will of men, and the holster by their side. The sheriffof Wheeler County had neither the deputies nor the financial backing tocarry justice into the mesquite. Game gunmen served as marshals in thetowns, but these had no authority on the plains. Until Captain Ellisonand his little company of Rangers moved into the district there had beenno way of taking law into the chaparral. The coming of these quiet menin buckskin was notice to the bad-man that murder and robbery were notmerely pleasant pastimes.
Yet it would be easy to overstate the lawlessness of the Panhandle.There were bad men. Every frontier of civilization has them. But of allthe great cattle country which stretched from Mexico to the Canadianline none had a finer or more orderly citizenry than this. The countrywas notably free of the bloodshed which drenched such places as DodgeCity to the east or Lincoln County, New Mexico, to the west of thePanhandle.
Ellison wanted the Dinsmores, not because he believed he could yet hangany serious crime on them but for the moral effect upon them and thecommunity. Clint Wadley had gone looking for trouble and had beenwounded in consequence. No Texas jury would convict on that count. Butit was not a conviction the fire-eating little Captain wanted just now.He intended to show that his boys could go out and arrest the Dinsmoresor any other lawbreakers, whenever the occasion called for it. It mighttake them a week or a month or six months, but they would bag their gamein the end. The rule of the Texas Rangers was to sleep on a man's trailuntil they found him.
The Captain stationed a man at each of the three towns. He sent two on ascouting-trip through No Man's Land, and two more to search Palo DuroCanon. He watched the stages as they went and came, questionedmule-skinners with freight outfits, kept an eye on _tendejons_ andfeed-corrals. And at the end of three weeks he had no results whateverto show, except a sarcastic note from Pete Dinsmore complimenting him onhis force of Rangers.
The Captain was furious, but not a whit discouraged.
"Dog it, we'll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," hetold Lieutenant Hawley, his second in command.
To them came Jack Roberts with a proposition. "I've found out that HomerDinsmore has a girl in Tascosa. She's a Mexican. I know about herthrough Tony Alviro. It seems she's a cousin of Bonita, the girl Tonyis going to marry. About once a week Dinsmore rides into town at night,ties his horse in the brush back of her house, and goes in to see her.If you say so, Chief, I'll make it my business to be there when hecomes."
"Need any help, do you reckon?"
"No. I'll have to hide out in the mesquite. One man will be better onthat job than two."
"All right, son. You know yore job. Get him."
That was all the warrant Jack wanted or needed. He returned to Tascosaand made his preparations.
Every night after dark he slipped out of town by the north road till hewas on the open prairie, then swung round in a semicircle skirting thelights of the settlement. He had arranged a blind in the brush fromwhich he could see the back of the Menendez "soddy." Occasionally hecomforted himself with a cautiously smoked cigarette, but mostly he laypatiently watching the trap that was to lure his prey. At one o'clockeach morning he rose, returned on his beat, went to bed, and fellinstantly asleep.
On the fifth night there was a variation of the programme.
It was between nine and ten o'clock that Jack heard the hoot of an owl.He sat up instantly, eyes and ears keyed for action.
The back door of the sod-house opened, and through the night stillnessfloated the faint strumming of a guitar. Jack did not doubt that it wasthe answering signal to show that all was safe.
A man crept forward from the mesquite and disappeared inside the house.
Through the brush the Ranger snaked his way to the point from which thehooting of the owl had come. A bronco was tethered to a bush. Anexamination showed that the horse had been ridden far, but not too fast.
Jack was satisfied the man had come alone.
A faint trail wound in and out among the mesquite and the cactus to thehouse. Beside this trail, behind a clump of prickly pear, the Ranger satdown and waited. The hour-hand of his watch crept to ten, to eleven, totwelve. Roberts rose occasionally, stretched himself to avoid any chanceof cramped muscles, and counted stars by way of entertainment. He hadspent more diverting evenings, but there was a good chance that the fagend of this one would be lively enough to compensate.
Shortly after midnight a shaft of light reached out from the house intothe desert. The back door had opened. A woman came out, took a few stepsforward, peered about her, and called that all was clear. A manfollowed. The two stood talking for a minute in low tones; then the mankissed her and turned briskly toward the brush. According to theRanger's programme the girl should have returned to the house, butinstead she waited in the moonlight to see the last of her lover. Whenhe waved an arm to her and cried "_Buenos noches, chachita_," she threwhim a kiss across the starlit prairie.
Intent on his good-night, the man missed the ill-defined trail that ledto his horse and zigzagged through the brush at another angle. TheRanger, light-footed as a cat, moved forward noiselessly to intercepthim, crouching low and taking advantage of all the cover he could find.Luck was with him. Dinsmore strode within a yard of the kneeling manwithout a suspicion of danger.
A powerful forearm slid out from the brush. Sinewy fingers caught thefar ankle of the moving man. One strong pull sent Dinsmore off hisbalance. The outlaw clutched wildly at the air and came crashing down.He fell into a bush of catclaw cactus.
The Ranger was on him like a wildcat. Before his victim could make amove to defend himself, Jack had the man handcuffed with his arms behindhim.
Dinsmore, his face in the catclaw, gave a smothered cry for help. Fromwhere he was, the Ranger could not see the house, but he heard theexcited voice of the woman, the sound of a commotion, and the beat ofrapid footsteps.
An excited voice called: "_Quien es?_"
The trapped man wanted to explain, but his captor rubbed the face ofthe outlaw deeper into the torturing spines of the cactus.
"Don't ask any questions," advised Roberts. "Get back into the house_pronto_. The Rangers have taken Dinsmore. Unless you're lookin' fortrouble, you'd better _vamos_."
Evidently two or three Mexicans had run out to the rescue. Jack couldhear them discussing the situation in whispers. He had them at a doubledisadvantage. They did not know how many Rangers lay in the mesquite;nor did they want to fall foul of them in any case. The men drew backslowly, still in excited talk among themselves, and disappeared insidethe house. The woman protested volubly and bitterly till the closing ofthe door stifled her voice.
Jack pulled his prisoner to a more comfortable position.
"Sorry you fell into the catclaw, Dinsmore," he said. "If you'll
standhitched, I'll draw the spine from your face."
The man cursed him savagely.
"All right," said the Ranger amiably. "If you want 'em as souvenirs,I'll not object. Suits me if it does you. We'll go now."
He tied to the handcuffs the end of the lariat which was attached to thesaddle. The other end he fastened to the pommel.
"I'll not go a step with you," growled Dinsmore.
"Oh, yes, you'd better step along. I'd hate to have to drag you throughthis brush. It's some rough."
The Ranger swung to the saddle. The bronco answered the pressure of therider's knee and began to move. The lariat jerked tight. SullenlyDinsmore yielded.
But his spirit was unbroken. As he stumbled along in front of the horse,he filled the night with raucous oaths.
"Take these cuffs off'n me and come down from that horse," he stormed."Do that, and I'll beat off yore head."
The man on horseback smiled. "You're the laziest fellow I ever did see,Dinsmore," he drawled. "The last fellow that licked me pulled me fromthe saddle."
"Just let me get a lick at you," pleaded the outlaw. "I'll give you thatbronc you're ridin' if you'll stand up to me man to man."
"Can't do it. I'm here for business an' not for pleasure. Sorry."
"You've got no right to arrest me. What's the charge?"
"I've forgot whether it's brand-burning, highway robbery, murder, ormayhem--any old crime would fit you."
"You've got no evidence."
"Mebbeso, mebbe not," answered the Ranger lightly. "Cap Ellison saidhe'd like to have a squint at you, anyhow, so I said I'd fetch youalong. No trouble a-tall to show goods."
The outlaw bared his tobacco-stained teeth in a sudden fury of rage."Some day I'll gun you right for this."
The narrow-loined youth with the well-packed shoulders looked down athim, and the eyes of the officer were hard and steady as steel.
"Dinsmore," he said, "we're goin' to put you an' yore outfit out o'business in the Panhandle. Your day is done. You've run on the rope longenough. I'll live to see you hanged--an' soon."