THE LONE STAR RANGER




To
CAPTAIN JOHN HUGHES
and his Texas Rangers



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. Soon, perchance,
I shall have the pleasure of writing of the border of to-day,
which in Joe Sitter's laconic speech, "Shore is 'most as bad
an' wild as ever!"

In the North and East there is a popular idea that the frontier
of the West is a thing long past, and remembered now only in
stories. As I think of this I remember Ranger Sitter when he
made that remark, while he grimly stroked an unhealed bullet
wound. And I remember the giant Vaughn, that typical son of
stalwart Texas, sitting there quietly with bandaged head, his
thoughtful eye boding ill to the outlaw who had ambushed him.