Thunderbolt was an outcast. In all that cattle country of the Brazos every man’s hand was against him.
Bred on the wild llano, he was early compelled to shift for himself, growing up into a wild and untrammeled freedom. He rebelled against authority and asked only to be let alone.
Grass and water were free. He took his forage wherever he found it. In the winter he starved more or less, fighting out the “northers” under the lee of hills, or in the leafless shelters of the Brazos thickets; but in the spring and summer he roamed at will, grazing wherever fancy led him and sniffing the air and watching keen-eyed for human foes.
When he was three years old, this maverick fell in with a bunch of cattle from one of the Brazos ranches. He experienced a desire for brute companionship, and when the cowboys came he was caught in a gully and hurried in the direction of the branding pen.
A rope was thrown. Imbued with the strength of a huge body and the unfettered years, he snapped the rope in twain, overset a horse and threw a cowboy sprawling. Then he raced for the great out-doors, bent only on getting clear of these human foes, with their ropes, and their fires, and their branding irons.
Six men on fleet horses took after him. One rider, his mount fleeter than the others, came near to running him down. Just as the noose was leaving the pursuer’s hand, the maverick whirled to an about face and charged.
A revolver echoed. Its puny report was almost lost in the immensity of the plain. The bullet bit into the maverick’s dusty side, ran like fire along his ribs and filled his heart with madness.
Like a thunderbolt he collided with horse and rider; and when he broke away and raced on to his hardly won freedom, he left a dead cow pony behind him, and a cowboy with a broken arm.
From that moment, the maverick was called Red Thunderbolt throughout the range. War was declared on him, and cunning traps were devised for his capture.
But never a trap closed upon Red Thunderbolt. His brute cunning was more than a match for the cunning of his foes.