Stout Dave Brandon smiled genially as his eyes met Cranny’s.
“A few days’ riding about the plains with the Texas Rangers is my prescription,” he said. “The pure fresh air, the illimitable distances, the communing with nature in all its varied aspects, the——”
“Hold on—hold on!” chortled Cranny. “You’re the same old Dave. Fellows”—his tone changed to one of seriousness—“I want to make good at something. But for a few weeks I’ll just chuck all the worry stuff to the Texas winds. Dave’s right. Hooray for the Rambler Club and life with the Rangers!”
CHAPTER II
MACHINE GUNS
The crowd had arrived in the Lone Star State only a few days before. Traveling by rail, they reached a little town on the Rio Grande, visited the company headquarters of the Texas Rangers, for the time being stationed there, then put up at the rather pretentious Ledaro Hotel.
The first thing the boys did was to hire horses and provide themselves with firearms; the second, to ride off on a tour of the surrounding country. A few miles out of town, crowning the summit of a gentle rise, an abandoned ranch-house claimed their attention. Old and dilapidated, a suggestion of romance seemed to hover about its cracked and yellowed adobe walls. To those poetically inclined it conjured up thoughts of the long ago, when the sun shone on a fresh, clean structure situated amid a grassy field. But now rank weeds and scraggly bushes flourished unchecked, while vines climbed about the wooden steps or trailed over the veranda railing, as if to flaunt their disdain of the ruin which time and neglect had wrought.
Dave suggested renting the place. His idea received enthusiastic support. With Carl Alvin’s aid, they succeeded in finding the owner; and he, possessing that hospitality for which the Southern people are noted, promptly gave his consent, though the crowd had a difficult task to persuade him to accept remuneration.
Don Stratton had always been accustomed to ease and luxury, and though he couldn’t understand why the crowd should deliberately cast aside the comforts of hotel life, he proved his gameness by offering no objection to the plan.
So the ancient interior, in which perhaps for years the dreary silence had only been occasionally broken by intruding rodents scurrying across the floors or bats flapping in circular flights about the rooms, now became the temporary home of lusty, enthusiastic youths.
According to Tom, the task of putting the lower floor into habitable shape was jolly good fun. Many willing hands made the cleaning and dusting occupy but a surprisingly short time. From a clump of timber close by the boys gathered great quantities of fragrant cedar boughs; and these, skilfully fashioned, became their beds. Then, from the old, tumble-down stable in the rear, they obtained a supply of boards which enabled them to construct a table and several benches, rough and uncouth in appearance, yet strong and serviceable.