“Quite true,” said Cole. “And we mean to make it a safer and better place all the time.” He turned to Alvin. “Though to police efficiently such a vast territory would require a very much larger force.” Then seating himself on a bench near by, he, in answer to a question from Dick, told him that another company of Rangers had their headquarters at a town nearly three hundred miles to the north.
“Whew! What a jump between police stations,” chuckled Cranny. “Why—that’s away above the big bend of the Rio!”
“It certainly is,” said Jim Roland.
“That there river ain’t much good for navigation,” volunteered Raulings. “Ye see, for five hundred miles along its crooked course only small steamers can use it.”
“All the same I reckon the stream’s been a mighty handy thing for rustlers,” said Stovall. “I’ll bet many a drove o’ steers has been shipped on to boats, taken down-stream an’ loaded on ships.”
“Sure thing,” agreed Jim.
“I’m a-goin’ to stick up for the Old Rio,” grinned Joe Kane; “it’s sure all right for irrigation purposes anyway.”
“Yes, an’ the United States an’ the Greaser Government are always a-scrappin’ over it,” growled Raulings. “But none o’ ye ain’t hit the nail on the head yet.”
“Smash it,” pleaded Cranny.
“Without no fear of contradiction I can say that for helpin’ the Chinese to git on our side of the border that there stream is a bird! Yes, sir! There’s gangs what smuggle ’em over at so much a head. An’ the slant-eyed chinks is only too willin’ to pay.”