Produced by Al Haines THE RED-BLOODED HEROES OF THE FRONTIER BY EDGAR BEECHER BRONSON Author of "Reminiscences of a Ranchman" HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON ---- NEW YORK ---- TORONTO COPYRIGHT A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1910 Published September 10, 1910 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England _The author acknowledges his indebtedness to the editors of periodicals in which some of this material has appeared, for permission to use the same in this volume._ CONTENTS CHAPTER I LOVING'S BEND CHAPTER II A COW-HUNTERS' COURT CHAPTER III A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER CHAPTER IV TRIGGERFINGERITIS CHAPTER V A JUGGLER WITH DEATH CHAPTER VI AM AERIAL BIVOUAC CHAPTER VII THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER CHAPTER VIII CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS CHAPTER IX ACROSS THE BORDER CHAPTER X THE THREE-LEGGED DOE AND THE BLIND BUCK CHAPTER XI THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT CHAPTER XII EL TIGRE CHAPTER XIII BUNKERED CHAPTER XIV THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED CHAPTER XV DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM CHAPTER XVI A MODERN COEUR-DE-LION CHAPTER I LOVING'S BEND From San Antonio to Fort Griffin, Joe Loving's was a name to conjure with in the middle sixties. His tragic story is still told and retold around camp-fires on the Plains. One of the thriftiest of the pioneer cow-hunters, he was the first to realize that if he would profit by the fruits of his labor he must push out to the north in search of a market for his cattle. The Indian agencies and mining camps of northern New Mexico and Colorado, and the Mormon settlements of Utah, were the first markets to attract attention. The problem of reaching them seemed almost hopeless of solution. Immediately to the north of them the country was trackless and practically unknown. The only thing certain about it was that it swarmed with hostile Indians. What were the conditions as to water and grass, two prime essentials to moving herds, no one knew. To be sure, the old overland mail road to El Paso, Chihuahua, and Los Angeles led out west from the head of the Concho to the Pecos; and once on the Pecos, which they knew had its source indefinitely in the north, a practicable route to market should be possible. But the trouble was to reach the Pecos across the ninety intervening miles of waterless plateau called the _Llano Estacado_, or Staked Plain. This plain was christened by the early Spanish explorers who, looking out across its vast stretches, could note no landmark, and left behind them driven stakes to guide their return. An elevated tableland averaging about one hundred miles wide and extending four hundred miles north and south, it presents, approaching anywhere from the east or the west, an endless line of sharply escarped bluffs from one hundred to two hundred feet high that with their buttresses and re-entrant angles look at a distance like the walls of an enormous fortified town. And indeed it possesses riches well worth fortifying.