The Rustlers of Pecos County

By Zane Grey

"The Rustlers of Pecos County" is another fantastic example of Western fiction by the master of the genre, American Author Zane Grey. This book is highly recommended for all lovers of Western fiction and constitutes a must-read for fans of Grey's seminal work. Contents include: "Vaughn Steele And Russ Sittell", "A Kiss And An Arrest", "Sounding The Timber", "Steele Breaks Up The Part", "Cleaning Out Linrock", "Enter Jack Blome", "Diane And Vaughn", "The Eavesdropper", etc. Pearl Zane Grey (1872 - 1939) was an American writer most famous for his adventure novels of the Western genre. Other notable works by this author include: "Riders of the Purple Sage" (1912), "The Last Trail" (1906), and "The Lone Star Ranger" (1915). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on the history of Western fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Classic Western Fiction Library
• Release date: Jul 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781473345935

Zane Grey

American author (Pearl Zane Grey) is best known as a pioneer of the Western literary genre, which idealized the Western frontier and the men and women who settled the region. Following in his father’s footsteps, Grey studied dentistry while on a baseball scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. Grey’s athletic talent led to a short career in the American minor league before he established his dentistry practice. As an outlet to the tedium of dentistry, Grey turned to writing, and finally abandoned his dental practice to write full time. Over the course of his career Grey penned more than ninety books, including the best-selling Riders of the Purple Sage. Many of Grey’s novels were adapted for film and television. He died in 1939.

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THE RUSTLERS

OF PECOS COUNTY

By

Zane Grey

Copyright © 2016 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from

the British Library

Contents

Biography of Zane Grey

The History of Western Fiction

CHAPTER 1 - VAUGHN STEELE AND RUSS SITTELL

CHAPTER 2 - A KISS AND AN ARREST

CHAPTER 3 - SOUNDING THE TIMBER

CHAPTER 4 - STEELE BREAKS UP THE PARTY

CHAPTER 5 - CLEANING OUT LINROCK

CHAPTER 6 - ENTER JACK BLOME

CHAPTER 7 - DIANE AND VAUGHN

CHAPTER 8 - THE EAVESDROPPER

CHAPTER 9 - IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO

CHAPTER 10 - A SLAP IN THE FACE

CHAPTER 11 - THE FIGHT IN THE HOPE SO

CHAPTER 12 - TORN TWO WAYS

CHAPTER 13 - RUSS SITTELL IN ACTION

CHAPTER 14 - THROUGH THE VALLEY

CHAPTER 15 - CONVALESCENCE

Biography of Zane Grey

Pearl Zane Gray was born in Zanesville, Ohio (a town founded by his maternal ancestor Ebenezer Zane) in 1872. As well as being a keen reader of adventure stories and dime novels, Grey was a talented young baseball player, and won a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, from where he graduated with a degree in dentistry in 1898. Shortly before turning thirty, Grey moved to New York to set up his first dental clinic. He often left the city to go fishing and camping, and it was in 1900, while canoeing in the upper Delaware River, that he met Dolly, his future wife. The couple married in 1905, and when Dolly inherited a large sum of money, Grey was able to cease his dental practice and turn full-time to his nascent literary pursuits.

Dolly managed her husband’s finances and contract negotiations – and tolerated his many infidelities – while Grey wrote, and the two of them split his income down the middle. His first magazine article, ‘A Day on the Delaware’, had been published in the May 1902 issue of Recreation magazine, but Grey found himself increasingly turning to Western fiction, having read Owen Wister’s novel The Virginian. He struggled at first, even self-publishing his first work, Betty Zane. He followed this with its more successful sequel, Spirit of the Border (1906), his Grand Canyon inspired novel The Last of the Plainsmen (1908), The Last Trail (1909) and his first bonafide best-seller, The Heritage of the Desert (1910). But real success came in 1912, with Riders of the Purple Sage, Grey’s best-known and most acclaimed novel, and one of the most popular works of Western fiction of all time.

Due to the financial success of Riders of the Purple Sage, Grey had the time and money to engage in his first and greatest passion: fishing. From 1918 until 1932, he was a regular contributor to Outdoor Life magazine, and as one of its celebrity writers did much to popularize big-game fishing. He continued to write prolifically in short bursts of inspiration for the rest of his life, and remained hugely popular; indeed, he became one of the first millionaire authors, and his total book sales now exceed 40 million. From 1925 to his death, he travelled a number of unspoiled lands, particularly the islands of South Pacific, New Zealand and Australia. Grey died in his home in Altadena, California, in 1939. Since his death, 110 films have been made that are based on his work.

The History of Western Fiction

Western fiction is a genre which focuses on life in the American Old West. It was popularised through novels, films, magazines, radio, and television and included many staple characters, such as the cowboy, the gunslinger, the outlaw, the lawman and the damsel in distress. The genre’s popularity peaked in the early twentieth century due to dime novels and Hollywood adaptations of Western tales, such as The Virginian, The Great Moon Rider and The Great K.A. Train Robbery. Western novels remained popular through the 1960s, however readership began to dwindle during the 1970s.

The term the American Old West (the Wild West) usually refers to the land west of the Mississippi River and the Frontier between the settled and civilised and the open, lawless lands that resulted as the United States expanded to the Pacific Ocean. This area was largely unknown and little populated until the period between the 1860s and the 1890s when, after the American Civil War, settlement and the frontier moved west.

The Western novel was a relatively new genre which developed from the adventure and exploration novels that had appeared before it. Two predecessors of popular Western fiction writers were Meriweather Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clarke (1770-1838). Both men were explorers and were the first to make travel and the frontier a central theme of their work. Perhaps the most popular predecessor of Western fiction was James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851). His west was idealised and romantic and his popular Leatherstockings series depicted the fight between the citizens of the frontier and the harsh wilderness that surrounded them. His titles included: The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841). His tales were often set on the American frontier, then in the Appalachian Mountains and in the land to the west of that. His protagonists lived off the land, were loyal, free, skilled with weapons, and avoided civilised society as best they could. His most famous novel, The Last of the Mohicans, also idealised the Native American.

During the 1860s and 1870s, a new generation of Western writers appeared, such as Mark Twain (1835-1910) Roughing It (1872) and Bret Harte (1836-1902) The Luck of Roaring Camp (1868). Both writers had spent time living in the west and continued to promote its appeal through their literature. Harte is often credited with developing many of the cult Western’s stock characters, such as the honest and beautiful dance hall girl, the suave conman and the honourable outlaw. These characters went on to be firm favourites in popular, mass produced Western fiction. At the end of the nineteenth century, thousands of people were undergoing the treacherous journey to the west to make a new life for themselves and the fictional stories and legends of heroes and villains who had survived in this wild landscape captured the imagination of the public.

Western novels became popular in England and throughout America through ‘Penny Dreadfuls’ and Dime Novels. These appeared in the late 1800s and were texts that could be bought cheaply (for either a penny or a dime – ten cents) as they were often cheaply printed on a large scale by publishers such as Irwin P. Beadle. Malaeska; the Indian Wife of the White Hunter (1860) by Ann S Stephens (1810-1886) is considered by many critics to be the first dime novel. These sensationalist dime and penny novels capitalised on stories of outlaws, lawmen, cowboys, and mountain men taming the western frontier. Many were fictional, but some were based on real heroes of the west such as Buffalo Bill (the scout, bison hunter and performer), Jesse James (the American outlaw, robber, gang leader and murderer) and Billy the Kid (the American gunfighter). By 1877, these Western characters were a recurring feature of the dime novel. The hero was often a man of action who saved damsels in distress and righted the wrongs of the villains that he faced. For this hero, honour was the most important thing and it was something that the dime heroes never relinquished.

In the 1900s, Pulp magazines helped relay these tales over to Europe where non-Americans also picked up the genre, such as the German writer, Karl May (1842-1912). Pulp magazines were a descendent of the dime novel and their content was largely aimed at a mass market. As their popularity grew, they were able to specialise and there were Pulp magazines devoted specifically to Westerns, such as Cowboy Stories, Ranch Romances, and Star Western. The popularity for these magazines and for Western films in the 1920s made the genre a popular phenomenon.

The status of the genre in the early twentieth century was also enhanced by particular novels by different writers. One of the most influential Western novels was The Virginians (1902) by Owen Wister (1860-1938) which was considered to be a ground breaking literary Western. Wister dismissed the traditional idea of the solitary pioneer conquering new lands and making a new life for himself, and replaced this traditional character with the cowboy. The cowboy was a mix of cultural ideals, such as southern chivalry, western primitivism and stout independence. These were characteristics that many Americans cherished. Wister contrasted the lawlessness of the West to the order and civilisation of the East. He introduced new characters, such as savages and bandits who attacked the more civilised Eastern characters. His cowboy heroes shared many features with the medieval knights – they rode horses, carried weapons, fought duals and valued their honour above all other attributes. Zane Grey’s (1872-1939) Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was also a popular Western novel. Grey was a prolific writer and wrote over ninety books which helped shape Western fiction. He changed Wister’s cowboy into a gunslinger who was feared by criminals and held in awe by other civilians. Other popular Western writers in this period include Andy Adams (1859-1935) whose titles include The Outlet (1905) and A Texas Matchmaker (1904), Edward S Ellis (1840-1916) who wrote Seth Jones, or The Captives of the Frontier (1860) and The Steam Man of the Prairies (1868), and Bertha Muzzy Bower (1871-1940) who wrote Chip of the Flying U (1906) and The Dry Ridge Gang (1935).

The Western hero lived in an environment where climate, natives and the terrain could be his enemies, and it was his job to tame the wilderness around him, but in doing so he determined his own extinction. In bringing forward civilisation and settlement, they brought about their own demise and their reason for existing. Western heroes could only exist on the frontier. Rebels were popular heroes in the Western novel and these heroes were often compassionate to those less fortunate than themselves and fought for the downtrodden. They were loyal, idealistic, independent, and knew the difference between right and wrong. They fought for the good and made personal sacrifices in order that good would triumph. The hostile setting of the Wild West transformed the characters into survivors as they were forced to alter themselves in order to live in this new setting. The Old Wild West captured the attention of many as it exemplified the spirit of freedom, individualism, adventure and unspoiled nature. It depicted a world that was separate from organised, urban society and showed the life of the wilderness, frontier and its inhabitants. The Western romanticised American history and the treacherous, mysterious and otherworldly Old West.

Chapter 1

VAUGHN STEELE AND RUSS SITTELL

In the morning, after breakfasting early, I took a turn up and down the main street of Sanderson, made observations and got information likely to serve me at some future day, and then I returned to the hotel ready for what might happen.

The stage-coach was there and already full of passengers. This stage did not go to Linrock, but I had found that another one left for that point three days a week.

Several cowboy broncos stood hitched to a railing and a little farther down were two buckboards, with horses that took my eye. These probably were the teams Colonel Sampson had spoken of to George Wright.

As I strolled up, both men came out of the hotel. Wright saw me, and making an almost imperceptible sign to Sampson, he walked toward me.

You’re the cowboy Russ? he asked.

I nodded and looked him over. By day he made as striking a figure as I had noted by night, but the light was not generous to his dark face.

Here’s your pay, he said, handing me some bills. Miss Sampson won’t need you out at the ranch any more.

What do you mean? This is the first I’ve heard about that.

Sorry, kid. That’s it, he said abruptly. She just gave me the money—told me to pay you off. You needn’t bother to speak with her about it.

He might as well have said, just as politely, that my seeing her, even to say good-by, was undesirable.

As my luck would have it, the girls appeared at the moment, and I went directly up to them, to be greeted in a manner I was glad George Wright could not help but see.

In Miss Sampson’s smile and Good morning, Russ, there was not the slightest discoverable sign that I was not to serve her indefinitely.

It was as I had expected—she knew nothing of Wright’s discharging me in her name.

Miss Sampson, I said, in dismay, what have I done? Why did you let me go?

She looked astonished.

Russ, I don’t understand you.

Why did you discharge me? I went on, trying to look heart-broken. I haven’t had a chance yet. I wanted so much to work for you—Miss Sally, what have I done? Why did she discharge me?

I did not, declared Miss Sampson, her dark eyes lighting.

But look here—here’s my pay, I went on, exhibiting the money. Mr. Wright just came to me—said you sent this money—that you wouldn’t need me out at the ranch.

It was Miss Sally then who uttered a little exclamation. Miss Sampson seemed scarcely to have believed what she had heard.

My cousin Mr. Wright said that?

I nodded vehemently.

At this juncture Wright strode before me, practically thrusting me aside.

Come girls, let’s walk a little before we start, he said gaily. I’ll show you Sanderson.

Wait, please, Miss Sampson replied, looking directly at him. Cousin George, I think there’s a mistake—perhaps a misunderstanding. Here’s the cowboy I’ve engaged—Mr. Russ. He declares you gave him money—told him I discharged him.

Yes, cousin, I did, he replied, his voice rising a little. There was a tinge of red in his cheek. We—you don’t need him out at the ranch. We’ve any numbers of boys. I just told him that—let him down easy—didn’t want to bother you.

Certain it was that George Wright had made a poor reckoning. First she showed utter amaze, then distinct disappointment, and then she lifted her head with a kind of haughty grace. She would have addressed him then, had not Colonel Sampson come up.

Papa, did you instruct Cousin George to discharge Russ? she asked.

I sure didn’t, declared the colonel, with a laugh. George took that upon his own hands.

Indeed! I’d like my cousin to understand that I’m my own mistress. I’ve been accustomed to attending to my own affairs and shall continue doing so. Russ, I’m sorry you’ve been treated this way. Please, in future, take your orders from me.

Then I’m to go to Linrock with you? I asked.

Assuredly. Ride with Sally and me to-day, please.

She turned away with Sally, and they walked toward the first buckboard.

Colonel Sampson found a grim enjoyment in Wright’s discomfiture.

Diane’s like her mother was, George, he said. You’ve made a bad start with her.

Here Wright showed manifestation of the Sampson temper, and I took him to be a dangerous man, with unbridled passions.

Russ, here’s my own talk to you, he said, hard and dark, leaning toward me. Don’t go to Linrock.

Say, Mr. Wright, I blustered for all the world like a young and frightened cowboy, If you threaten me I’ll have you put in jail!

Both men seemed to have received a slight shock. Wright hardly knew what to make of my boyish speech. Are you going to Linrock? he asked thickly.

I eyed him with an entirely different glance from my other fearful one.

I should smile, was my reply, as caustic as the most reckless cowboy’s, and I saw him shake.

Colonel Sampson laid a restraining hand upon Wright. Then they both regarded me with undisguised interest. I sauntered away.

George, your temper’ll do for you some day, I heard the colonel say. You’ll get in bad with the wrong man some time. Hello, here are Joe and Brick!

Mention of these fellows engaged my attention once more.

I saw two cowboys, one evidently getting his name from his brick-red hair. They were the roistering type, hard drinkers, devil-may-care fellows, packing guns and wearing bold fronts—a kind that the Rangers always called four-flushes.

However, as the Rangers’ standard of nerve was high, there was room left for cowboys like these to be dangerous to ordinary men.

The little one was Joe, and directly Wright spoke to him he turned to look at me, and his thin mouth slanted down as he looked. Brick eyed me, too, and I saw that he was heavy, not a hard-riding cowboy.

Here right at the start were three enemies for me—Wright and his cowboys. But it did not matter; under any circumstances there would have been friction between such men and me.

I believed there might have been friction right then had not Miss Sampson called for me.

Get our baggage, Russ, she said.

I hurried to comply, and when I had fetched it out Wright and the cowboys had mounted their horses, Colonel Sampson was in the one buckboard with two men I had not before observed, and the girls were in the other.

The driver of this one was a tall, lanky, tow-headed youth, growing like a Texas weed. We had not any too much room in the buckboard, but that fact was not going to spoil the ride for me.

We followed the leaders through the main street, out into the open, on to a wide, hard-packed road, showing years of travel. It headed northwest.

To our left rose the range of low, bleak mountains I had noted yesterday, and to our right sloped the mesquite-patched sweep of ridge and flat.

The driver pushed his team to a fast trot, which gait surely covered ground rapidly. We were close behind Colonel Sampson, who, from his vehement gestures, must have been engaged in very earnest colloquy with his companions.

The girls behind me, now that they were nearing the end of the journey, manifested less interest in the ride, and were speculating upon Linrock, and what it would be like. Occasionally I asked the driver a question, and sometimes the girls did likewise; but, to my disappointment, the ride seemed not to be the same as that of yesterday.

Every half mile or so we passed a ranch house, and as we traveled on these ranches grew further apart, until, twelve or fifteen miles out of Sanderson, they were so widely separated that each appeared alone on the wild range.

We came to a stream that ran north and I was surprised to see a goodly volume of water. It evidently flowed down from the mountain far to the west.

Tufts of grass were well scattered over the sandy ground, but it was high and thick, and considering the immense area in sight, there was grazing for a million head of stock.

We made three stops in the forenoon, one at a likely place to water the horses, the second at a chuckwagon belonging to cowboys who were riding after stock, and the third at a small cluster of adobe and stone houses, constituting a hamlet the driver called Sampson, named after the Colonel. From that point on to Linrock there were only a few ranches, each one controlling great acreage.

Early in the afternoon from a ridgetop we sighted Linrock, a green path in the mass of gray. For the barrens of Texas it was indeed a fair sight.

But I was more concerned with its remoteness from civilization than its beauty. At that time in the early ‘seventies, when the vast western third of Texas was a wilderness, the pioneer had done wonders to settle there and establish places like Linrock.

As we rolled swiftly along, the whole sweeping range was dotted with cattle, and farther on, within a few miles of town, there were droves of horses that brought enthusiastic praise from Miss Sampson and her cousin.

Plenty of room here for the long rides, I said, waving a hand at the gray-green expanse. Your horses won’t suffer on this range.

She was delighted, and her cousin for once seemed speechless.

That’s the ranch, said the driver, pointing with his whip.

It needed only a glance for me to see that Colonel Sampson’s ranch was on a scale fitting the country.

The house was situated on the only elevation around Linrock, and it was not high, nor more than a few minutes’ walk from the edge of town.

It was a low, flat-roofed structure, made of red adobe bricks and covered what appeared to be fully an acre of ground. All was green about it except where the fenced corrals and numerous barns or sheds showed gray and red.

Wright and the cowboys disappeared ahead of us in the cottonwood trees. Colonel Sampson got out of the buckboard and waited for us. His face wore the best expression I had seen upon it yet. There was warmth and love, and something that approached sorrow or regret.

His daughter was agitated, too. I got out and offered my seat, which Colonel Sampson took.

It was scarcely a time for me to be required, or even noticed at all, and I took advantage of it and turned toward the town.

Ten minutes of leisurely walking brought me to the shady outskirts of Linrock and I entered the town with mingled feelings of curiosity, eagerness, and expectation.

The street I walked down was not a main one. There were small, red houses among oaks and cottonwoods.

I went clear through to the other side, probably more than half a mile. I crossed a number of intersecting streets, met children, nice-looking women, and more than