Then he had traveled alone
the hundred miles of desert between Forlorn River and the Sonoyta
Oasis. Ladd's prophecy of trouble on the border had been mild
compared to what had become the actuality. With rebel occupancy
of the garrison at Casita, outlaws, bandits, raiders in rioting
bands had spread westward. Like troops of Arabs, magnificently
mounted, they were here, there, everywhere along the line; and if
murder and worse were confined to the Mexican side, pillage and raiding
were perpetrated across the border. Many a dark-skinned raider bestrode
one of Belding's fast horses, and indeed all except his selected white
thoroughbreds had been stolen. So the job of the rangers had
become more than a patrolling of the boundary line to keep Japanese
and Chinese from being smuggled into the United States. Belding
kept close at home to protect his family and to hold his property.
But the three rangers, in fulfilling their duty had incurred risks
on their own side of the line, had been outraged, robbed, pursued,
and injured on the other. Some of the few waterholes that had
to be reached lay far across the border in Mexican territory.
Horses had to drink, men had to drink; and Ladd and Lash were not
of the stripe that forsook a task because of danger. Slow to
wrath at first, as became men who had long lived peaceful lives,
they had at length revolted; and desert vultures could have told
a gruesome story. Made a comrade and ally of these bordermen,
Dick Gale had leaped at the desert action and strife with an
intensity of heart and a rare physical ability which accounted for
the remarkable fact that he had not yet fallen by the way.
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