Running Irons

“We’ll try, hombre, we’ll surely try,” warned Danny. “Reckon you figured a killer like Gooch’d stir up fuss between the ranchers, especially if he downed the wrong men. It could have worked.”

“It would have, if you hadn’t happened along, Ranger,” the sheriff put in. “I’m sure pleased I wrote for help.”

And it proved later that Simmonds told the truth. He had written to Murat, but the letter went astray and did not arrive until days after Danny left for Caspar County. Nor was Simmonds as dishonest as Danny imagined. The sheriff’s prosperity came from having sold his business, not from accepting bribes.

A telegraph message fetched in a judge and the heads of the Caspar County cow thieves were brought up for trial. Despite the killing of Gooch and Jacobs, Ella Watson received only five years in the penitentiary. Stocker did not intend to be alone in his punishment and so incriminated Soskice that they each drew ten years and might have counted themselves lucky to receive fifteen years each. Rangers swooped on the other members of Soskice’s political gang and drove them out of Texas before they could make any more trouble.

“Well, that’s the end of it, Calam, gal,” Danny said as he and the girl rode side by side out of Caspar County. “It’s a pity we couldn’t stay on for Tommy and Mousey’s wedding. At least the folks raised a collection that’ll give them a good start, for Tommy’s part in ending the cow stealing.”

“Sure,” agreed Calamity. “There’s times I wonder what it’d be like to marry and settle down.”

“Why not try it and see?”

“I’d never marry anybody who’d be fool enough to marry a gal like me,” grinned Calamity. “Look at all the fun I’d miss. Say, I feel a mite sorry for Ella Watson. She was a dead game gal, even if her tracks ran crooked. And she gave me a danged good whirl. Wonder if she learned her lesson?”

Years later word reached Calamity of another cow stealing gang operating in Wyoming and following the Caspar County methods of using saloon-girls to ensnare the cowhands into the stealing. Then came news that the irate ranchers had caught and hung the man and woman involved. People called her Cattle Kate; but Calamity knew better, reckoning that Ella Watson had failed to change her ways and so met a cow thief’s end.

About the Author

J.T. EDSON brings to life the fierce and often bloody struggles of the untamed West. His colorful characters are linked by the binding power of the spirit of adventure—and hard work—that eventually won the West. J.T. Edson has proven to be one of the finest craftsmen of Western storytelling of our time.

^*Saint: Cow thief’

^* Told in Trail Boss by J. T. Edson.

^* Told in The Fastest Gun in Texas by J. T. Edson.