The Lone Ranger Rides. Striker Fran

      CHAPTER 1

       THE BASIN

       Table of Contents

      In a remote basin in the western part of Texas, the Cavendish clan raised cattle. From the vast level acreage, where longhorns grew fat on lush grass, the surrounding hills looked verdant and hospitable; but this was pure deceit on Nature's part. Those hills were treacherous, and Bryant Cavendish loved them for that selfsame treachery.

      Sitting on the porch of his rambling house, the bitter old man spat tobacco-flavored curses at the infirmities that restricted him. His legs, tortured by rheumatism, were propped on a bentwood chair, and seemed slim and out of proportion to his barrel-shaped torso. His eyes, like caves beneath an overhanging ledge, were more restless than usual, as he gazed across the basin. He rasped a heavy thumbnail across the bristle of his slablike jowl.

      There was something in the air he couldn't explain. He felt a vague uneasiness despite the almost pastoral scene before him. He scanned the hills on all sides of the basin, knowing that no stranger could come through the tangle of underbrush and dense forest. Those hills had always been practically impassable.

      Then his restless eyes fell on the weird riot of color to the north. That was Bryant's Gap. Water flowing from the basin springs had patiently, through countless ages, cut the deep cleft in solid rock. The walls towering high on each side reflected unbelievable hues. Bryant's scowl deepened as he observed the Gap.

      He could see but a few yards into it, and then it turned and his view ended abruptly on a rainbow wall. That wall had often reminded Cavendish of a rattler, beautiful but dangerous.

      "If it uz only straight," he growled, "I c'd see when someone comes this way. But the damn canyon is as fickle as a wench's disposition."

      Once more his finger scraped across the two-day beard. Cavendish had survived a good many years there in the West. He had risen above the many forms of sudden death, to know an old age of comparative security. But, like men in that region, where eternal vigilance was the price of safety, his intuition was developed to a high degree. In a poker game he played his hunches. And in life he listened to that little-understood sixth sense.

      "Somethin'," he decided, "is goin' on in that Gap, as sure as I'm sittin' here."

      As if to echo his words, a distant rumble reached his ears. It came from the Gap. At first he thought it must be another of the frequent storms. He listened, then his face grew harder than before. His jaw set firmly.

      "That ain't thunder," he muttered. "That's gunplay!"

      His first impulse was to call for some of the men to investigate. Instead, he listened for a moment. His niece, Penelope, could be heard humming a gay tune inside the house. She, at least, had not heard anything unusual. Bryant knew his eyes were failing him of late, and he began to doubt his ears. Perhaps, after all, it might have been thunder. Wouldn't do to start a lot of commotion over nothing at all. Mustn't let the boys know how the old man's slipping.

      He struggled to his feet and, half-supporting his weight by gripping the back of a chair, moved