Other editions of book The Lone Star Ranger: A Romance of the Border

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - It may seem strange to you that out of all the stories I heard on the Rio Grande I should choose as first that of Buck Duane - outlaw and gunman. But, indeed, Ranger Coffee's story of the last of the Duanes has haunted me, and I have given full rein to imagination and have retold it in my own way. It deals with the old law - the old border days-therefore it is better first. Soon, perchance, I shall have the pleasure of writing of the border of to-day, which in Joe Sitter's laconic speech, "Shore is 'most as bad an' wild as ever!" In the North and East there is a popular idea that the frontier of the West is a thing long past, and rememb-ered now only in stories. As I think of this I remember Ranger Sitter when he made that remark, while he grimly stroked an unhealed bullet wound. And I remember the giant Vaughn, that typical son of stalwart Texas, sitting there quietly with bandaged head, his thoughtful eye boding ill to the outlaw who had ambushed him. Only a few months have passed since then - when I had my memorable sojourn with you - and yet, in that short time, Russell and Moore have crossed the Divide, like Rangers.

This Zane Grey western takes place in Texas in the 1870s. After killing a man in self-defense, Buck Duane becomes an outlaw, living among the gunfighters and rustlers along the Texas border. In a camp on the Mexican side, he tries to rescue a young girl held prisoner, bringing down the wrath of her captors, and forcing him to live the life of a loner, pursued by both honest men and outlaws. Eventually, a sympathetic Ranger wins a pardon for Duane, who then becomes a Ranger himself. The tale is full of action and suspense -- the outcome always hanging tensely in the balance.

First published in 1915, this new Raging Bull Edition contains the original text as well as background articles including: - Zane Grey – A Biography of a Western Literary Genius - Zane Grey - A List of Books by the Great Western Author - The Wild West – A Brief Overview THE LONE STAR RANGER When he is forced to kill a man after a deadly attack, Buck Duane begins a life on the run while trying to clear his name, and his fortunes are changed by a beautiful woman and a Texas Ranger who offers to pardon him for a price. VISIT WWW.RAGINGBULLPUBLISHING.COM AND DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE WESTERN STARTER LIBRARY

Pearl Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 – October 23, 1939) was an American author and dentist best known for his popular adventure novels and stories associated with the Western genre in literature and the arts; he idealized the American frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was his best-selling book.In addition to the commercial success of his printed works, his books have had second lives and continuing influence when adapted as films and television productions. His novels and short stories have been adapted into 112 films, two television episodes, and a television series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater.Pearl Zane Grey was born January 31, 1872, in Zanesville, Ohio. His birth name may have originated from newspaper descriptions of Queen Victoria's mourning clothes as "pearl grey." He was the fourth of five children born to Alice "Allie" Josephine Zane, whose English Quaker immigrant ancestor Robert Zane came to the North American colonies in 1673, and her husband, Lewis M. Gray, a dentist. His family changed the spelling of its last name to "Grey" after his birth. Later Grey dropped Pearl and used Zane as his first name. He grew up in Zanesville, a city founded by his maternal great-grandfather Ebenezer Zane, an American Revolutionary War patriot, and from an early age, he was intrigued by history. Grey developed interests in fishing, baseball, and writing, all of which contributed to his writing success. His first three novels recounted the heroism of ancestors who fought in the American Revolutionary War.

Buck Duane is the son of a famous outlaw. Though an outlaw is not always a criminal, if the Rangers say he is an outlaw, it's just as bad – he's a hunted man. After killing a man in self-defense, Duane is forced to 'go on the dodge'. Duane turns up at an outlaw's hideout, still revolting at the idea of outlawry. Worse still, all the men he kills haunt him, for years. At the outlaw hideout, he meets a kidnapped, beautiful young woman and desires to see her free.In the second part of the book, Duane joins the Rangers, who want him to help to clear the frontier of major cattle rustlers and bank robbers, in return for the governor's pardon of his illegal deeds.Characters

The Lone Star Ranger BOOK I. THE OUTLAW CHAPTER I So it was in him, then—an inherited fighting instinct, a driving intensity to kill. He was the last of the Duanes, that old fighting stock of Texas. But not the memory of his dead father, nor the pleading of his soft-voiced mother, nor the warning of this uncle who stood before him now, had brought to Buck Duane so much realization of the dark passionate strain in his blood. It was the recurrence, a hundred-fold increased in power, of a strange emotion that for the last three years had arisen in him. “Yes, Cal Bain's in town, full of bad whisky an' huntin' for you,” repeated the elder man, gravely. “It's the second time,” muttered Duane, as if to himself. “Son, you can't avoid a meetin'. Leave town till Cal sobers up. He ain't got it in for you when he's not drinkin'.” “But what's he want me for?” demanded Duane. “To insult me again? I won't stand that twice.” “He's got a fever that's rampant in Texas these days, my boy. He wants gun-play. If he meets you he'll try to kill you.” Here it stirred in Duane again, that bursting gush of blood, like a wind of flame shaking all his inner being, and subsiding to leave him strangely chilled. “Kill me! What for?” he asked. “Lord knows there ain't any reason. But what's that to do with most of the shootin' these days? Didn't five cowboys over to Everall's kill one another dead all because they got to jerkin' at a quirt among themselves? An' Cal has no reason to love you. His girl was sweet on you.” “I quit when I found out she was his girl.” “I reckon she ain't quit. But never mind her or reasons. Cal's here, just drunk enough to be ugly. He's achin' to kill somebody. He's one of them four-flush gun-fighters. He'd like to be thought bad. There's a lot of wi