Cattle Brands/At Comanche Ford

"There's our ford," said Juan,—our half-blood trailer,—pointing to the slightest sag in a low range of hills distant twenty miles.
We were Texas Rangers. It was nearly noon of a spring day, and we had halted on sighting our destination,—Comanche Ford on the Concho River. Less than three days before, we had been lounging around camp, near Tepee City, one hundred and seventy-five miles northeast of our present destination. A courier had reached us with an emergency order, which put every man in the saddle within an hour after its receipt.
An outfit with eight hundred cattle had started west up the Concho. Their destination was believed to be New Mexico. Suspicion rested on them, as they had failed to take out inspection papers for moving the cattle, and what few people had seen them declared that one half the cattle were brand burnt or blotched beyond recognition. Besides, they had an outfit of twenty heavily armed men, or twice as many as were required to manage a herd of that size.
Our instructions were to make this crossing with all possible haste, and if our numbers were too few, there to await assistance before dropping down the river to meet the herd. When these courier orders

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