Out of the Blue by Bertrand W. Sinclair — Read

Headed north, a carefree young ranger rides on a risky mission -- rides in the open, spacious days of a West with worlds of elbowroom, when the winds came winging, when hoof beats came ringing, when bullets came singing, "out of the blue. "

Once upon a time, as the old tales used to begin, a young man came riding down the main street of Fort Worth in the sovereign State of Texas. He was mounted on a bright sorrel horse, which stepped daintily in the dust of the thoroughfare, for Fort Worth had not yet come to the high estate of asphalt paving and such civic ornamentation as followed in the wake of petroleum and cotton. The longhorn was still king of the plains, a source of wealth in his unnumbered thousands. The cattle kings and their followers were like the ancient Romans; they made their own roads -- made them into far places, in a spirit of high emprise. They did not mind a little dust here and there.