“I suppose they might,” agreed Phil somewhat dismally. “Still they let us go before in that matter of running down the counterfeiters, which was quite as dangerous as this if not more so. And you’ll notice that we came through that all right.”
“Yes,” agreed the professor, “but you have to admit that you had some mighty close shaves when there was only a slender margin between you and death. Your folks may think that there’s such a thing as tempting Fate, you know.”
“But just to think of it,” mused Phil. “Those Texas plains, the Rio Grande, the free wild life—”
“Sleeping under the stars,” interrupted Tom, “mixing it with the greasers—”
“And above all, nabbing that scoundrel who shot my father,” put in Dick. “Fellows, there’s no two ways about it. We’ve just got to go.”
“Seems to be unanimous,” remarked the professor looking around with a smile at the eager, ardent faces, “but all the same it will bear a lot of thinking over. Better call up your friend again and see just what he has in mind.”
Phil complied with the suggestion, his words fairly tumbling over each other in his eagerness.
“You’ve got us guessing, Steve,” he said. “Just how much in earnest were you in what you said in your wind-up? Talk turkey now. What’s the game? Get right down to brass tacks.”
After a brief interval Steve’s answer came.
“Stirred up the animals did I with that innocent remark of mine?” he said. “Well, Phil, old boy, here’s what I mean, straight from the shoulder.
“I want you and Dick and Tom to come down here and join me in the service of the Texas Rangers. They’re the finest kind of a bunch, straight fellows, dead shots, daring riders, just the kind of men you boys would like to pal up with. The border troubles are getting so serious here that we need more men. Of course, there are Government troops here but only a handful, and the border line is so long that they can’t possibly police it. So we Rangers get in and help on the job. The discipline is good—our Captain Bradley is an old West Pointer—but it’s nothing like so irksome as it is in the regular army. I can guarantee you plenty of excitement and adventure with very little of the red tape.
“Above all we’re short of flying men and we need them more than anything else. In chasing the Mexican guerrillas or warning of their approach on one of their frequent raids they’re invaluable. Now, you and Dick and Tom are as much at home in a plane as you are on the ground, and the job is just cut out for you. I’ve talked the matter over with Captain Bradley and he’s keen to have you in our flying service.