Captain Rickert was tough. Flatly, he told the new recruits in the Texas Rangers: "You will be paid forty dollars a month. You will provide your own clothes, guns, ammunition, horse, saddle, and you'll feed yourself." Right there, a sane man would figure he might as well quit now. Practically any job would be better than what the Rangers offered. Except that what they offered was not a job -- it was a way of life. It really didn't matter how much money went with it, or didn't -- because what being in the Rangers meant to a man you couldn't buy with money. It was something that Jim Temple, after seven thankless years as a deputy sheriff, was mighty short of -- pride in his work, self-respect and a driving urge to get out and really test himself. He had picked the right outfit.
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