k-buyer, a boomer, a land-hunter; and long before he reached the
wild and inhospitable Ord he had acted the part of an outlaw, drifting
into new territory. He passed on leisurely because he wanted to learn
the lay of the country, the location of villages and ranches, the work,
habit, gossip, pleasures, and fears of the people with whom he came
in contact. The one subject most impelling to him--outlaws--he never
mentioned; but by talking all around it, sifting the old ranch and
cattle story, he acquired a knowledge calculated to aid his plot. In
this game time was of no moment; if necessary he would take years to
accomplish his task. The stupendous and perilous nature of it showed
in the slow, wary preparation. When he heard Fletcher's name and faced
Knell he knew he had reached the place he sought. Ord was a hamlet on
the fringe of the grazing country, of doubtful honesty, from which,
surely, winding trails led down into that free and never-disturbed
paradise of outlaws--the Big Bend.

Duane made himself agreeable, yet not too much so, to Fletcher and
several other men disposed to talk and drink and eat; and then, after
having a care for his horse, he rode out of town a couple of miles to
a grove he had marked, and there, well hidden, he prepared to spend the
night. This proceeding served a double purpose--he was safer, and the
habit would look well in the eyes of outlaws, who would be more inclined
to see in him the lone-wolf fugitive.

Long since Duane had fought out a battle with himself, won a hard-earned
victory. His outer life, the action, was much the same as it had been;
but the inner life had tremendously changed. He could never become a
happy man, he could never shake utterly those haunting phantoms that had
once been his despair and madness; but he had assumed a task impossible
for any man save one like him, he had felt the meaning of it grow
strangely and wonderfully, and through that flourished up consciousness
of how passionately he now clung to this thing which would blot out his
former infamy. The iron fetters no more threatened his hands; the iron
door no more haunted his dreams. He never forgot that he was free.
Strangely, too, along with this feeling of new manhood there gathered
the force of imperious desire to run these chief outlaws to their dooms.
He never called them outlaws--but rustlers, thieves, robbers, murderers,
criminals. He sensed the growth of a relentless driving passion, and
sometimes