he feared that, more than the newly acquired zeal and pride in
this ranger service, it was the old, terrible inherited killing instinct
lifting its hydra-head in new guise. But of that he could not be sure.
He dreaded the thought. He could only wait.

Another aspect of the change in Duane, neither passionate nor driving,
yet not improbably even more potent of new significance to life, was
the imperceptible return of an old love of nature dead during his outlaw
days.

For years a horse had been only a machine of locomotion, to carry him
from place to place, to beat and spur and goad mercilessly in flight;
now this giant black, with his splendid head, was a companion, a friend,
a brother, a loved thing, guarded jealously, fed and trained and ridden
with an intense appreciation of his great speed and endurance. For years
the daytime, with its birth of sunrise on through long hours to the
ruddy close, had been used for sleep or rest in some rocky hole or
willow brake or deserted hut, had been hated because it augmented danger
of pursuit, because it drove the fugitive to lonely, wretched hiding;
now the dawn was a greeting, a promise of another day to ride, to plan,
to remember, and sun, wind, cloud, rain, sky--all were joys to him,
somehow speaking his freedom. For years the night had been a black
space, during which he had to ride unseen along the endless trails, to
peer with cat-eyes through gloom for the moving shape that ever pursued
him; now the twilight and the dusk and the shadows of grove and canon
darkened into night with its train of stars, and brought him calm
reflection of the day's happenings, of the morrow's possibilities,
perhaps a sad, brief procession of the old phantoms, then sleep. For
years canons and valleys and mountains had been looked at as retreats
that might be dark and wild enough to hide even an outlaw; now he saw
these features of the great desert with something of the eyes of the boy
who had once burned for adventure and life among them.

This night a wonderful afterglow lingered long in the west, and against
the golden-red of clear sky the bold, black head of Mount Ord reared
itself aloft, beautiful but aloof, sinister yet calling. Small wonder
that Duane gazed in fascination upon the peak! Somewhere deep in
its corrugated sides or lost in a rugged canon was hidden the secret
stronghold of the master outlaw Cheseldine. All down along the ride from
El Paso Duane had heard of Cheseldine, of h