as a setback. At the moment Duane did not
know which way to turn, but certainly he had no idea of going back to
Bradford. Friction between the two great lieutenants of Cheseldine! Open
hostility between one of them and another of the chief's right-hand
men! Among outlaws that sort of thing was deadly serious. Generally such
matters were settled with guns. Duane gathered encouragement even from
disaster. Perhaps the disintegration of Cheseldine's great band had
already begun. But what did Knell know? Duane did not circle around
the idea with doubts and hopes; if Knell knew anything it was that this
stranger in Ord, this new partner of Fletcher's, was no less than Buck
Duane. Well, it was about time, thought Duane, that he made use of his
name if it were to help him at all. That name had been MacNelly's hope.
He had anchored all his scheme to Duane's fame. Duane was tempted to
ride off after Fletcher and stay with him. This, however, would hardly
be fair to an outlaw who had been fair to him. Duane concluded to await
developments and when the gang rode in to Ord, probably from their
various hiding-places, he would be there ready to be denounced by Knell.
Duane could not see any other culmination of this series of events than
a meeting between Knell and himself. If that terminated fatally for
Knell there was all probability of Duane's being in no worse situation
than he was now. If Poggin took up the quarrel! Here Duane accused
himself again--tried in vain to revolt from a judgment that he was only
reasoning out excuses to meet these outlaws.

Meanwhile, instead of waiting, why not hunt up Cheseldine in his
mountain retreat? The thought no sooner struck Duane than he was
hurrying for his horse.

He left Ord, ostensibly toward Bradford, but, once out of sight, he
turned off the road, circled through the brush, and several miles south
of town he struck a narrow grass-grown trail that Fletcher had told him
led to Cheseldine's camp. The horse tracks along this trail were not
less than a week old, and very likely much more. It wound between
low, brush-covered foothills, through arroyos and gullies lined with
mesquite, cottonwood, and scrub-oak.

In an hour Duane struck the slope of Mount Ord, and as he climbed he
got a view of the rolling, black-spotted country, partly desert, partly
fertile, with long, bright lines of dry stream-beds winding away to grow
dim in the distance. He got among broken rocks and cliffs, and here the