the same man he once had been. But he could understand why. It was
because of Ray Longstreth. Temptation assailed him. To have her his
wife! It was impossible. The thought was insidiously alluring. Duane
pictured a home. He saw himself riding through the cotton and rice and
cane, home to a stately old mansion, where long-eared hounds bayed him
welcome, and a woman looked for him and met him with happy and beautiful
smile. There might--there would be children. And something new, strange,
confounding with its emotion, came to life deep in Duane's heart. There
would be children! Ray their mother! The kind of life a lonely outcast
always yearned for and never had! He saw it all, felt it all.

But beyond and above all other claims came Captain MacNelly's. It was
then there was something cold and death-like in Duane's soul. For he
knew, whatever happened, of one thing he was sure--he would have to kill
either Longstreth or Lawson. Longstreth might be trapped into arrest;
but Lawson had no sense, no control, no fear. He would snarl like a
panther and go for his gun, and he would have to be killed. This, of all
consummations, was the one to be calculated upon.

Duane came out of it all bitter and callous and sore--in the most
fitting of moods to undertake a difficult and deadly enterprise. He had
fallen upon his old strange, futile dreams, now rendered poignant by
reason of love. He drove away those dreams. In their places came the
images of the olive-skinned Longstreth with his sharp eyes, and the
dark, evil-faced Lawson, and then returned tenfold more thrilling and
sinister the old strange passion to meet Poggin.

It was about one o'clock when Duane rode into Fairdale. The streets for
the most part were deserted. He went directly to find Morton and Zimmer.
He found them at length, restless, somber, anxious, but unaware of the
part he had played at Ord. They said Longstreth was home, too. It was
possible that Longstreth had arrived home in ignorance.

Duane told them to be on hand in town with their men in case he might
need them, and then with teeth locked he set off for Longstreth's ranch.

Duane stole through the bushes and trees, and when nearing the porch
he heard loud, angry, familiar voices. Longstreth and Lawson were
quarreling again. How Duane's lucky star guided him! He had no plan of
action, but his brain was equal to a hundred lightning-swift evolutions.
He meant to take any risk rather than kill Longstreth. Bo