His comrade stood in the door with a gun leveled at two other men, who stood there frightened, speechless.

  “Git a move on, Bill,” called this fellow; and he took a hasty glance backward. A stamp of hoofs came from outside. Of course the robbers had horses waiting. The one called Bill strode across the room, and with brutal, careless haste began to prod the two men with his weapon and to search them. The robber in the doorway called “Rustle!” and disappeared.

  Duane wondered where the innkeeper was, and Colonel Longstreth and the other two passengers. The bearded robber quickly got through with his searching, and from his growls Duane gathered he had not been well remunerated. Then he wheeled once more. Duane had not moved a muscle, stood perfectly calm with his arms high. The robber strode back with his bloodshot eyes fastened upon the girls. Miss Longstreth never flinched, but the little girl appeared about to faint.

  “Don’t yap, there!” he said, low and hard. He thrust the gun close to Ruth. Then Duane knew for sure that he was no knight of the road, but a plain cutthroat robber. Danger always made Duane exult in a kind of cold glow. But now something hot worked within him. He had a little gun in his pocket. The robber had missed it. And he began to calculate chances.

  “Any money, jewelry, diamonds!” ordered the ruffian, fiercely.

  Miss Ruth collapsed. Then he made at Miss Longstreth. She stood with her hands at her breast. Evidently the robber took this position to mean that she had valuables concealed there. But Duane fancied she had instinctively pressed her hands against a throbbing heart.

  “Come out with it!” he said, harshly, reaching for her.

  “Don’t dare touch me!” she cried, her eyes ablaze. She did not move. She had nerve.

  It made Duane thrill. He saw he was going to get a chance. Waiting had been a science with him. But here it was hard. Miss Ruth had fainted, and that was well. Miss Longstreth had fight in her, which fact helped Duane, yet made injury possible to her. She eluded two lunges the man made at her. Then his rough hand caught her waist, and with one pull ripped it asunder, exposing her beautiful shoulder, white as snow.

  She cried out. The prospect of being robbed or even killed had not shaken Miss Longstreth’s nerve as had this brutal tearing off of half her waist.

  The ruffian was only turned partially away from Duane. For himself he could have waited no longer. But for her! That gun was still held dangerously upward close to her. Duane watched only that. Then a bellow made him jerk his head. Colonel Longstreth stood in the doorway in a magnificent rage. He had no weapon. Strange how he showed no fear! He bellowed something again.

  Duane’s shifting glance caught the robber’s sudden movement. It was a kind of start. He seemed stricken. Duane expected him to shoot Longstreth. Instead the hand that clutched Miss Longstreth’s torn waist loosened its hold. The other hand with its cocked weapon slowly dropped till it pointed to the floor. That was Duane’s chance.

  Swift as a flash he drew his gun and fired. Thud! went his bullet, and he could not tell on the instant whether it hit the robber or went into the ceiling. Then the robber’s gun boomed harmlessly. He fell with blood spurting over his face. Duane realized he had hit him, but the small bullet had glanced.

  Miss Longstreth reeled and might have fallen had Duane not supported her. It was only a few steps to a couch, to which he half led, half carried her. Then he rushed out of the room, across the patio, through the bar to the yard. Nevertheless, he was cautious. In the gloom stood a saddled horse, probably the one belonging to the fellow he had shot. His comrade had escaped. Returning to the sitting-room, Duane found a condition approaching pandemonium.

  The innkeeper rushed in, pitchfork in hands. Evidently he had been out at the barn. He was now shouting to find out what had happened. Joel, the stage-driver, was trying to quiet the men who had been robbed. The woman, wife of one of the men, had come in, and she had hysterics. The girls were still and white. The robber Bill lay where he had fallen, and Duane guessed he had made a fair shot, after all. And, lastly, the thing that struck Duane most of all was Longstreth’s rage. He never saw such passion. Like a caged lion Longstreth stalked and roared. There came a quieter moment in which the innkeeper shrilly protested:

  “Man, what’re you ravin’ aboot? Nobody’s hurt, an’ thet’s lucky. I swear to God I hadn’t nothin’ to do with them fellers!”

  “I ought to kill you anyhow!” replied Longstreth. And his voice now astounded Duane, it was so full of power.

  Upon examination Duane found that his bullet had furrowed the robber’s temple, torn a great piece out of his scalp, and, as Duane had guessed, had glanced. He was not seriously injured, and already showed signs of returning consciousness.

  “Drag him out of here!” ordered Longstreth; and he turned to his daughter.

  Before the innkeeper reached the robber Duane had secured the money and gun taken from him; and presently recovered the property of the other men. Joel helped the innkeeper carry the injured man somewhere outside.

  Miss Longstreth was sitting white but composed upon the couch, where lay Miss Ruth, who evidently had been carried there by the Colonel. Duane did not think she had wholly lost consciousness, and now she lay very still, with eyes dark and shadowy, her face pallid and wet. The Colonel, now that he finally remembered his women-folk, seemed to be gentle and kind. He talked soothingly to Miss Ruth, made light of the adventure, said she must learn to have nerve out here where things happened.

  “Can I be of any service?” asked Duane, solicitously.

  “Thanks; I guess there’s nothing you can do. Talk to these frightened girls while I go see what’s to be done with that thick-skulled robber,” he replied, and, telling the girls that there was no more danger, he went out.

  Miss Longstreth sat with one hand holding her torn waist in place; the other she extended to Duane. He took it awkwardly, and he felt a strange thrill.

  “You saved my life,” she said, in grave, sweet seriousness.

  “No, no!” Duane exclaimed. “He might have struck you, hurt you, but no more.”

  “I saw murder in his eyes. He thought I had jewels under my dress. I couldn’t bear his touch. The beast! I’d have fought. Surely my life was in peril.”

  “Did you kill him?” asked Miss Ruth, who lay listening.

  “Oh no. He’s not badly hurt.”

  “I’m very glad he’s alive,” said Miss Longstreth, shuddering.

  “My intention was bad enough,” Duane went on. “It was a ticklish place for me. You see, he was half drunk, and I was afraid his gun might go off. Fool careless he was!”

  “Yet you say you didn’t save me,” Miss Longstreth returned, quickly.

  “Well, let it go at that,” Duane responded. “I saved you something.”

  “Tell me all about it?” asked Miss Ruth, who was fast recovering.

  Rather embarrassed, Duane briefly told the incident from his point of view.

  “Then you stood there all the time with your hands up thinking of nothing — watching for nothing except a little moment when you might draw your gun?” asked Miss Ruth.

  “I guess that’s about it,” he replied.

  “Cousin,” said Miss Longstreth, thoughtfully, “it was fortunate for us that this gentleman happened to be here. Papa scouts — laughs at danger. He seemed to think there was no danger. Yet he raved after it came.”

  “Go with us all the way to Fairdale — please?” asked Miss Ruth, sweetly offering her hand. “I am Ruth Herbert. And this is my cousin, Ray Longstreth.”

  “I’m traveling that way,” replied Duane, in great confusion. He did not know how to meet the situation.

  Colonel Longstreth returned then, and after bidding Duane a good night, which seemed rather curt by contrast to the graciousness of the girls, he led them away.

  Before going to bed Duane went outside to take a look at the injured robber and perhaps to ask him a few questions. To Duane’s surprise, he was gone, and so was his horse. The innkeeper was dumfounded. He said that he left the fellow on the floor in the bar-room.

  “Had he come to?” inquired Duane.

  “Sure. He asked for whisky.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “Not to me. I heard him talkin’ to the father of them girls.”

  “You mean Colonel Longstreth?”

  “I reckon. He sure was some riled, wasn’t he? Jest as if I was to blame fer that two-bit of a hold-up!”

  “What did you make of the old gent’s rage?” asked Duane, watching the innkeeper. He scratched his head dubiously. He was sincere, and Duane believed in his honesty.

  “Wal, I’m doggoned if I know what to make of it. But I reckon he’s either crazy or got more nerve than most Texans.”

  “More nerve, maybe,” Duane replied. “Show me a bed now, innkeeper.”

  Once in bed in the dark, Duane composed himself to think over the several events of the evening. He called up the details of the holdup and carefully revolved them in mind. The Colonel’s wrath, under circumstances where almost any Texan would have been cool, nonplussed Duane, and he put it down to a choleric temperament. He pondered long on the action of the robber when Longstreth’s bellow of rage burst in upon him. This ruffian, as bold and mean a type as Duane had ever encountered, had, from some cause or other, been startled. From whatever point Duane viewed the man’s strange indecision he could come to only one conclusion — his start, his check, his fear had been that of recognition. Duane compared this effect with the suddenly acquired sense he had gotten of Colonel Longstreth’s powerful personality. Why had that desperate robber lowered his gun and stood paralyzed at sight and sound of the Mayor of Fairdale? This was not answerable. There might have been a number of reasons, all to Colonel Longstreth’s credit, but Duane could not understand. Longstreth had not appeared to see danger for his daughter, even though she had been roughly handled, and had advanced in front of a cocked gun. Duane probed deep into this singular fact, and he brought to bear on the thing all his knowledge and experience of violent Texas life. And he found that the instant Colonel Longstreth had appeared on the scene there was no further danger threatening his daughter. Why? That likewise Duane could not answer. Then his rage, Duane concluded, had been solely at the idea of HIS daughter being assaulted by a robber. This deduction was indeed a thought-disturber, but Duane put it aside to crystallize and for more careful consideration.

  Next morning Duane found that the little town was called Sanderson. It was larger than he had at first supposed. He walked up the main street and back again. Just as he arrived some horsemen rode up to the inn and dismounted. And at this juncture the Longstreth party came out. Duane heard Colonel Longstreth utter an exclamation. Then he saw him shake hands with a tall man. Longstreth looked surprised and angry, and he spoke with force; but Duane could not hear what it was he said. The fellow laughed, yet somehow he struck Duane as sullen, until suddenly he espied Miss Longstreth. Then his face changed, and he removed his sombrero. Duane went closer.

  “Floyd, did you come with the teams?” asked Longstreth, sharply.

  “Not me. I rode a horse, good and hard,” was the reply.

  “Humph! I’ll have a word to say to you later.” Then Longstreth turned to his daughter. “Ray, here’s the cousin I’ve told you about. You used to play with him ten years ago — Floyd Lawson. Floyd, my daughter — and my niece, Ruth Herbert.”

  Duane always scrutinized every one he met, and now with a dangerous game to play, with a consciousness of Longstreth’s unusual and significant personality, he bent a keen and searching glance upon this Floyd Lawson.

  He was under thirty, yet gray at his temples — dark, smooth-shaven, with lines left by wildness, dissipation, shadows under dark eyes, a mouth strong and bitter, and a square chin — a reckless, careless, handsome, sinister face strangely losing the hardness when he smiled. The grace of a gentleman clung round him, seemed like an echo in his mellow voice. Duane doubted not that he, like many a young man, had drifted out to the frontier, where rough and wild life had wrought sternly but had not quite effaced the mark of good family.

  Colonel Longstreth apparently did not share the pleasure of his daughter and his niece in the advent of this cousin. Something hinged on this meeting. Duane grew intensely curious, but, as the stage appeared ready for the journey, he had no further opportunity to gratify it.

  CHAPTER XVI

  DUANE FOLLOWED THE stage through the town, out into the open, on to a wide, hard-packed road showing years of travel. It headed northwest. To the left rose a range of low, bleak mountains he had noted yesterday, and to the right sloped the mesquite-patched sweep of ridge and flat. The driver pushed his team to a fast trot, which gait surely covered ground rapidly.

  The stage made three stops in the forenoon, one at a place where the horses could be watered, the second at a chuck-wagon belonging to cowboys who were riding after stock, and the third at a small cluster of adobe and stone houses constituting a hamlet the driver called Longstreth, named after the Colonel. From that point on to Fairdale there were only a few ranches, each one controlling great acreage.

  Early in the afternoon from a ridge-top Duane sighted Fairdale, a green patch in the mass of gray. For the barrens of Texas it was indeed a fair sight. But he was more concerned with its remoteness from civilization than its beauty. At that time, in the early seventies, when the vast western third of Texas was a wilderness, the pioneer had done wonders to settle there and establish places like Fairdale.

  It needed only a glance for Duane to pick out Colonel Longstreth’s ranch. The house was situated on the only elevation around Fairdale, and it was not high, nor more than a few minutes’ walk from the edge of the town. It was a low, flat-roofed structure made of red adobe bricks, and covered what appeared to be fully an acre of ground. All was green about it, except where the fenced corrals and numerous barns or sheds showed gray and red.

  Duane soon reached the shady outskirts of Fairdale, and entered the town with mingled feelings of curiosity, eagerness, and expectation. The street he rode down was a main one, and on both sides of the street was a solid row of saloons, resorts, hotels. Saddled horses stood hitched all along the sidewalk in two long lines, with a buckboard and team here and there breaking the continuity. This block was busy and noisy.

  From all outside appearances Fairdale was no different from other frontier towns, and Duane’s expectations were scarcely realized. As the afternoon was waning he halted at a little inn. A boy took charge of his horse. Duane questioned the lad about Fairdale and gradually drew to the subject most in mind.

  “Colonel Longstreth has a big outfit, eh?”

  “Reckon he has,” replied the lad. “Doan know how many cowboys. They’re always comin’ and goin’. I ain’t acquainted with half of them.”

  “Much movement of stock these days?”

  “Stock’s always movin’,” he replied, with a queer look.

  “Rustlers?”

  But he did not follow up that look with the affirmative Duane expected.

  “Lively place, I hear — Fairdale is?”

  “Ain’t so lively as Sanderson, but it’s bigger.”

  “Yes, I heard it was. Fellow down there was talking about two cowboys who were arrested.”

  “Sure. I heered all about that. Joe Bean an’ Brick Higgins — they belong heah, but they ain’t heah much. Longstreth’s boys.”

  Duane did not want to appear over-inquisitive, so he turned the talk into other channels.

  After getting supper Duane strolled up and down the main street. When darkness set in he went into a hotel, bought cigars, sat around, and watched. Then he passed out and went into the next place. This was of rough crude exterior, but the inside was comparatively pretentious and ablaze with lights. It was full of men coming and going — a dusty-booted crowd that smelled of horses and smoke. Duane sat down for a while, with wide eyes and open ears. Then he hunted up the bar, where most of the guests had been or were going. He found a great square room lighted by six huge lamps, a bar at one side, and all the floor-space taken up by tables and chairs. This was the only gambling place of any size in southern Texas in which he had noted the absence of Mexicans. There was some card-playing going on at this moment. Duane stayed in there for a while, and knew that strangers were too common in Fairdale to be conspicuous. Then he returned to the inn where he had engaged a room.

  Duane sat down on the steps of the dingy little restaurant. Two men were conversing inside, and they had not noticed Duane.

  “Laramie, what’s the stranger’s name?” asked one.

  “He didn’t say,” replied the other.

  “Sure was a strappin’ big man. Struck me a little odd, he did. No cattleman, him. How’d you size him?”

  “Well, like one of them cool, easy, quiet Texans who’s been lookin’ for a man for years — to kill him when he found him.”

  “Right you are, Laramie; and, between you an’ me, I hope he’s lookin’ for Long—”

  “‘S — sh!” interrupted Laramie. “You must be half drunk, to go talkie’ that way.”

  Thereafter they conversed in too low a tone for Duane to hear, and presently Laramie’s visitor left. Duane went inside, and, making himself agreeable, began to ask casual questions about Fairdale. Laramie was not communicative.

  Duane went to his room in a thoughtful frame of mind. Had Laramie’s visitor meant he hoped some one had come to kill Longstreth? Duane inferred just that from the interrupted remark. There was something wrong about the Mayor of Fairdale. Duane felt it. And he felt also, if there was a crooked and dangerous man, it was this Floyd Lawson. The innkeeper Laramie would be worth cultivating. And last in Duane’s thoughts that night was Miss Longstreth. He could not help thinking of her — how strangely the meeting with her had affected him. It made him remember that long-past time when girls had been a part of his life. What a sad and dark and endless void lay between that past and the present! He had no right even to dream of a beautiful woman like Ray Longstreth. That conviction, however, did not dispel her; indeed, it seemed perversely to make her grow more fascinating. Duane grew conscious of a strange, unaccountable hunger, a something that was like a pang in his breast.