is band, his fearful deeds,
his cunning, his widely separated raids, of his flitting here and there
like a Jack-o'-lantern; but never a word of his den, never a word of his
appearance.

Next morning Duane did not return to Ord. He struck off to the north,
riding down a rough, slow-descending road that appeared to have been
used occasionally for cattle-driving. As he had ridden in from the west,
this northern direction led him into totally unfamiliar country. While
he passed on, however, he exercised such keen observation that in the
future he would know whatever might be of service to him if he chanced
that way again.

The rough, wild, brush-covered slope down from the foothills gradually
leveled out into plain, a magnificent grazing country, upon which till
noon of that day Duane did not see a herd of cattle or a ranch. About
that time he made out smoke from the railroad, and after a couple of
hours' riding he entered a town which inquiry discovered to be Bradford.
It was the largest town he had visited since Marfa, and he calculated
must have a thousand or fifteen hundred inhabitants, not including
Mexicans. He decided this would be a good place for him to hold up for
a while, being the nearest town to Ord, only forty miles away. So he
hitched his horse in front of a store and leisurely set about studying
Bradford.

It was after dark, however, that Duane verified his suspicions
concerning Bradford. The town was awake after dark, and there was one
long row of saloons, dance-halls, gambling-resorts in full blast. Duane
visited them all, and was surprised to see wildness and license equal to
that of the old river camp of Bland's in its palmiest days. Here it was
forced upon him that the farther west one traveled along the river
the sparser the respectable settlements, the more numerous the hard
characters, and in consequence the greater the element of lawlessness.
Duane returned to his lodging-house with the conviction that MacNelly's
task of cleaning up the Big Bend country was a stupendous one. Yet, he
reflected, a company of intrepid and quick-shooting rangers could have
soon cleaned up this Bradford.

The innkeeper had one other guest that night, a long black-coated and
wide-sombreroed Texan who reminded Duane of his grandfather. This man
had penetrating eyes, a courtly manner, and an unmistakable leaning
toward companionship and mint-juleps. The gentleman introduced himself
as Colonel Webb, of Marfa, and took i