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 Du