er. Duane set
out to make himself agreeable and succeeded. There was card-playing
for small stakes, idle jests of coarse nature, much bantering among the
younger fellows, and occasionally a mild quarrel. All morning men came
and went, until, all told, Duane calculated he had seen at least fifty.
Toward the middle of the afternoon a young fellow burst into the saloon
and yelled one word:

"Posse!"

From the scramble to get outdoors Duane judged that word and the ensuing
action was rare in Ord.

"What the hell!" muttered Fletcher, as he gazed down the road at a dark,
compact bunch of horses and riders. "Fust time I ever seen thet in Ord!
We're gettin' popular like them camps out of Valentine. Wish Phil was
here or Poggy. Now all you gents keep quiet. I'll do the talkin'."

The posse entered the town, trotted up on dusty horses, and halted in
a bunch before the tavern. The party consisted of about twenty men,
all heavily armed, and evidently in charge of a clean-cut, lean-limbed
cowboy. Duane experienced considerable satisfaction at the absence of
the sheriff who he had understood was to lead the posse. Perhaps he was
out in another direction with a different force.

"Hello, Jim Fletcher," called the cowboy.

"Howdy," replied Fletcher.

At his short, dry response and the way he strode leisurely out before
the posse Duane found himself modifying his contempt for Fletcher. The
outlaw was different now.

"Fletcher, we've tracked a man to all but three miles of this place.
Tracks as plain as the nose on your face. Found his camp. Then he hit
into the brush, an' we lost the trail. Didn't have no tracker with us.
Think he went into the mountains. But we took a chance an' rid over the
rest of the way, seein' Ord was so close. Anybody come in here late last
night or early this mornin'?"

"Nope," replied Fletcher.

His response was what Duane had expected from his manner, and evidently
the cowboy took it as a matter of course. He turned to the others of the
posse, entering into a low consultation. Evidently there was difference
of opinion, if not real dissension, in that posse.

"Didn't I tell ye this was a wild-goose chase, comin' way out here?"
protested an old hawk-faced rancher. "Them hoss tracks we follored ain't
like any of them we seen at the water-tank where the train was held up."

"I'm not so sure of that," replied the leader.

"Wal, Guthrie, I've follored tracks all my life--'

"But you couldn't keep to