his Rangers ferreted out Clark's relation to
this lawless gang, and in the end caught him red-handed. He was arrested
and eventually hanged. His case was unusual, and it furnished an example
of what was possible in that wild country. Clark had a son who was
honest and a wife whom he dearly loved, both of whom had been utterly
ignorant of the other and wicked side of life. I told this last story
deliberately, yet with some misgivings. I wanted to see--I convinced
myself it was needful for me to see--if Miss Sampson had any suspicion
of her father. To look into her face then was no easy task. But when I
did I experienced a shock, though not exactly the kind I had prepared
myself for.

She knew something; maybe she knew actually more than Steele or I;
still, if it were a crime, she had a marvelous control over her true
feelings.

* * * * *

Jack Blome and his men had been in Linrock for several days; old Snecker
and his son Bo had reappeared, and other hard-looking customers, new to
me if not to Linrock. These helped to create a charged and waiting
atmosphere. The saloons did unusual business and were never closed.
Respectable citizens of the town were awakened in the early dawn by
rowdies carousing in the streets.

Steele kept pretty closely under cover. He did not entertain the
opinion, nor did I, that the first time he walked down the street he
would be a target for Blome and his gang. Things seldom happened that
way, and when they did happen so it was more accident than design. Blome
was setting the stage for his little drama.

Meanwhile Steele was not idle. He told me he had met Jim Hoden, Morton
and Zimmer, and that these men had approached others of like character;
a secret club had been formed and all the members were ready for action.
Steele also told me that he had spent hours at night watching the house
where George Wright stayed when he was not up at Sampson's. Wright had
almost recovered from the injury to his arm, but he still remained most
of the time indoors. At night he was visited, or at least his house was,
by strange men who were swift, stealthy, mysterious--all men who
formerly would not have been friends or neighbors.

Steele had not been able to recognize any of these night visitors, and
he did not think the time was ripe for a bold holding up of one of them.

Jim Hoden had forcibly declared and stated that some deviltry was afoot,
something vastly different fr