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The name Cheseldine has been a mystery, and now it'll fade." A few moments later Duane followed MacNelly to a large room, like a hall, and here were men reading and smoking. Duane knew them rangers! MacNelly beckoned to his men. "Boys, here he is." "How many men have you?" asked Duane. "Fifteen."
There's talk of Vigilantes, the same hat were organized in California and are now in force in Idaho. So far it's only talk. But the time will come. And the days of Cheseldine and Poggin are numbered." Duane went to bed that night exceedingly thoughtful. The long trail was growing hot. This voluble colonel had given him new ideas.
There were a hundred stories of his nerve, his wonderful speed with a gun, his passion for gambling, his love of a horse his cold, implacable, inhuman wiping out of his path any man that crossed it. "Cheseldine is a name, a terrible name," said Colonel Webb. "Sometimes I wonder if he's not only a name. In that case where does the brains of this gang come from?
Blood flowed like water over the Big Bend country, and it was Cheseldine who spilled it. Yet the fact remained there were no eye-witnesses to connect any individual called Cheseldine with these deeds of violence. But in striking contrast to this mystery was the person, character, and cold-blooded action of Poggin and Knell, the chief's lieutenants.
This night a wonderful afterglow lingered long in the west, and against the golden-red of clear sky the bold, black head of Mount Ord reared itself aloft, beautiful but aloof, sinister yet calling. Small wonder that Duane gazed in fascination upon the peak! Somewhere deep in its corrugated sides or lost in a rugged canon was hidden the secret stronghold of the master outlaw Cheseldine.
He had struck some kind of a hot trait, and he meant to see where it led. It was by no means unlikely that Cheseldine might be at the other end. Duane controlled a mounting eagerness. But ever and anon it was shot through with a remembrance of Ray Longstreth. He suspected her father of being not what he pretended. He might, very probably would, bring sorrow and shame to this young woman.
"So help me God I'd rather see her the ranger's wife than yours!" While Lawson absorbed that shock Longstreth leaned toward him, all of hate and menace in his mien. "Lawson, you made me what I am," continued Longstreth. "I backed you shielded you. YOU'RE Cheseldine if the truth is told! Now it's ended. I quit you. I'm done!" Their gray passion-corded faces were still as stones.
And herewith was unfolded a history so dark in its bloody regime, so incredible in its brazen daring, so appalling in its proof of the outlaw's sweep and grasp of the country from Pecos to Rio Grande, that Duane was stunned. Compared to this Cheseldine of the Big Bend, to this rancher, stock-buyer, cattle-speculator, property-holder, all the outlaws Duane had ever known sank into insignificance.
Here they were Cheseldine, Phil Knell, Blossom Kane, Panhandle Smith, Boldt how well Duane remembered the names! all here, the big men of Cheseldine's gang, except the biggest Poggin. Duane had holed them, and his sensations of the moment deadened sight and sound of what was before him.
He calls himself Longstreth over there." All of Fletcher's face not covered by hair turned a dirty white. "Cheseldine Longstreth!" he whispered, hoarsely. "Gord Almighty! You braced the " Then a remarkable transformation came over the outlaw. He gulped; he straightened his face; he controlled his agitation. But he could not send the healthy brown back to his face.
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