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 from Blome's open intention of meeting the Ranger.
Hoden was right. Not twenty-four hours after his last talk with Steele, in which he advised quick action, he was found behind the little room of his restaurant, with a bullet hole in his breast, dead. No one could be found who had heard a shot.
It had been deliberate murder, for behind the bar had been left a piece of paper rudely scrawled with a pencil:
“All friends of Ranger Steele look for the same.”
Later that day I met Steele at Hoden's and was with him when he looked at the body and the written message which spoke so tersely of the enmity toward him. We left there together, and I hoped Steele would let me stay with him from that moment.
“Russ, it's all in the dark,” he said. “I feel Wright's hand in this.”
I agreed. “I remember his face at Hoden's that day you winged him. Because Jim swore you were wrong not to kill instead of wing him. You were wrong.”
“No, Russ, I never let feeling run wild with my head. We can't prove a thing on Wright.”
“Come on; let's hunt him up. I'll bet I can accuse him and make him show his hand. Come on!”
That Steele found me hard to resist was all the satisfaction I got for the anger and desire to avenge Jim Hoden that consumed me.
“Son, you'll have your belly full of trouble soon enough,” replied Steele. “Hold yourself in. Wait. Try to keep your eye on Sampson at night. See if anyone visits him. Spy on him. I'll watch Wright.”
“Don't you think you'd do well to keep out of town, especially when you sleep?”
“Sure. I've got blankets out in the brush, and I go there every night late and leave before daylight. But I keep a light burning in the 'dobe house and make it look as if I were there.”
“Good. That worried me. Now, what's this murder of Jim Hoden going to do to Morton, Zimmer, and their crowd?”
“Russ, they've all got blood in their eyes. This'll make them see red. I've only to say the word and we'll have all the backing we need.”
“Have you run into Blome?”
“Once. I was across the street. He came out of the Hope So with some of his gang. They lined up and watched me. But I went right on.”
“He's here looking for trouble, Steele.”
“Yes; and he'd have found it before this if I just knew his relation to Sampson and Wright.”
“Do you think Blome a dangerous man to meet?”
“Hardly. He's a genuine bad man, but for all that he's not much to be feared. If he were quietly keeping away from trouble, then that'd be different. Blome will probably die in his boots, thinking he's the worst man and the quickest one on the draw in the West.”
That was conclusive enough for me. The little shadow of worry that had haunted me in spite of my confidence vanished entirely.
“Russ, for the present help me do something for Jim Hoden's family,” went on Steele. “His wife's in bad shape. She's not a strong woman. There are a lot of kids, and you know Jim Hoden was poor. She told me her neighbors would keep shy of her now. They'd be afraid. Oh, it's tough! But we can put Jim away decently and help his family.”
Several days after this talk with Steele I took Miss Sampson and Sally out to see Jim Hoden's wife and children. I knew Steele would be there that afternoon, but I did not mention this fact to Miss Sampson. We rode down to the little adobe house which belonged to Mrs. Hoden's people, and where Steele and I had moved her and the children after Jim Hoden's funeral. The house was small, but comfortable, and the yard green and shady.
If this poor wife and mother had not been utterly forsaken by neighbors and friends it certainly appeared so, for to my knowledge no one besides Steele and me visited her. Miss Sampson had packed a big basket full of good things to eat, and I carried this in front of me on the pommel as we rode. We hitched our horses to the fence and went round to the back of the house. There was a little porch with a stone flooring, and here several children were playing. The door stood open. At my knock Mrs. Hoden bade me come in. Evidently Steele was not there, so I went in with the girls.
“Mrs. Hoden, I've brought Miss Sampson and her cousin to see you,” I said cheerfully.
The little room was not very light, there being only one window and the door; but Mrs. Hoden could be seen plainly enough as she lay, hollow-cheeked and haggard, on a bed. Once she had evidently been a woman of some comeliness. The ravages of trouble and grief were there to read in her worn face; it had not, however, any of the hard and bitter lines that had characterized her husband's.
I wondered, considering that Sampson had ruined Hoden, how Mrs. Hoden was going to regard the daughter of an enemy.
“So you're Roger Sampson's girl?” queried the woman, with her bright black eyes fixed on her visitor.
“Yes,” replied Miss Sampson, simply. “This is my cousin, Sally Langdon. We've come to nurse you, take care of the children, help you in any way you'll let us.”
There was a long silence.
“Well, you look a little like Sampson,” finally said Mrs. Hoden, “but you're not at all like him. You must take
