BOOK I. THE OUTLAW
CHAPTER I
So it was in him, then--an inherited fighting instinct, a driving
intensity to kill. He was the last of the Duanes, that old fighting
stock of Texas. But not the memory of his dead father, nor the pleading
of his soft-voiced mother, nor the warning of this uncle who stood
before him now, had brought to Buck Duane so much realization of
the dark passionate strain in his blood. It was the recurrence, a
hundred-fold increased in power, of a strange emotion that for the last
three years had arisen in him.
"Yes, Cal Bain's in town, full of bad whisky an' huntin' for you,"
repeated the elder man, gravely.
"It's the second time," muttered Duane, as if to himself.
"Son, you can't avoid a meetin'. Leave town till Cal sobers up. He ain't
got it in for you when he's not drinkin'."
"But what's he want me for?" demanded Duane. "To insult me again? I
won't stand that twice."
"He's got a fever that's rampant in Texas these days, my boy. He wants
gun-play. If he meets you he'll try to kill you."
Here it stirred in Duane again, that bursting gush of blood, like a
wind of flame shaking all his inner being, and subsiding to leave him
strangely chilled.
"Kill me! What for?" he asked.
