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.
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