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 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.