t over the team was a young man holding the reins in one
hand, while he lashed the shot-crazed horses to their last ounce of
speed with the fifteen-foot whip. His sawed-off shotgun lay on the seat
beside him. It was Rand!

"Oh, thank God!" moaned Joe, but in another moment, "Poor old Salt
Peter! They must have killed him when he wouldn't stop. Sing--" but Hop
Sing had vanished, leaving only his white apron across the wash bench.

As the stage thundered around the turn at the end of the main street,
the wounded horse threw up his head, coughed bloody spume over the
pointers (the second pair), and fell. Men were already scrambling onto
their horses, and loping in from all directions. Rand cut out a buckskin
leader, mounted, and dashed frantically back up the road followed by a
dozen horsemen.

"Rand, who was it?"

"I don't know, exactly. Thought I saw Digger Dan--" They were over the
hill, and Jo heard no more.

Hop Sing did not turn up for supper, but his tall substitute did fairly
well, and Jo did not worry. Some time after dark, a weary Rand appeared.

"Well, Miss Jo, we got Digger Dan. At least we thought it was, but he
won't say a word except that he wants to see you. I've come to escort
you over to the jail. Will you trust yourself to me that far?"

"That far, yes," archly, "'tis but a short space." Not for worlds would
she have him guess her anxiety of the afternoon.

"I wish that 'twere for always."

"What can Digger Dan want of me," she evaded, thankful for the darkness
which hid her blushes. "Rand, hear the wolves howling!"

"They are only coyotes, dear--Miss Joe, and afraid to venture into town
except to the chicken roosts."

"Why, it's Hop Sing!" exclaimed Jo, upon first sight of the prisoner.
"They've cut off half his queue and braided his hair in two pig tails,
and put different clothes on him, and he does look like an Indian. How
very extraordinary!"

"Kethem Digger Dan cloe," blazed Sing.

"That's a likely tale," said the sheriff, "betcha he knows more about
stage robbin' than he'll let out."

"I am sure he does not about this one. He was with me every moment."
Nevertheless, she could not help remembering the substitute Chinaman
whom Sing had put in to do his washing. But, though the complex Oriental
nature will never be quite understood by the Occidental, she had
confidence in the loyalty of the Chinaman, who had served them for five
years, and whose life had once been saved by her father