it's that man, and he is driving the horses."

"He's chasing them," corrected her mother testily. "A horse thief, no
doubt. He's going to catch them with his snare--"

"Lasso, mama."

"Well, lasso. Where can Richard be? To think the fellow should be
so bold! But out here, with miles upon miles of open, and no police
protection anything is possible. We might all be murdered, and no one
be the wiser for days--perhaps weeks. There, he has caught them." She
leaned back and clasped her hands, ready to meet with fortitude whatever
fate might have in store.

"He's bringing them out to us, mama. Can't you see the man is only
trying to help us?"

Mrs. Lansell, beginning herself to suspect him of honest intentions,
sniffed dissentingly and let it go at that. The fellow was certainly
leading the horses toward them, and Sir Redmond and Dick, appearing over
the hill just then, proved beyond doubt that neither had been murdered
in cold blood, or in any other unpleasant manner.

"We're all right now, mother," Dick called, the minute he was near
enough.

His mother remarked skeptically that she hoped possibly she had been in
too great haste to conceal her valuables--that Miss Hayes might not feel
grateful for her presence of mind, and was probably wondering if mud
baths were not injurious to fine, jeweled time-pieces. Mrs. Lansell
was uncomfortable, mentally and physically, and her manner was frankly
chilly when her son presented the stranger as his good friend and
neighbor, Keith Cameron. She was still privately convinced that he
looked a criminal--though, if pressed, she must surely have admitted
that he was an uncommonly good-looking young outlaw. It would seem
almost as if she regarded his being a decent, law-abiding citizen as
pure effrontery.

Miss Hayes greeted him with a smile of apprehension which plainly amused
him. Beatrice was frankly impersonal in her attitude; he represented a
new species of the genus man, and she, too, evidently regarded him in
the light of a strange animal, viewed unexpectedly at close range.

While he was helping Dick mend the double-tree with a piece of rope, she
studied him curiously. He was tall--taller even than Sir Redmond, and
more slender. Sir Redmond had the straight, sturdy look of the soldier
who had borne the brunt of hard marches and desperate fighting; Mr.
Cameron, the lithe, unconscious grace and alertness of the man whose
work demands quick movement and quicker eye and brain.