been tracing. Your cousin George Wright, is his right-hand man."

Miss Sampson heard, but she did not believe.

"Tell her, Russ," Steele added huskily, turning away. Wildly she whirled
to me. I would have given anything to have been able to lie to her. As
it was I could not speak. But she read the truth in my face. And she
collapsed as if she had been shot. I caught her and laid her on the
grass. Sally, murmuring and crying, worked over her. I helped. But
Steele stood aloof, dark and silent, as if he hoped she would never
return to consciousness.

When she did come to, and began to cry, to moan, to talk frantically,
Steele staggered away, while Sally and I made futile efforts to calm
her. All we could do was to prevent her doing herself violence.
Presently, when her fury of emotion subsided, and she began to show a
hopeless stricken shame, I left Sally with her and went off a little way
myself. How long I remained absent I had no idea, but it was no
inconsiderable length of time. Upon my return, to my surprise and
relief, Miss Sampson had recovered her composure, or at least,
self-control. She stood leaning against the rock where Steele had been,
and at this moment, beyond any doubt, she was supremely more beautiful
than I had ever seen her. She was white, tragic, wonderful. "Where is
Mr. Steele?" she asked. Her tone and her look did not seem at all
suggestive of the mood I expected to find her in--one of beseeching
agony, of passionate appeal to Steele not to ruin her father.

"I'll find him," I replied turning away.

Steele was readily found and came back with me. He was as unlike himself
as she was strange. But when they again faced each other, then they were
indeed new to me.

"I want to know--what you must do," she said. Steele told her briefly,
and his voice was stern.

"Those--those criminals outside of my own family don't concern me now.
But can my father and cousin be taken without bloodshed? I want to know
the absolute truth." Steele knew that they could not be, but he could
not tell her so. Again she appealed to me. Thus my part in the situation
grew harder. It hurt me so that it made me angry, and my anger made me
cruelly frank.

"No. It can't be done. Sampson and Wright will be desperately hard to
approach, which'll make the chances even. So, if you must know the
truth, it'll be your father and cousin to go under, or it'll be Steele
or me, or any combination luck breaks--or all of us!"

Her self