orders to hold you pending an investigation.
What harm does it do you to stay here a while?" he asked doggedly.

"Don't you see? When my father hears of it he will be furious. I made
Phil promise not to tell him. But he'll hear when he comes back. And
then--there will be trouble. He'll drag me from you, or he'll die
trying. He's that kind of man."

A pebble rolled down the face of the wall against which she leaned.
Weaver looked up quickly--to find himself covered by a carbine.

"Hands up, seh! No--don't reach for a gun."

"So it's you, Mr. Keller! Homesteading up there, I presume?"

"In a way of speaking. You remember I asked you a question."

"And I told you to go to Halifax."

"Well, I came back to answer the question myself. You're going to turn
the young lady loose."

"If you say so." Weaver's voice carried an inflection of sarcasm.

"That's what I say. Miss Sanderson, will you kindly unbuckle that belt
and round up the weapons of war? Good enough! I'll drift down that way
now myself."

Keller lowered himself from Flat Rock, keeping his prisoner covered as
carefully as he could the while. But, though Keller came down the steep
bluff with infinite pains, the rough going offered a chance of escape to
one so reckless as Weaver, of which he made not the least attempt to
avail himself. Instead, he smiled cynically and waited with his hand in
the air, as bidden. Keller, coming forward with both eyes on his
prisoner, slipped on a loose boulder that rolled beneath his foot,
stumbled, and fell, almost at the feet of the cattleman. He got up as
swiftly as a cat. Weaver and his derisive grin were in exactly the same
position.

Keller lowered his carbine instantly. This plainly was no case for the
coercion of arms.

"We'll cut out the gun play," he said. "Better rest the hand that's
reaching for the sky. I expect hostilities are over."

"You certainly had me scared stiff," Weaver mocked.

From the first roll of the pebble that had announced the presence of a
third party, Phyl had experienced surprise after surprise. She had
expected to see one of the Seven Mile boys or her brother instead of
Keller--had looked with a quaking heart for the cattleman to fling back
the swift challenge of a bullet. His tame surrender had amazed her,
especially when Keller's fall had given him a chance to seize the
carbine. His drawling, sarcastic badinage pointed to the same
conclusion. Evidently he had no desire to resist. Behind