roke it. "We got to do it, o' course."

"Looks like. Got to make an example. No peace on the range till we do."

"I hate like sin to, Budd. He's so damn game."

"Me, too. But we got to. No two ways about it."

"I reckon. Brill says so. But I wish the cuss had a chanct to fight for
his life."

They moved off together in troubled silence, Budd's cigarette glowing
red in the darkness. Behind them they left a girl shocked and rigid.
They were going to lynch him! She knew it as certainly as if she had
been told it in set words. Her blood grew cold, and she shivered. While
the confused horror of it raced through her brain, she noticed
subconsciously that her fingers on the sill were trembling violently.

What could she do? She was only a girl. These men deferred to her in
the trivial pleasantries, but she knew they would go their grim way no
matter how she pleaded. And it would be her fault. She had betrayed the
rustler to them. It would be the same as if she had murdered him. He had
known while she was tending his wounds that she had delivered him to
death, and he had not even reproached her.

Courage flowed back to her heart. She would save him if it were
possible. It must be by strategy if at all. But how? For of course he
was guarded.

She stepped out into the corridor. All was dark there. She tiptoed along
it to the guest room, and found the door unlocked. Nobody was inside.
She canvassed in her mind the possibilities. They might have him
outdoors or in the men's bunk house with them under a guard, or they
might have locked him up somewhere until the arrival of the others. If
the latter, it must be in the store, since that was the only safe place
under lock and key.

Phyllis slipped out of the back door into the darkness, and skirted the
house at a distance. There were lights in the bunk house of the ranch
riders, and through the window she could see a group gathered. Creeping
close to the window, she looked in. Their prisoner was not with them. In
front of the store two men were seated in the darkness. She was almost
upon them before she saw them. Each of them carried a rifle.

"Hello! Who's that?" one of them cried sharply.

It was Tom Dixon.

Phyllis came forward and spoke. "That you, Tom? I suppose you are
guarding the prisoner."

"Yep. Can't you sleep, Phyl?" He walked a dozen yards with her.

"I couldn't, but I see you're keeping watch, all right. I probably can
now. I suppose I was nervous."

"N