of the room, his hand inside of the hickory shirt where
the button was missing.

While her father was speaking, Sammy forgot everything, in the
wild joy and pride of her heart. He was her Daddy, her Daddy Jim;
that man standing so calmly there before the wild company of men.
Whatever the past had been, he had wiped it clean to-night. He
belonged to her now, all to her. She looked toward Wash Gibbs.
Then she remembered the posse, the officers of the law. They could
not know what she knew. If her father was taken with the others
and with the stolen gold, he would be compelled to suffer with the
rest. Yet if she called out to save him, she would save Wash Gibbs
and his companions also, and they would menace her father's life
day and night.

The girl drew back from the window. She must think. What should
she do? Even as she hesitated, a score of dark forms crept
swiftly, silently toward the cabin. At the same moment a figure
left the side of the house near the girl, and, crouching low, ran
to the two horses that were tied near the barn.

Sammy was so dazed that for a moment she did not grasp the meaning
of those swiftly moving forms. Then a figure riding one horse and
leading another dashed away from the barn and across a corner of
the clearing. The silence was broken by a pistol shot in the
cabin. Like an echo came a shot from the yard, and a voice rang
out sharply, "HALT!" The figure reeled in the saddle, as if to
fall, but recovered, and disappeared in the timber. The same
instant there was a rush toward the house--a loud call to
surrender--a woman's scream--and then, came to Sammy, blessed,
kindly darkness.

CHAPTER XXXV.

"I WILL LIFT UP MINE EYES UNTO THE HILLS."

When Sammy opened her eyes, she was on the bed in her own room. In
the other room someone was moving about, and the light from a lamp
shone through the door.

At first the girl thought that she had awakened from a night's
sleep, and that it was her father whom she heard, building the
fire before calling her, as his custom was. But no, he was not
building the fire, he was scrubbing the floor. How strange. She
would call presently and ask what he meant by getting up before
daylight, and whether he thought to keep her from scolding him by
trying to clean up what he had spilled before she should see it.

She had had a bad dream of some kind, but she could not remember
just what it was. It was very strange that something seemed to
keep her