"That is sweet of you," said Gavin, after a moment's pause, wherein his desire to laugh struggled with a far deeper and more potent emotion. "But, if it's just the same to you, I'd rather--" "But he is double your size," she protested, "and he is as strong as Samson. Why, Roke, over at the Key, is said to be the only man who ever outwrestled him! And Roke has the strength of a gorilla." Gavin Brice smiled grimly to himself in the darkness, as he recalled his own test of prowess with Roke. "I don't think he'll hurt me overmuch," said he. "I thank you, just the same. It makes me very happy to know you aren't--" "Mr. Brice!" she cried, in desperation. "Unless you promise me not to do as I dared you to--I shall not let you go a step farther with me. I--" "I'm afraid you'll have to let me take you the rest of the way, Miss Standish," he said, a sterner note in his voice quelling her protest and setting her to wondering. "If you like, we can postpone my talk with Standish about the check-raising. But--if you care anything for him, you'd best let me go to him as fast as we can travel." "Why? Is--?" "Unless I read wrongly what we saw, back yonder in the clearing," he said, cryptically, "your brother is in sore need of every friend he can muster. I had only a glimpse of our subterranean half-man. But there was a gash across his eyebrow, and a mass of bruises on his throat. If I'm not mistaken, I put them there. That was the man who tried to knife Standish last evening. And, unless I've misread the riddle of that tunnel, we'll be lucky to get there in time. There's trouble ahead. All sorts of trouble." CHAPTER VIII THE SIEGE "Trouble?" repeated Claire, questioningly. "You mean--?" "I mean I've pieced it out, partly from reports and partly from my own deductions and from the sight of that man, back there," said Brice. "I may be wrong in all or in part of it. But I don't think I am. I figure that that chap we saw half under ground, is one of a clique or gang that is after something which Standish and Hade have--or that these fellows think Hade and Standish have. I figure they think your brother has wronged them in some way and that they are even more keen after him than after Hade. That, or else they think if they could put him out of the way, they could get the thing they are after. That or both reasons."