With the thought, she was at her door--only to find that it had been quietly locked while she lay on the bed. No doubt they had meant to keep her a close prisoner until the thing they were about to do was finished. She beat upon it, called to Rosario to let her out, wrung her hands in her desperation. Then she remembered the window. It was a cheap and flimsy case, and had been jammed so that her strength was not sufficient to raise it. Her eye searched the room for a weapon, and found an Indian tom-tom club. With this she smashed the panes and beat down the wooden cross bars of the sash. Agile as a forest fawn, she slipped through the opening she had made and ran toward the far cabin. A group of men surrounded the door; and, as she drew near, it opened to show three central figures. MacQueen was one, Rosario Chaves a second; but the most conspicuous was a bareheaded young man, with his hands tied behind him. He was going to his death, but a glance was enough to show that he went unconquered and unconquerable. His step did not drag. There was a faint, grave smile on his lips; and in his eye was the dynamic spark that proclaimed him still master of his fate. The woolen shirt had been unbuttoned and pulled back to make way for the rope that lay loosely about his neck, so that she could not miss the well-muscled slope of his fine shoulders, or the gallant set of the small head upon the brown throat. The man who first caught sight of Melissy spoke in a low voice to his chief. MacQueen turned his head sharply to see her, took a dozen steps toward her, then upbraided the Mexican woman, who had run out after Melissy. "I told you to lock her door--to make sure of it." "_Si, senor_--I did." "Then how----" He stopped, and looked to Miss Lee for an explanation. "I broke the window." The outlaw noticed then that her hand was bleeding. "Broke the window! Why?" "I had to get out! I had to stop you!" He attempted no denial of what he was about to do. "How did you know? Did Rosario tell you?" he asked curtly. "No--no! I found out--just by chance." "What chance?" He was plainly disconcerted that she had come to interfere, and as plainly eager to punish the person who had disclosed to her this thing, which he would have liked to do quietly, without her knowledge. "Never mind that. Nobody is to blame. Say I overheard a sentence. Thank God I did, and I am in time." There was no avoiding it now. He had to fight it out with her. "In time for what?" he wanted to know, his eyes narrowing to vicious pin points. "To save him." "No--no! He must die," cried the Mexican woman. Melissy was amazed at her vehemence, at the passion of hate that trembled in the voice of the old woman. MacQueen nodded. "It is out of my hands, you see. He has been condemned." "But why?" "Tell her, Rosario."