“Make good! Of course you’ll make good. You’re the best man in Arizona, sir,” cried Webb extravagantly. He wheeled on his new-found daughter. “Don’t you think so, Frankie?” Frances blushed, but answered bravely: “Yes, sir. He makes everything right when he takes hold of it.” “Good. We’re not going to let him get away from us after making us so happy, are we, mother? This young man is going to stay right here. We never had but one son, and we are going to treat him as much like one as we can. Eh, mother?” “If he will consent, Webb.” She went up to the ranger and kissed his tanned cheek. “You must pardon an old woman whom you’ve made very happy.” Again Bucky’s laughing blue eyes met the brown ones of his sweetheart. “Oh, I’ll consent, all right, and I reckon, ma’am, it’s mighty good of you to treat me so white. I’ll sure try to please you.” Webb thumped him on the back. “Now, you’re shouting. We want you to be one of us, young man.” Once more that happy, wireless message of eyes followed by O’Connor’s assent. “That’s what I want myself, seh.” Bucky found a surprise waiting for him at the stables. A heavy hand descended upon his shoulder. He whirled, and looked up into the face of Sheriff Collins. “You here, Val?” he cried in surprise. “That’s what. Any luck, Bucky?” They went out and sat down on the big rocks back of the corral. Here each told the other his story, with certain reservations. Collins had just got back from Epitaph, where he had been to get the fragments of paper which told the secret of the buried treasure. He was expecting to set out in the early morning to meet Leroy. “I’ll go with you,” said Bucky immediately. Val shook his head. “No, I’m to go alone. That’s the agreement.” “Of course if that’s the agreement.” Nevertheless, the ranger formed a private intention not to be far from the scene of action. CHAPTER XXI. THE WOLF PACK “Good evening, gentlemen. Hope I don’t intrude on the festivities.” Leroy smiled down ironically on the four flushed, startled faces that looked up at him. Suspicion was alive in every rustle of the men’s clothes. It breathed from the lowering countenances. It itched at the fingers longing for the trigger. The unending terror of a bandit’s life is that no man trusts his fellow. Hence one betrays another for fear of betrayal, or stabs him in the back to avoid it.