“Tell him how you are treated by me, but make known that he must pay the sum of twenty thousand dollars for your ransom. The letter will be mailed to him at Pioneer City, and he shall send his answer by Jack Jessop, who will be met by a man whom I will instruct to be on hand. Your father must state in his letter if he will pay that ransom on the next run of the coach, and send it by Jack Jessop to be given to my representative. If my man is harmed, then I will not answer for your safety. “But, if he promises to send the money by Jessop, when he is ready to pay it, then you will be returned to him in safety, being given into Jack Jessop’s charge the third run of the coach after your father writes agreeing to my terms. Do you understand, Miss Fallon?” “Perfectly.” “I will write also, and you shall see my letter. Then I will see that the letters are mailed without delay in Pioneer City.” “It can be done none too soon to please me.” “So I thought.” “One minute, please?” “Yes.” “You said on the way here that you would tell me a secret some day that I am interested in.” “I believe I will tell you a secret,” said the man, thoughtfully, and he sat down upon the porch. Lucille sat in the hammock, using it for a swing, and the strangeness of her situation and surroundings could not but impress her. “I’ll tell you my secret, yes, and perhaps you will then understand that I seek revenge as well as gold from your father. By the way, do you think I resemble your father?” “In form, yes, and in face, also, save for the stamp of wickedness on your countenance.” “Well, he is innocent, I am evil. But we should be alike, for we are brothers.” Lucille sprang out, of the hammock and cried fiercely: “It is false!” “I tell you we are brothers, he being several years my senior,” said the outlaw. “My first love was a young and beautiful girl, and, though she loved me, he stole her from me.” “I do not believe you.” “Well, he married her, that is certain----” “My mother?” “Oh, no; your mother was his second wife. “He won my sweetheart from me, married her, and then went to Texas to live. I heard afterward that his wife died after two years of wedded life, but I did not know, did not care, and I was not aware of where he was, or what doing until during the Civil War. I was taken prisoner by the Confederates, when in my captor, the colonel of a regiment, I recognized my brother. He knew me at a glance, and he came to me and we had a long talk together. “He told me that he had not known of my love for the woman he married, that he had never been told by her or her parents about an engagement between her and myself, that I was away and he therefore could not hear it from my own lips, and hence he had asked her to be his wife. He was going to Texas to live, and the marriage was hastened and she went with him, and only when on her dying bed had she confessed to him that she had been engaged to me.