As they passed, the girl sprang up and went to her mother's room to warn her of the threatened attack. Lize was already awake and calmly loading a second revolver by the light of the electric bulb. "What are you doing?" the girl asked, her blood chilling at sight of the weapon. "Hell's to pay out there, and I'm going to help pay it." A jarring blow was heard. "Hear that! They're breaking in--" She started to leave the room. Lee stopped her. "Where are you going?" "To help Ross. Here!" She thrust the handle of a smaller weapon into Lee's hand. "Ed Wetherford's girl ought to be able to take care of herself. Come on!" With a most unheroic horror benumbing her limbs, Lee followed her mother through the hall. The sound of shouts and the trampling of feet could be heard, and she came out into the restaurant just in time to photograph upon her brain a scene whose significance was at once apparent. On a chair between his two prisoners, and confronting Ballard at the head of a crowd of frenzied villains, stood the ranger, a gleaming weapon in his hand, a look of resolution on his face. What he had said, or what he intended to do, she did not learn, for her mother rushed at the invaders with the mad bravery of a she-bear. "Get out of here!" she snarled, thrusting her revolver into the very mouth of the leader. They all fell back in astonishment and fear. Ross leaped to her side. "Leave them to me!" he said. "I'll clear the room." "Not on your life! This is my house. I have the right to smash the fools." And she beat them over the heads with her pistol-barrel. Recognizing that she was minded to kill, they retreated over the threshold, and Ross, drawing the door close behind them, turned to find Lee Virginia confronting Edwards, who had attempted to escape into the kitchen. The girl's face was white, but the eye of her revolver stared straight and true into her prisoner's face. With a bound Ross seized him and flung him against the wall. "Get back there!" he shouted. "You must take your medicine with your boss." The old fellow hurriedly replaced his ragged hat, and, folding his arms, sank back into his chair with bowed head, while Lize turned upon Joe Gregg. "What the devil did you go into this kind of deal for? You knew what the game laws was, didn't you? Your old dad is all for State regulation, and here you are breaking a State law. Why don't you stand up for the code like a sport?" Joe, who had been boasting of the smiles he had drawn from Lee, did not relish this tongue-lashing from her mother, but, assuming a careless air, he said, "I'm all out of smokes; get me a box, that's a good old soul." Lize regarded him with the expression of one nonplussed. "You impudent little cub!" she exclaimed. "What you need is a booting!" The ranger addressed himself to Lee. "I want to thank you for a very opportune intervention. I didn't know you could handle a gun so neatly."