Before she had taken a dozen steps a sound leaped into the night. It was a revolver shot. Fear choked her. She began to run, her heart throbbing like that of a half-grown wild rabbit in the hand. Faint futile little cries broke from her throat. A sure intuition told her what she would find by the creek. Her father lay on a sand spit close to the willows. He was dragging himself toward the cover of some brush. From the heavy foliage a shot rang out. Betty flew across the open to her father. “Look out!” he called sharply to her. “He’s in the willows. Down here.” Reed caught at her arm and pulled her behind him where he lay crouched. The automatic of the man in ambush barked again. A spatter of sand stung Betty’s face. Almost simultaneously came the bull roar of the foreman’s hoarse voice. “You’re shot, Daddy,” the girl whimpered. “Keep still!” he ordered. A heavy body crashed through the bushes in flight. At the same time came the thump of running feet. Dusty broke into sight, followed by the foreman. The wounded rancher took command. “He went that way, boys,” he said, and pointed down the creek. “Lit out a minute ago. Hustle back to the house and get guns, then cut down the road in the car and head him off.” Forbes nodded to Dusty. “You do that. Take the boys with you. Hit the creek at the ford and work up.” He turned to his employer. “How about it, Clint? Where’d he hit you? How bad?” “In the leg. It’ll wait. You get him, Lon.” The foreman pushed into the willows and disappeared. Reed called him back, but he paid no attention. The ranchman fumed. “What’s the matter with the dawg-goned old idiot? No sense a-tall. That’s no way to do. He’ll get shot first thing he knows.” Her father was so much his usual self that Betty’s terror fell away from her. If he were wounded fatally, he would not act like this. He had been hit just above the top of his laced boots. Betty uncovered the wound and bathed it with water she brought from the creek in Clint’s hat. Around the wound she bound a large handkerchief she found in his hip pocket. “Does it hurt much?” she asked, her soft voice mothering him. “Some. Know I’ve got a leg. Lucky for me you came along. It must ’a’ scared him off. You an’ Lon too.” “See who he was?” “Too dark.” “Think it was the tramps? Or Jake Prowers?” “The tramps. Not the way Jake pulls off a job. He’s no bungler.” She sat down and put his head in her lap. “Anything else I can do, Dad? Want a drink?” she asked anxiously. Reed caught her little hand and pressed it. “Sho! Don’t you go to worryin’ about me, sweetheart. Doc Rayburn, he’ll fix me up good as new. When Lon comes back I’ll have him--” He stopped. A rough voice was speaking. A foot struck a stone. Vague figures emerged from the gloom, took on distinctness. The big one was Lon Forbes. He walked behind a man who was his prisoner, his great hands clamped to the fellow’s arms.