Black looked at his employer with a kind of fierce resentment. He had followed this man a good many years, not to his own good. There had been times when he had been close to a break with him, but Prowers held for him a sinister attraction. He never had liked him, yet could not escape his influence. “What about the kid? I’m standin’ pat on that, Jake,” he said sullenly. The old cattleman reflected. By nature he had in him a vein secretive and malignant. The thought of striking at Clint Reed through his little girl was not repellent to him. But he had lived fifty years in the West and knew its standards. The thing that Cig had done, unless it were promptly repudiated by him, would make Paradise Valley and the adjoining mountains buzz like a hornets’ nest. His allies would fall away from him instantly. “You’ll take the kid back home to Clint, Don,” Prowers said. “You’ll tell him we sent her back soon as we found she had been taken. An’ that’s all you’ll tell him. No mention of Cig here. Understand?” Black’s jaws began to move again regularly and evenly. “Suits me,” he agreed. “When do I go?” “Why, the sooner the quicker.” The instinct of a child as to grown-ups is not always sound, but Ruth knew which of these three was her friend. She had run to Black and caught him by the coat, screening herself behind him. His hand rested on the soft flaxen hair gently. Don was a bad _hombre_, a hard, tough citizen. But something tugged at his heart now. He knew that if it had been necessary bullets would have stabbed the air to save the little girl who had put herself under his protection. “Don’t forget, Don. Turn her over to Clint with my compliments. An’ you brought her home soon as we found her. No explanations. Let him take it or leave it.” Black nodded. “I getcha. It’ll be thataway.” After he had swung to the saddle he lifted the child to the back of the horse. She was still sobbing. “Don’cha, honey,” he soothed. “I’m takin’ you right home to yore paw. That bad man ain’t ’a’ gonna hurt you none.” He rode out of the cañon and across the hills. Nobody knew this country better than Black. All his life he had ridden it. Following the path of least resistance, he deflected many times from the airline that led to the Diamond Bar K; but none could have traveled a shorter distance to reach it. Within the hour he was jogging down into Paradise Valley. A cloud of dust in the distance caught his eye. It was moving swiftly along a road toward him. “Some folks in a powerful hurry,” he murmured aloud, and guessed at once the reason for their haste. His fingers closed for an instant on the butt of a revolver to make sure there would be no hitch in the draw in case of need. As the riders drew near, he held up the palm of his hand to stop them. He counted eight. Clint Reed and Lon Forbes were in the lead. Betty was among the others. “I reckon I got here what you want, Clint,” Black said evenly.