His voice was calm and scholarly once more. In the uselessness of further struggle, it had lost the sharp incisiveness that had been the call to action. If one must die, it is good to die after a brave fight. One is never a coward then. Williston’s face wore an almost exalted look. “My daughter is free to go?” he asked, his first words having met with no response. Better, much better, for the make of a man like Williston to die in the dignity of silence, but for Mary’s sake he parleyed. “I guess not!” responded the leader, curtly. “If a pulin’ idiot hadn’t missed the broadside of you—as pretty a mark this side heaven as man could want,—then we might talk about the girl. She’s showed up too damned much like a man now to let her loose.” His big, shuffling form lounged in his saddle. He raised his rifle with every appearance of lazy indifference. They were to be shot down where they stood, now, right on the threshold of their burning homestead. Williston bowed his head to the inevitable for a moment; then raised it proudly to meet the inevitable. A rifle shot rang out startlingly clear. At the very moment the leader’s hawk’s eye had swept the sight, his rifle arm had twitched uncertainly, then fallen nerveless to his side, while his bullet, playing a faltering and discordant second to the first true shot, tore up the ground in front of him and swerved harmlessly to one side. Instantly the wildest confusion reigned,—shouts, curses, the plunging of horses mingled with the sharp crack of fire-arms. The shooting was wild. The surprise was too complete for the outlaws to recover at once. They had heard no sound of approaching hoofbeats. The roaring flames licking up the dry lumber, and rendering the surrounding darkness the blacker for the contrast, had been of saving grace to the besiegers after all. In a moment, the desperadoes rallied. They closed in and imposed a cursing, malignant wall between the rescuers and the blazing door of the shanty and what stood and lay before it. Mary had sunk down at her father’s feet, and had no cognizance of the fierce though brief conflict that ensued. Presently, she was dragged roughly to her feet. A big, muscular arm had heavy grasp of her. “Make sure of the girl, Red!” commanded a sharp voice near, and it was gone out into the night. Afterward, she heard—oh, many, many times in the night watches—the eerie galloping of horses’ hoofs, growing fainter and ever fainter, heard it above the medley of trampling horses and yelling men, and knew it for what it meant; but to-night—this evil night—she gave but one quick, bewildered glance into the sinister face above her and in a soft, shuddering voice breathed, “Please don’t,” and fainted. CHAPTER X IN WHICH THE X Y Z FIGURES SOMEWHAT MYSTERIOUSLY