Steve had again lifted his rifle. Now he let it sink slowly so that the butt came to rest gently upon the rock at his feet. Blenham held the high hand; Blenham was unthinkably vile; Blenham was desperate. And Terry, his little Terry on whom Blenham had always looked with the eye of a brute and a beast, was in there, just beyond three inches of solid seasoned cedar planking. "If you harm her in the least--" It was Steve's voice though certainly at first neither Blenham nor even Terry could have recognized it. "If you harm her in the least, Blenham, I'll kill you. Not all at once--just by inches!" Blenham answered him coolly. "I know when I've lost a trick, Steve Packard. This ain't the firs' one an' it ain't goin' to be the last. I've played 'em high an' I always knowed I took chances. But I'm playin' safe! Get me? Safe!" "Go ahead; what do you mean?" "Ol' man Packard is down there. This girl's yellin' spoiled my play. By now he has learned a thing or two. All right; that's jus' the run of luck, rotten luck!" Under the words the restraint was gone and his rage flared out briefly. But it was patent that Blenham's shrewdness was still with him. He continued almost calmly: "You an' him can have two words together. Then come back here an' give me your promises, both of you, to let me go. Then I'll let her go. Otherwise, I'm as good as dead--an' so's she. I'll jam a gun to her head the las' thing an' blow her brains out. An', what's more, I'll get one or two of you besides before you drop me." Into their parley, interrupting it, his eyes flaming, his face hot with anger, mounted old man Packard. "Stephen," he said sternly, his eyes hard on his grandson's face, "tell me an' tell me the down-right truth, so help you God: Did you rent this pasture from Andy Sprague, thinkin' he owned it?" Though he wondered, Steve answered briefly, to have this done with so that he could again turn to Blenham-- "Yes." "An' the boys says you have been losin' stock an' blamin' it to me? An' that you've had stock poisoned an' shot? An' blamed it to me?" "Yes," said Steve. "So've I," said the old man heavily. "An' I've always blamed it to you. An' I never sold to Andy Sprague. Him an' Blenham--Blenham has played us both ways for suckers, has stole enough cows from one an' another----" His voice was swept up into the roar of rage which had given him his name of the old mountain-lion of the north. He came stepping over poor Barbee's body, thrusting by Steve, towering over the door of the cave. "Hold back," commanded Steve queerly. "He's in there. But he's got it on us. We've got to promise to let him go!" "Let him go!" shouted the old man, his big bulk seeming actually to quiver with rage. "After all he's done, let him go? By the Lord, Stephen Packard, if you're that sort of a man----" "She is in there with him," said Steve heavily. "Terry is in there. Don't you see?" "Terry? That Temple girl? What have we to do----"