Smith had much time to think on the homeward ride. He based his hopes upon the Indian woman. He knew that he could conciliate her with a look. She was resourceful, she had unlimited influence with the Indians, and she had proven that she was careless of her own life where he was concerned. She was a powerful ally. The situation was not so bad as it had seemed. He had been in tighter places, he told himself, and his spirits rose as he rode. Without the plodding cattle, they retraced their steps in half the time it had taken them to come, and it was not much after midday when they were sighted from the MacDonald ranch. The Indians that Smith had missed were at the ford to meet them: Bear Chief, Yellow Bird, Running Rabbit, and others, who were strangers to him. They followed as Ralston and Babe rode with their prisoner up the path to put him under guard in the bunk-house. Susie, McArthur, and Dora were at the door of the ranch-house, and Susie stepped out and stopped them when they would have passed. "You can't take him there; that place is for our _friends_. There's the harness-house below. The dogs sleep there. There'll be room for one more." The insult stung Smith to the quick. "What _you_ got to say about it? Where's your mother?" With narrowed eyes she looked for a moment into his ugly visage, then she laid her hand upon the rope and led his horse close to the open window of the bedroom. "There," and she pointed to the still figure on its improvised bier. "There's my mother!" Smith looked in silence, and once more showed by his yellowing skin the fear within him. The avenue of escape upon which he had counted almost with certainty, was closed to him. At that moment the harsh, high walls of the penitentiary loomed close; the doors looked wide open to receive him; but, after an instant's hesitation, he only shrugged his shoulders and said: "Hell! I sleeps good anywhere." In deference to Susie's wishes, Ralston and Babe had swung their horses to go back down the path when Smith turned in his saddle and looked at Dora. She was regarding him sorrowfully, her eyes misty with disappointment in him; and Smith misunderstood. A rush of feeling swept over him, and he burst out impulsively: "Don't go back on me! I done it for you, girl! I done it to make _our stake_!" Dora stood speechless, bewildered, confused under the astonished eyes upon her. She was appalled by the light in which he had placed her; and while the others followed to the harness-house below, she sank limply upon the door-sill, her face in her hands. Smith sat on a wagon-tongue, swinging his legs, while they cleaned out the harness-house a bit for his occupancy. "Throw down some straw and rustle up a blanket or two," said Babe; and McArthur pulled his saddle-blankets apart to contribute the cleanest toward Smith's bed.