The horror of the prisoner can be imagined when he learned that these terrible men, who were trying to get him out of the captain's hands in order to mete out justice on their own account, were actually pursuing him--probably with a rope ready to slip around his neck at the first opportunity. He earnestly besought his protectors not to abandon him; for the captain had told him that he had no right to hold him as prisoner, and should have none until certain formalities had been gone through with in San Francisco. On they flew--without rest--still pursued by the three roughs, who seemed to have gotten their spunk up when they found that the captain was determined to escape from them with the man and the money they wanted so much. At last Sacramento was reached, and with it the highest pitch of danger. The prisoner was informed that the men were still following him, and that they would probably make an attempt to take him on the way from the hotel to the boat that was to carry them to San Francisco. All this was strictly true. Captain Herbert had only omitted to mention the fact that there would be among the number of captors a member of the Sacramento police, to which both the roughs had applied, setting forth that the man was illegally restrained of his liberty, etc. The prisoner shook in his boots, and probably wished in his heart that he was safely back in British Columbia, with the cattle unsold, and his employer unrobbed. What was to be done? Time was flying, and he _must_ be gotten on to that boat, or he might never see San Francisco; so feared the captain as well as his prisoner. Again it was the intrepid stranger and travelling companion who came to the rescue. The captain's plan was "hatched" and carried out in a very little while. With a pair of handcuffs clasped on his wrists, and his arms securely tied behind, the obliging stranger was led to the boat by the hard-hearted captain, who handled this free-will prisoner very roughly--while the guilty cattle-agent was slinking along with unfettered hands by the side of the captain's assistant, to whom he "stuck closer than a brother." Just as the captain was hustling his prisoner on to the gang-plank, a policeman stepped from the crowd, laid his hand on the man's shoulder, and, amid the cheering of the roughs and the angry protestations of the captain, led him to the office of the nearest justice. The _bonâ fide_ prisoner in the meantime slipped unnoticed on board, and was taken out of the cold, and kindly cared for on reaching San Francisco, by the proper authorities, who had been summoned to meet the boat, by a telegram from the captain.