"If I was to let 'em go," the sheriff went on, his voice now not so hard, "what then? You couldn't finish buildin' your operations, and you couldn't operate your operations even if you had 'em built. Jail's the only cure for this contrary twenty, sir. It'll take some o' the pepper out of 'em, and it won't do the everlastin' harm you think it will, either." Thereupon Starnes and his posse half led, half dragged, their prisoners toward Johnsville. Once more young Wolfe found himself in despair. What meddlesome person had brought the interference of the law? Whitney Fair? Who had told Fair about the crisis? Had it not been for that interference, the day would have been signally won for him. True, Nathan would have been shot in the leg. But what was a fleshwound to such a victory! For his people would have discountenanced even that slight wounding of Nathan, who had so nobly laid himself on the altar of sacrifice, so much that they would have ceased to look to his father. His people would have come over as Nathan had come over. Thrown down, broken-spirited, his father himself might--possibly--have come over to the right way of thinking. He didn't blame Starnes for taking the nineteen others also. Starnes could not have taken any one of the clan; he had to take the entire faction or none of it. Weaver arrived from Johnsville. The moment Wolfe saw his foreman, he did something that was rather unusual for him; he jumped at a conclusion. "What right had you to send the sheriff out here?" he thundered. "If you would take care of your own affairs, and leave mine to me, no doubt you would----" The look of intense hurt he saw on the face of his friend stopped his speech abruptly. It was long before he forgot that look. "They'll pay you what's due you at the office," he went on grimly, and Weaver went off down the track. [Illustration] A slender figure in a blue dress sprang out of the laurels and confronted Wolfe. It was the missing Tot Singleton! "He didn't do it!" she breathed. "I did it--I did it because I just c-c-couldn't bear the thought o' you being killed. I met Mr. Weaver going to town yesterday, and I made him tell me everything. Then I went for the sheriff and a posse--but I made the sheriff promise he wouldn't act unless it was to prevent bloodshed. Mr. Weaver took all o' the blame to save me. Call him b-back and ask him to excuse--to pardon you!" Wolfe had been seeing her too often, and he had been too busy, to fully appreciate the vast improvement she had made in her language--even when he wasn't beside himself with anger. He gave her a queer, narrow smile now, then called Weaver back and apologized. "And will you forgive me, Little Buck?" plaintively whispered Tot, when the foreman had turned away. The bitter answer of Little Buck Wolfe, who in this black hour was mostly mountaineer, came promptly. "I don't think I will," he said. XIV