"We must go," she said. "He told me to tell you. He'll be waiting with horses--down the creek." He nodded, and his mind slipped back into the past and then leapt forward to the future. In a whirlwind of dancing visions he pictured their flight down the dark canyon, and Meshackatee waiting with the horses; and then his mind struck back and he could see the Bassetts, and the Slash-knife men riding in. He imagined their short parley, the secret signal, the flash of guns; and then these men who lay about him now would be shot down and left like the sheep-herders. "I can't leave," he whispered back. "I've got to stay and help them. But you----" She clutched him again and was whispering earnestly into his ear when Sharps rose up from his bed. It was just a fold of blankets, laid down on the dirt floor; and as he rose, Bill rose up too. "What are you folks whispering about?" demanded Sharps, advancing in his stocking feet from the gloom, and Winchester sat up suddenly. "Oh, you mustn't tell!" pleaded Allifair, frantically. "I promised him I wouldn't, you know." "Promised who?" inquired Sharps, and as she shrank away from him Hall laid a soothing hand on her head. "She came," he said, "to deliver me a message--a friend has offered to help us escape. We were engaged to be married and I came up here to find her, but she has been held a kind of prisoner at the Rock House." "Yes, but didn't I hear her say," challenged Sharps, still unconvinced, "that some one was coming to kill the Bassetts?" "You bet you did!" put in Bill, "because I heard it myself. This here don't look good to me." "If you gentlemen will just step back," suggested McIvor quietly, "and let us talk this over a minute----" "All right," spoke up Winchester, coming quickly to the front, "get back, boys; we know he's our friend." "Well, I don't," grumbled Sharps, but he made room, reluctantly, when Winchester shoved him away. They gathered in a knot in the back part of the room, arguing angrily among themselves, while Hall talked in low tones with Allifair. "I am in honor bound to stay," he ended gently, "so you will have to go back--and wait." "What--back to the Rock House?" she protested indignantly. "And leave you here to be killed! No, Hall, I am going to stay." "Well, that is your right," he responded, after a silence. "God knows I'll protect you, if I can. How many did you say there were?" "Oh, were you going to fight them? Why not leave it to----But no, I know you too well. There are eight or ten of them, Hall." "And since your life and mine are involved in it now----" "You can tell them," she consented, and sighed. The Bassetts listened grimly as he told the brief story of Isham and his Slash-knife killers, and then Winchester held out his hand. "Don't you worry," he said, with a smile to Allifair, "we'll take care of you, lady--and him. All we needed was to know their little game."