"I see you've come," he answered. "You might as well; we'd have found you to-morrow." His voice was no longer flat, but rather exultant, boasting. "You thought you could get away--but we've shown you." Ben nodded. "You are--" he strained for the name he had heard Beatrice speak so often--"Ray Brent?" His eyes fell to the form of Neilson, wounded beyond the fire. "I see you've been at your old job--killing. It was you who killed Ezra Melville." Ray smiled, ever so faintly: this was what he loved. "You're talking to the right man. Anything you'd like to do about it?" Ben's face hardened. "There is nothing I can do, now. You came too late. But I would have had something to do if I had my rifle. I'm glad it was you, not Beatrice's father. I ask you this--will you accept my proposition. To take Ezram's letter, destroy it and me too--and let the girl go in safety?" Beatrice stretched her bound arms and touched his hairy wrist. "No, Ben," she told him quietly. "There's no use of trying to make such a bargain as that. Men that murder--and assault women,--won't keep their word." "They were about to attack you, were they?" His voice dropped a tone; otherwise it seemed the same. "Yes--just as you came." He turned once more to Ray, eyeing him with such a look of contempt and scorn that it smarted like a whiplash in spite of the protecting mantel of his new-found triumph. "Oh, you depraved dogs!" he told them quietly and distinctly. "You yellow, mongrel cowards!" Ray straightened, stung by the words. "And I'll make you wish you was dead before you ever said that," he threatened. "I'll tell you what you wanted to know a minute ago--and I tell you no. I won't make any deal with you. We'll do what we like to you, and we'll do what we like with your dirty squaw, too--the woman you've been living with all these months. We've got you where we want you. You're in no fix to make terms. Chan--put a rope around his legs and a gag in his rotten mouth!" They moved toward him simultaneously, and Ben summoned the last jot of his almost-spent strength to hurl them off. They did not need deadly weapons for this wasted form. Yet for the duration of one second Ben fought with an incredible ferocity and valor. He hurled Chan from his path, and his sound right arm leaped to Ray's throat in a death grip. For that one instant his old-time strength returned to him,--as to Samson as his arms went about the pillars of the temple. They found him no weakling, in that first instant, but a deadly, fighting beast, the "Wolf" Darby of the provinces,--his finger nails sinking ever deeper into the flesh of Ray's throat, his body braced against Chan's attack. And for all that Beatrice's arms were tied, she leaped like a she-wolf to her lover's aid.