"All right. I'll let him alone. Peter can tell him." Swinging to the saddle, he spurred his horse and cantered away. With a little smile Diane watched his flat, muscular back and the arrogant set of his strong shoulders. There was not his match in the territory, she thought, but sometimes a clever woman could manage him. His mind was full of the problem that had come into his life. He rode abstractedly, so that he was at the lower ford of the creek almost before he knew it. A bilberry thicket straggled down to the opposite bank of the stream on both sides of the road. The horse splashed through the ford and took the little rise beyond with a rush. Just before reaching the brow of the hill, the animal stumbled and fell. As its rider went headlong, he caught a glimpse of a cord drawn taut across the path. Macdonald, shaken by the fall, began slowly to rise. From the shadows of the bilberry bushes two stooping figures rushed at him. He threw up an arm to ward off the club aimed at his head, but succeeded only in breaking the force of the blow. As he staggered back, stunned, a bullet glanced along his forehead and ridged a furrow through the thick hair. A second stroke of the club jarred him to the heels. Though his mind was not clear, his body answered automatically the instinct that told him to close with his assailants. He lurched forward and gripped one, wrestling with him for the revolver. Vaguely he knew by the sharp, jagged shoots of pain that the second man was beating his head with a club. The warm blood dripped through his hair and blinded his eyes. Dazed and shaken, he yet managed to get the revolver from the man who had it. But it was his last effort. He was too far gone to use it. A blow on the forehead brought him unconscious to the ground bleeding from a dozen wounds. On his way back from Seven-Mile Creek Camp Gordon Elliot rode down to the ford. In the dusk he was almost upon them before the robbers heard him. For a moment the two men stood gazing at him and he at the tragedy before him. One of the men moved toward his horse. "Stop there!" ordered Gordon sharply, and he reached for his revolver. The man--it was the miner Northrup--jumped for Elliot and the field agent fired. Another moment, and he was being dragged from the saddle. What happened next was never clear to him. He knew that both of the bandits closed in on him and that he was fighting desperately against odds. The revolver had been knocked from his hand and he fought with bare fists just as they did. Twice he emptied his lungs in a cry for help.