As the man's back was turned I sprang suddenly to my feet. "Seek him, Guard! Take him!" I cried, and Guard literally obeyed. Startled and sobered by the sound of a voice, Big Jim whirled around, facing the direction whence the voice came, to be met by the dog's fierce charge. Guard's leap was so impetuous that the man staggered under it, and, losing his balance, fell to the floor. Guard fastened his teeth in the skirt of his coat as he fell. There was a momentary struggle on the floor. While it was taking place I darted out of the cavern, revolver, cartridge-belt, and even the empty whiskey bottle in my hands. Safely outside, I halted, and with what little breath I had left whistled for Guard. A load was off my heart when the dog came bounding to my side, none the worse for his brief encounter with an unarmed cowboy. I had hoped to get out of sight before Big Jim discovered me, but he came out of the cavern on Guard's heels. Evidently quite sobered, he stopped when he saw me. He glanced at the armament in my hands, at the empty bottle, and, lifting his hat with its great flapping brim, scratched his head in perplexity. It was still raining, a fact which Big Jim seemed suddenly to discover. "Wet, ain't it?" he observed. "Rain is usually wet," I informed him, with unnecessary explicitness. "Yes, I reckon 'tis. Say, that's my bottle you've got in your hands." "So I supposed." "You're welcome to the whiskey--I see it's gone, and 'tis a good thing to take off a chill--when a body gets wet--but I'd like the bottle again." "I am going to put the bottle and the revolver and the belt in the hollow of the big pine near the lower crossing. You can get them there." "Oh, ain't you goin' t' give 'em to me now?" "No, I am not." "'Fraid of me, I reckon." "Yes, I am." "I won't hurt you, Miss Leslie Gordon. I remember you first-rate. Got that little white handkercher that you done up my hand in the day I burned it so at the Alton camp yet." "You might not hurt me, but I think you would hurt my dog." "Yes, Miss Gordon, I'm 'bleeged t' say that if I had a shootin' iron in my hands jest now I'd be mighty glad t' let daylight through that dog o' yourn. He's too fractious t' live in the same country as a white man." I grasped the revolver tighter. "How came you in the cavern?" "Well, if you want t' know, I took a drop too much at the dance last night, an' the ole man, he'd said if sech a thing as that ar' took place again he'd feel obligated t' give me the marble heart. Mighty cranky the ole man is. So I jest wended up here along, thinkin' I'd bunk with the ole hermutt till I got a little nigher straight. It's a thing that don't often happen," he added, in self-extenuation; "but the party, it done got away with me. Now you know all about it, an' you'd better hand over them weapons." [Illustration: "YOU BETTER HAND OVER THEM WEAPONS!" (Page 220)]