"All right. To-morrow morning, then." Wellesly looked up in surprise. It was the first word he had heard from either of the three concerning his captors, and he was startled by the calm assurance with which Tom had taken it for granted that he and Nick would "go after 'em." "You two won't go alone!" he exclaimed. "We're enough," Tuttle replied, a grim, expectant look on his big, round face. "You bet we are!" added Nick. "If they see Tom and me comin' they'll know they've got to give up. They've seen us shoot, and that scrub, Haney, has got some sense, though I reckon Jim would be just fool enough to get behind a rock and pop at us till we blowed his brains out." "Oh, I say, now! This is a foolhardy scheme! Let them go, and if they come out of there alive we'll get hold of them somehow. It would be dangerous to the last degree for you two alone to attempt to bring them out across that desert." "Don't you worry," said Nick. "We ain't 'lowing to bring 'em out." The next morning Tuttle and Ellhorn, with two loaded pack horses, set out on their journey to the Oro Fino mountains, where they felt sure the two kidnappers would still be engaged in their hunt for the lost Winters mine. Mead had already sent word to the Fillmore ranch that Wellesly was at his house and that some one might meet them at Muletown that afternoon and carry him on to Las Plumas. When the two men parted they looked each other in the eyes and shook hands. Wellesly began to acknowledge his debt of gratitude. Mead cut him short. "That's all right, Mr. Wellesly," he said, "but I don't want you to think for a minute that I expect this little affair to make any difference in our relations. In the cattle business I still consider you my enemy, and I propose to fight you as long as you try to prevent what I hold to be just and fair dealing between the Fillmore Company and the rest of us cattle raisers. We still stand exactly where we did before."