"Take 'em to jail, Boss?" panted Suma-theek. "I find 'em trying get back
to lower town!"

"No! No! Back up into the mountains. I'll get horses to you and you must
take them to Cabillo. Lord, I forgot to warn you!"

Suma-theek turned quickly but not quickly enough. A man ran up to the
little group then plunged back toward the hall.

"A rope!" he yelled. "Bring a rope. They've got the two hombres."

Men seemed to spring up out of the ground.

"Run, Pen, toward the upper camp!" cried Jim.

"I won't!" exclaimed Pen. "They won't shoot while a woman is standing
here."

She plunged away from Jim and caught Suma-theek's arm. The old Indian
smiled and shoved her behind him. Jim turned and stood shoulder to
shoulder with the Apache chief. "Now work back until we're against the
power house with the hombres back of us," he said.

By the time the crowd was massed, yelling and gesticulating on three
sides of it, the little group was backed up against the concrete wall
of the little substation.

Jim waved his arm. "Go home, boys; go home! You can't do any lynching
while the Apaches are here!"

"Give us the hombres, Boss!" shouted a threatening voice, "or we'll have
to be rough on you."

"Send the lady home," called someone else. "This is no job for a lady to
see."

"Boss," said Suma-theek in Jim's ear, "you send your squaw out. She go
up mountain back of town, find Apache there, tell all Apaches bring
guns, come here, help take hombres to jail."

Jim looked at Pen and his face whitened. But Pen's nostrils dilated and
her eyes sparkled. Pen was Irish.

"I'll go," said Pen. "Where is Henderson?"

"He ought to be back," said Jim. "Try to find him after you get the
Apaches. Send anybody down you can reach." Then he shouted to the crowd,
"Let the lady out!"

Jim and Suma-theek stood well above most of the mob. Jim was unarmed and
the crowd knew it. But even had any man there been inclined to prevent
Pen's exit he would rather have done so under a cocked gun than under
the look in Jim's white face as he watched Pen's progress through the
crowd. The men gave back respectfully. As soon as she was free of the
crowd, Pen broke into a run. She darted back behind the line of tents up
onto the mountainside.

There for an instant she paused and looked back. The five Indians were
as motionless as the crouching black heaps they guarded. They held their
guns in the hollow of their arms, while Jim, with raised arm, was
speaking.