--taking you into danger and keeping you a prisoner--you
still want to protect him?"

The girl nodded. "And I want you to protect him, too," she said.
"Against these men." Suddenly she moved forward in earnest appeal. "Oh,
Father--I want you to save him. He's never touched me--he's treated me
with every respect--done everything he could for me. When he was injured
he told me to go back--to take what little food there was, and go
back--"

"I can take it, then, that you're out of food?" Ray asked.

"We're starving--and Ben's sick. Father, I make this one appeal--if your
love for me isn't all gone, you'll grant it. I love him. You might as
well know that now, as later. I want you to save the man your daughter
loves."

Chan cursed in the gloom, his lean face darkened; but Neilson made no
answer. Ray in his place sharply inhaled; but the sullen glow in his
eyes snapped into a flame.

If Beatrice had glanced at Ray, she would have ceased her appeal and
trusted everything to the doubtful mercy of flight,--into the gloom of
the forest. As it was, she did not fully comprehend the cruel lust, like
flame, that sped through his veins. She would have hoped for no mercy if
she could have seen the strange, black surge of wrath in his face.

"He has been kind to me--and he was in the right, not in the wrong. I
know about the claim-jumping. Father, I want you to stand between him
and these men--help him--and give him food. I didn't speak to you
because I was afraid for him--afraid you'd kill him or do some other
awful thing to him--"

Slowly her father shook his head. "But I can't save him now. He brought
this on himself."

"Remember, he was in the right," the girl pleaded brokenly. "You
won't--you couldn't be a partner to murder. That's all it would
be--murder--brutal, terrible, cold-blooded murder--if you kill him
without a fight. It couldn't be in defense of me--I tell you he hasn't
injured me--but was always kind to me. It would be just to take that
letter away from him--"

"So he has the letter, has he?" Ray interrupted. He smiled grimly, and
his tone was again flat and strained. "And he's sick--and starving. It
isn't for your father to say, Beatrice, what's to be done with Ben.
There's three of us here, and he's just one. Don't go interfering with
what doesn't concern you, either--about the claim. You take us where he
is, and we'll decide what to do with him."

Her eyes went to his face; and her lips closed tight. Her