for me here--you have
saved my life and showed me the greatest kindness and generosity--I
can not allow any further proceedings to be taken against you, if I
can prevent them, which is not--"

"Oh, hang all that!" Mead interrupted with a gesture of irritation. "I
don't expect and don't want anything we have done just now to make any
difference with your feelings toward me, or change the policy of the
Fillmore Cattle Company. And I don't want it to influence the actions
of the Republicans in Las Plumas, either. We didn't do it for that
purpose, and I'm not buying protection for myself that way. What we
did was the barest humanity."

"No, Mr. Wellesly," Nick Ellhorn broke in, "you needn't have it on
your conscience that you must be grateful to us, because if we hadn't
saved you the Republicans over in Plumas would have said that we
killed you. We sure had to save you to save our own skins."

There was a general laugh at this, and Mead added quietly: "As it was
my men who were to blame for your condition, I suppose I would have
been, in a way, responsible."

Tuttle rose and began walking about uneasily. "When are we goin' to
start after 'em, Nick?" he said.

"I'm ready whenever you are."

"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 Fillmo