nto the place and in the process he could be easily
dispatched.

But while he waited Ratler's knees shook and when, instead of crawling,
he saw a shape dive almost horizontally through the aperture his
courage evaporated. The lantern was badly placed and it confused the
man inside because it darkened the opening while it left him in plain
sight. Ratler's revolver was spitting venomously but ineffectually. His
hand was unsteady and his eye confused. The drunkard was reeling as he
fought and after a dazed moment he felt himself caught in a
bone-breaking embrace while the butt of a pistol hammered the
consciousness out of his skull.

Turner Stacy was a wild man now. He stumbled blindly out of the cave
dragging a limp figure behind him, and when he straightened up again
and wiped his sweat-streaming face he had hurled the thing bodily
outward, where the ravine dropped down a hundred feet.

He came back, palsied and shaken, and as he bent over the girl and cut
away her bonds, his voice struggled through dry sobs.

"Blossom," he pleaded brokenly, "Blossom, tell me ye're only
affrighted. Tell me thet ye didn't come ter no harm--fer my sake."

"I hain't hurt--Turney," she managed to whisper. "Ye came back--in
time--jest barely in time."

She stood leaning weakly against the rock wall with her hands pressed
tightly to her face.

The man stood, panting with excitement and exertion, but into his
pupils came a sudden light of hope.

"Blossom," he whispered huskily, "Blossom--ye didn't ... come over ...
hyar ... because ye ... because ye keered fer me, did ye?"

She took her hands away from her temples and looked at him with a white
face, and in the unhappy honesty of her eyes the man read his answer.
It was as if she had said, "My heart lies over there in _his_ grave,"
and slowly, gravely Turner nodded his head. His face had gone gray, but
through its misery it held a stamp of gentleness.

"I understands ye," he said simply. "I won't never pester ye no more."
Then as some note of alarm came to his ears he wheeled, all alertness
again and his hand was once more gripping his pistol.

"I've only got three ca'tridges left," he said to himself. "Hit's nip
an' tuck now which git hyar fust."

As he reached the mouth of the cave a shout came out of the darkness.
"Ratler, air ye in thar?" and out into the night went the defiant
response. "No, Ratler hain't hyar, but Bear Cat Stacy's hyar. Come on
an' git me ef ye wants me."