"It will not do for them to overtake us."

"Surely not. I would be arrested and taken back into Carson. Even if I
were sure of proving my innocence, the man and girl would get away."

"And you cannot be sure you could prove your innocence. The working of
the law is sometimes strange and erratic. That money has placed you in
great danger, Frank."

"You are right. I wish I had kept my money in my pocket, and had not
been so ready to break fifty-dollar bills for a pretty girl."

Frank said this laughingly, but Bart's dark face wore a very serious
look. He was not at all inclined to regard serious matters in a humorous
light, while Frank had faced deadly dangers many times, and had come to
laugh in the face of the gravest peril.

"We'll have trouble in escaping those men," came soberly from Bart's
lips. "It is still rather wild up around Tahoe, I fancy, and this road
must end at the lake."

"Well, we'll leave the road and ride over the mountain tops, if we do
not overtake the man and girl."

"What if we do overtake them?"

"It will be a good plan to freeze onto them, and hold them for the
officers."

"No," cried Bart, sharply. "I will not agree to that."

"You will not?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It would place the girl in peril. She would be----"

"That's where you're off, my boy. It might rescue her from peril. If she
is in trouble, as we imagine, it would be the very best thing that could
happen for her."

"How is that?"

"She could tell her story truthfully, and it might get her out of
trouble by putting the man with the black mustache in a box. At the same
time it would clear me."

Bart was obliged to confess that Frank had made a point, and still he
did not like to think of turning the girl over to the officers of the
law.

"Perhaps she would not 'peach' on the gang, if there is a gang behind
her, which I doubt. She might keep her mouth closed, might swear she
never let you have the queer money."

"And I can prove she did by the conductor of the Pacific Express. He saw
me give her the small stuff for the two bills."

"Still, I do not feel like nabbing her and turning her over to the
officers. We might not be able to nab her, anyway."

"That is true enough. I rather fancy her companion would be likely to
put up a stiff fight. He looks to me like a dangerous man."

Frank fancied that he was beginning to understand Bart's feelings. He
believed the boy was afraid the girl might prove to be one of