wrongdoing.

"Why did you do it, Juan?" she begged of him.

"He said she wanted to come, that she would marry him if she had a
chance. He said her father kept her from him," the man pleaded. "I didn't
know he was going to harm her."

"Where is he? Take me to him, quick," said Sanders, relapsing into
English.

"Si, senor. At once," agreed Otero, thoroughly frightened.

"I want a six-shooter. Some one lend me one."

None of them carried one, but Bonita ran into the house and brought back
a small bulldog. Dave looked it over without enthusiasm. It was a pretty
poor concern to take against a man who carried two forty-fives and knew
how to use them. But he thrust it into his pocket and swung to the
saddle. It was quite possible he might be killed by Doble, but he had a
conviction that the outlaw had come to the end of the passage. He was
going to do justice on the man once for all. He regarded this as a
certainty.

CHAPTER XLIV

THE BULLDOG BARKS

Joyce fainted for the first time in her life.

When she recovered consciousness Doble was splashing water in her face.
She was lying on the bunk from which she had fled a few minutes earlier.
The girl made a motion to rise and he put a heavy hand on her shoulder.

"Keep your hand off me!" she cried.

"Don't be a fool," he told her irritably. "I ain't gonna hurt you
none--if you behave reasonable:"

"Let me go," she demanded, and struggled to a sitting position on the
couch. "You let me go or my father--"

"What'll he do?" demanded the man brutally. "I've stood a heap from
that father of yore's. I reckon this would even the score even if I
hadn't--" He pulled up, just in time to keep from telling her that he had
fired the chaparral. He was quite sober enough to distrust his tongue. It
was likely, he knew, to let out some things that had better not be told.

She tried to slip by him and he thrust her back.

"Let me go!" she demanded. "At once!"

"You're not gonna go," he told her flatly. "You'll stay here--with me.
For keeps. Un'erstand?"

"Have you gone crazy?" she asked wildly, her heart fluttering like a
frightened bird in a cage. "Don't you know my father will search the
whole country for me?"

"Too late. We travel south soon as it's dark." He leaned forward and put
a hand on her knee, regardless of the fact that she shrank back quivering
from his touch. "Listen, girl. You been a high-stepper. Yore heels click
mighty loud when they hit the sidewa