old cattleman was riding hard. Lee frowned. Then for
an instant a smile softened his stern eyes.

"Good little old Carson," he muttered.

Carson came to his side, saying merely in his dry voice:

"Mind if I come along, Bud? You an' me have rid into one thing an'
another more'n just once."

"This is my fight," said Lee coolly.

"Who said it wasn't?" demanded the other querulously. "Only you ain't
got any call to be a hawg, Bud. Besides, I got a right to see if
there's a fair break, ain't I? Say, look at them cow brutes back
yonder! Don't it beat all how silage, when you use it right, shapes
'em up?"

Few enough words were said as the miles were flung behind them; few
were needed. A swift glance showed Carson that Lee carried a revolver
in his shirt; his own gun rode plainly in evidence in front of his hip.
What little conversation rose between them was of ranch matters. They
spoke of success now with confidence. These two foremen alone could
see the money in late winter and early spring from their cattle and
horses to carry the Blue Lake venture over the rapids. Then there were
the other resources of the diversified undertaking, the hogs, the prize
stock, the olives, poultry, dairy products. And soon or late Western
Lumber would pay the price for the timber tract, soon, if they saw that
they had to pay it or lose the forests which they had so long counted
upon. Lumber values were mounting every day.

Neither man, when it chanced that Bayne Trevors's name was casually
mentioned, suggested: "Why not go to the law?" For to them it was very
clear that, once in the courts, the man who had played safe would laugh
at them. Against Judith's oath that he had kidnapped her would stand
Trevors's word that he had done nothing of the kind, coupled with his
carefully established perjured alibi and the lying testimony of the
physician who had visited Judith in the cave. This man and that might
be rounded up, Shorty and Benny and Poker Face, and if any of them
talked--which perhaps none of them would--at most they would say that
they had no orders from anybody but Quinnion. And where was Quinnion,
who stood as a buckler between Trevors and prosecution? And what
buckler in all the world can ever stand between one man and another?

Now and then Carson sent a quick questioning glance toward Lee's
inscrutable face; now and then he sighed, his thoughts his own. Bud
Lee, knowing his companion as he did, shrewdly gu