ter and smother the next blow. "Let go me or I'll
kill you," The Laird panted. "Man dinna drive me to it." He ceased his
rain of blows, grasped his adversary and tried to wrestle him down. He
succeeded, but the man would not stay down. He wriggled out with
amazing ease and had old Hector with his shoulders touching before The
Laird's heaving chest and two terrible thumbs closed down on each of
The Laird's eyes, with four powerful fingers clasping his face like
talons. "Quit, or I'll squeeze your eyeballs out," a voice warned him.

The Laird's hand beat the ground beside him. He had surrendered to a
master of his style of fighting. With something of the air of an
expert, his conqueror ran a quick hand over him, seeking for weapons,
and finding none, he grasped The Laird by the collar and jerked him to
his feet. "Now, then, my hearty, I'll have a look at you," he said.
"You'll explain why you're skulking around here and abusing that dog!"

The Laird quivered as he found himself being dragged toward the stream
of light, in the center of which Nan Brent stood silhouetted. He could
not afford this and he was not yet defeated.

"A thousand dollars if you let me go now," he panted. "I have the
money in my pocket. Ask yon lass if I've done aught wrong."

His captor paused and seemed to consider this. "Make it ten thousand
and I'll consider it," he whispered. "Leave it on the mail box just
outside the Tyee Lumber Company's office at midnight to-morrow night."

"I'll do it--so help me God," The Laird promised frantically.

His son's voice spoke in his ear. "Dad! You low-down, worthless
lovable old fraud!"

"My son! My son!" Old Hector's glad cry ended in a sob. "Oh, my sonny
boy, my bonny lad! I canna stand it. I canna! Forgie me, lad, forgie
me--and ask her to forgie me!" His old arms were around his son's neck
and he was crying on Donald's shoulder, unashamed. "I was trying for a
look at the bairn," he cried brokenly, "and 'twas a privilege God
would nae gie me seeing that I came like a sneak and not like an
honest man. The damned dog--he knew! Och, Donald, say ye forgie ye're
auld faither. Say it, lad. Ma heart's breakin'."

"Why, bless your bare-shanked old Scotch soul, of course I forgive
you. I never held any grudge, you know. I simply stood pat until you
could see things through my eyes."

"Is that you, Donald?" Nan called.

"Aye, aye, sweetheart. Dad's here. He wants to know if you regard him
as a particularly