on't
know to what you are condemning this little Joan. You don't know how
surely your methods will condemn _me_."

But Buck was on fire with rebellion against the injustice of a
law which claimed the Padre as its victim. He saw the hideous
possibilities following upon his friend's arrest, and was determined
to give his life in the service of his defense.

"It's not madness," he declared vehemently. "It's justice, real
justice that we should defend our freedom. If you wer' guilty, Padre,
it would be dead right to save yourself. It's sure the right of
everything to save its life. If you're innocent you sure got still
more right. Padre, I tell you they mean to fix you. That woman's got
a cinch she ain't lettin' go. She's lived for this time, Joan's told
me. She'll raise plumb hell to send you to your death. Padre, just
listen to us. It's me an' Joan talkin' now. What I say she says. We
can see these things different to you; we're young. You say it's your
duty to give up to this woman. We say it's our duty you _shan't_. If
you give up to her you're giving up to devil's mischief, an' that's
dead wrong. An' nothin' you can say can show me you got a right to
help devil's work. We'll light out of here before they come. Us three.
If you stop here, we stop too, an' that's why I got the ammunition.
More than that. Ther's others, too, won't see you taken. Ther's
fellers with us in the camp--fellers who owe you a heap--like I do."

The Padre watched the steam rising from the kettle with moody eyes.
The youngster was tempting him sorely. He knew Buck's determination,
his blind loyalty. He felt that herein lay his own real danger. Yes,
to bolt again, as he had done that time before, would be an easy way
out. But its selfishness was too obvious. He could not do it. To do so
would be to drag them in his train of disaster, to blight their lives
and leave them under the grinding shadow of the law.

No, it could not be.

"Looked at from the way you look at it, there is right enough in what
you say, boy," he said kindly. "But you can't look at civilized life
as these mountains teach you to look at things. When the sheriff comes
I yield to arrest, and I trust in God to help us all. My mind is made
up."

For some moments Buck stared down at the sturdy friend who had taken
the place of his dead father. His eyes softened, and their fire died
out. But there was no rescinding of his desperate decision. He was
thinking of what it would mea