little child's
voice hadn't scared me stiff. And the day of the big football game you
wouldn't get drunk and she must go down to that game just to look once
at Lloyd Fenneben. I meant to finish her that day. This is the third and
last time now. There is not even a dog to protect her."

Bond Saxon had been a huge fellow in his best days, and now he summoned
all the powers nature had left to him.

"Tom Gresh," he cried, "in my infernal weakness you made me a drunken
beast, who took the life of an innocent man you wanted out of your way.
You thought, you fool, that she might care for you then. I've carried
the curse of that deed on my soul night and day. I'll wipe it partly
away now by saving her life from you. So surely as tonight, tomorrow,
or ever you try to harm her, I'll not show you the mercy Vic Burleigh
showed you once."

Strange forms the guardian angel takes!

Hence we entertain it unawares.

Of all Lagonda Ledge, old Bond Saxon, standing between a woman and the
peril of her life, looked least angelic. Gresh understood him and turned
first in fawning and tempting trickery to his adversary. But Saxon stood
his ground. Then the outlaw raged in fury, not daring to strike now,
because he knew Bond's strength. And still the old man was unmoved. A
life saved for the life he had taken was steeling his soul to courage.

At last in the dim light, Gresh stood motionless a minute, then he
struck his parting blow.

"All right, Bond Saxon, play protector all you want to, but it's a short
game for you. The sheriff is out of town tonight, but tomorrow afternoon
he will get back to Lagonda Ledge. Tomorrow afternoon I go with all my
proofs--Oh, I've got 'em. And you, Bond Saxon, will be behind the bars
for your crime, done not so many years ago, and your honorable daughter,
disgraced forever by you, can shift for herself. I've nothing to lose;
why should I protect you?"

He leaped down the bank into the swiftly flowing river, and, swimming
easily to the farther side, he disappeared in the underbrush.

The next afternoon, somebody remembered that Bond Saxon had crossed the
bridge and plunged into the overflow of the river around the west end.
But Bond had been drunk much of late and nobody approached him when he
was drunk. How could Lagonda Ledge know the agony of the old man's soul
as he splashed across the Walnut waters and floundered up the narrow
glen to the cave? Or how, for Dennie's sake, he had begged on his knees