mposition of a
message, and time was the one thing he could not waste. He heard the
gist of the message repeated to him, told the man at the other station
that lives were at stake, and threw off the current.

CHAPTER TWENTY

KIDNAPPED

Lorraine had once had a nasty fall from riding down hill at a gallop.
She remembered that accident and permitted Snake to descend Granite
Ridge at a walk, which was fortunate, since it gave the horse a chance
to recover a little from the strain of the terrific pace at which she
had ridden him that morning. At first it had been fighting fury that had
impelled her to hurry; now it was fear that drove her homeward where
Lone was, and Swan, and that stolid, faithful Jim. She felt that Senator
Warfield would never dare to carry out his covert threat, once she
reached home. Nevertheless, the threat haunted her, made her glance
often over her shoulder.

At the Thurman ranch, which she was passing with a sickening memory of
the night when she and Swan had carried her father there, Al Woodruff
rode out suddenly from behind the stable and blocked the trail, his
six-shooter in his hand, his face stony with determination. Lorraine
afterwards decided that he must have seen or heard her coming down the
ridge and had waited for her there. He smiled with his lips when she
pulled up Snake with a startled look.

"You're in such a hurry this morning that I thought the only way to get
a chance to talk to you was to hold you up," he said, in much the same
tone he had used that day at the ranch.

"I don't see why you want to talk to me," Lorraine retorted, not in the
least frightened at the gun, which was too much like her movie West to
impress her much. But her eyes widened at the look in his face, and she
tried to edge away from him without seeming to do so.

Al stopped her by the simple method of reaching out his left hand and
catching Snake by the cheek-piece of the bridle. "You don't have to see
why," he said. "I've been thinking a lot about you lately. I've made up
my mind that I've got to have you with me--always. This is kinda sudden,
maybe, but that's the way the game runs, sometimes. Now, I want to tell
yuh one or two things that's for your own good. One is that I'll have my
way, or die getting it. Don't be scared; I won't hurt you. But if you
try to break away, I'll shoot you, that's all. I'm going to marry you,
see, first. Then I'll make love to you afterwards. I ain't asking you if