lor
as he assisted to close the gates of the yard.

"Ay, that they will, lad. They know the value o' time better than most
men, and, when they see their chance, are not slow to take advantage of
it. As Crux said, they won't attack while the moon shines, so we have
plenty of time to git ready for them. I wish I hadn't sent off my boys,
but as bad luck would have it a bunch o' my steers have drifted down
south, an' I can't afford to lose them--so, you see, there's not a man
left in the place but you an' me an' Crux to defend poor Mary."

For the first time in his life Dick Darvall felt a distinct tendency to
rejoice over the fact that he was a young and powerful man! To live
and, if need be, die for Mary was worth living for!

"Are you well supplied with arms an' ammunition?" he asked.

"That am I, and we'll need it all," answered the host as he led Dick
round to the back of the yard where another gate required fastening.

"I don't see that it matters much," said Dick in a questioning tone,
"whether you shut the gates or not. With so few to defend the place the
house will be our only chance."

"When you've fought as much wi' Reds as I have, Dick, you'll larn that
delay, even for five minutes, counts for a good deal."

"Well, there's somethin' in that. It minds me o' what one o' my
shipmates, who had bin in the London fire brigade, once said. `Dick,'
said he, `never putt off what you've got to do. Sometimes I've bin at a
fire where the loss of only two minutes caused the destruction of a
store worth ten thousand pound, more or less. We all but saved it as it
was--so near were we, that if we had bin _one_ minute sooner I do
believe we'd have saved it.

"`But when we was makin' for that fire full sail, a deaf old apple-woman
came athwart our bows an got such a fright that she went flop down right
in front of us. To steer clear of her we'd got to sheer off so that we
all but ran into a big van, and, what wi' our lights an' the yellin',
the horses o' the van took fright and backed into us as we flew past, so
that we a'most went down by the starn. One way or another we lost two
minutes, as I've said, an' the owners o' that store lost about ten
thousand pounds--more or less.'"

"That was a big pile, Dick," observed the ranchman, as they turned from
the gate towards the house, "not easy to replace."

"True--my shipmate never seemed to be quite sure whether it was more or
less that was lost, but he thought th