msoll!"

"Yes. Molly recognized him and she spoke to him to get out of the trail.
It was brush and cactus either side of us and we'd have had to crowd in.
Grit was trailing us. Plimsoll wouldn't move. I heard more horses back
of us and I turned to look. Two more men were coming up behind. They had
rifles. So did the man with Plimsoll. He had a pistol under his vest. We
couldn't go back very well and I could see from the way Plimsoll grinned
that he was going to be nasty. Molly spurred Blaze on and cut at
Plimsoll with her quirt. He grabbed her hand with his left. Grit sprang
up at him and he got out his gun from the shoulder sling and shot him."

"Shot the dawg? Hit him?"

"Yes, in the leg. He fired at him again, but Grit got into the brush."

"Jest what were you doin' all the time?" Sandy knew the lad was a
tenderfoot, knew he would have been small use on such an occasion, but
the thought of Grit rising to the rescue, falling back shot, brought the
taunt.

"The two men behind told me to throw up my hands," said young Keith, his
face reddening. "What could I do?"

"Nothin', son. You c'udn't have done a thing. Go on."

"Plimsoll twisted Molly's wrist so that the quirt fell to the ground.
The man who was with him tossed his rope over her and they twisted it
round her arms. I had the muzzle of a rifle poked into my ribs. They
made me get off my horse. And they made me walk back along the trail.
They fired bullets each side of me and laughed at me when I dodged. They
told me if I looked back they'd shoot my damned head off." Donald's eyes
were filled with tears of self-pity and the remembrance of his helpless
rage. "They kept firing at me until I'd passed the stream. I hid in the
willows, but I couldn't see anything. I couldn't even see the men who
had been firing at me.

"I didn't know what to do. I couldn't rescue Molly without a horse. I
only had a revolver against their rifles and I'm not much of a shot. I
tried to get back here but it was hard to find the way. I knew it was
east but the sun was high and I wasn't sure which way the shadows lay. I
was all in when your man found me."

"All right, my son. Keith, I'm goin' to borrow that flask of yores.
Might need it."

He jumped from the car, flask in hand, and ran to the ranch-house. Kate
Nicholson met him as he entered. "Has anything happened to Molly?" she
gasped.

"That's what I'm goin' to find out," Sandy answered. "Mormon, git me my
cartridge belt an' s