to attempt to smash North and his confederates
through your uncle. You see, I'm frightfully handicapped right at the
start--with this mine business hanging over me. But if you say it has to
be done, it shall be. I'll win Mr. Colbrith over, in spite of all that
has happened; and he shall fire North and the MacMorroghs first and
prosecute them afterward. I've said it."

It was just here that the broncos shied--inward, toward the hill. Ford
gathered the slack reins, and Miss Adair looked up and gave a little
shriek. Noiselessly, and so close upon the buckboard that he might have
touched either of its occupants with his rawhide quirt, rode the
Mexican. When they discovered him he was leaning forward, his
half-closed eyes mere slits with pin-points of black fire to mark them,
and his repulsive face a stolid mask. Ford's hand went instinctively to
the whip: it was the only available weapon. But the Mexican merely
touched his flapping sombrero and rode on at the shuffling fox-trot.

"That man, again!" shivered Alicia, when the portent of evil had passed
out of sight around the next curve in the grade.

But Ford's concern was deeper than her passing thrill of repulsion.

"Did you notice his horse's hoofs as he went by?" he asked soberly.

"No," she said.

"I did. He dismounted somewhere behind us and covered them with
sacking."

"What for?" she asked, shivering again with the nameless dread.

"You recall what I was saying when the broncos shied: his object was to
creep up behind us and listen. He has done it more than once since we
left the end-of-track, and this time--"

"Yes?"

"This time he heard what he wanted to hear."

Beyond the curve which had hidden the Mexican, the wagon-road left the
grade, descending abruptly upon the town. Ford looked back from the turn
and saw that the other two vehicles were not yet in sight.

"Shall we wait for your aunt and the others?" he asked.

Her smile was a sufficient reward for the bit of tactful forethought.

"I'm sure we have left the conventions far enough behind not to be
unduly terrified by them. I am not afraid to go in unchaperoned.
Besides, I heard Uncle Sidney telling Doctor Van Bruce that our rooms at
the hotel had been engaged for us."

Ford drove carefully down the steep side street which was the approach
to the hotel. An excited throng blocked the sidewalk, and the lobby
seemed to be a miniature stock exchange. Single-eyed, Ford fought a
passage through the