hing between twelve months in the penitentiary and twenty
years--when the gang is landed."

"Twenty years!" The woman gave a slight gasp.

The man nodded.

"And do you know the logical consequence of it all?" he inquired.

"No." Kate's eyes were horrified.

"Why, when next we come into conflict there will be shooting if these
people are pressed. They will have to shoot to save themselves. Then
there may be murder added to their list of--delinquencies. These
things follow in sequence. It is the normal progress of those who put
themselves on the side of crime."

CHAPTER XXVII

AT THE HIDDEN CORRAL

Charlie Bryant urged his horse at a dangerous pace along the narrow,
winding cattle tracks which threaded the upper reaches of the valley.
He gave no heed to anything--the lacerating thorns, the great, knotty
roots, with which the paths were studded, the overhanging boughs. His
sole object seemed to be a desperate desire to reach his destination.

His horse often floundered and tripped, the man's own clothes were
frequently ripped by the thorns, and the bleeding flesh beneath laid
bare, while it seemed a miracle that he successfully dodged the
threatening boughs overhead.

There was a hunted look in his dark eyes, too. It was a look of
concern, almost of terror. His gaze was alert and roving. Now, he was
looking ahead, straining with anxiety, now he was turning this way and
that in response to the mysterious woodland sounds which greeted his
ears. Again, with a nervous jerk, he would rein in his horse and sit
listening, with eyes staring back over the way he had come, as though
fearing pursuit.

Once he thrust a hand into an inside pocket as though to reassure
himself that something was there which he valued and feared to lose,
and with every movement, every look of his eyes, every turn of the
head, he displayed an unusual nervousness and apprehension.

At last his horse swept into the clearing of the hidden corral, and he
reined it up with a jerk, and leaped from the saddle. Then he stood
listening, and the apprehension in his eyes deepened. But presently it
lessened, and he moved forward, and flung his reins over one of the
corral fence posts. Every woodland sound, every discordant note from
the heart of the valley was accounted for in his mind, so he hurried
toward the flat-roofed hut, that mysterious relic of a bygone age.

He thrust the creaking door open and waited while the flight of birds
swarme