ound her, through _his_
dereliction. He had relaxed his vigilance for only a short time, and
during that time Deveny had come.

Linton looked back toward the Rancho Seco. The distance to the ranchhouse
seemed to be interminable. He looked again up the valley, and saw that
the horsemen were growing indistinct. Within a few minutes, so rapid was
their pace, they would vanish altogether.

Linton thought of going back to the ranchhouse for the other men--that
was why he had looked in that direction. But if he wished to keep the
horsemen in sight he would not have time to get the other men. Before he
could get the men and return to where he now stood Deveny would have
taken the girl to that mysterious and unknown rendezvous in the hills in
which his band had always concealed themselves, and Barbara would be
lost.

Linton's lips straightened. He was to blame.

He knew the danger that would attend the action of following Deveny's men
up the valley. Other men had attempted to trail them, and they had been
found murdered, often with warnings upon them.

But Linton hesitated only momentarily. With a grim smile for his chances
of emerging unscathed from the valley, he urged his horse up the trail,
riding hard.

Several miles he had traveled, keeping the horsemen in sight, and he was
beginning to believe that he would succeed where others had failed, when,
passing through a clump of timber he detected movement in some brush at a
little distance back.

Divining that Deveny had seen him and had sent a man into the timber to
ambush him, Linton threw himself flat on the horse's mane. He felt a
bullet sing past him, coming from the right, and he got his pistol out
and was swinging its muzzle toward the point from which the bullet had
come when a gun roared at his left.

He felt a hot, searing pain in his side, and he reeled in the saddle from
the shock. Instantly another bullet struck him, coming from the right.
His pistol dropped from his weakening fingers, he toppled sidewise and
tumbled limply into the dust.

Shortly afterward, seemingly while he was in a state of coma, he heard
hoofbeats, rapidly growing distant.

He knew they were Deveny's men and he yielded to a vague wonder as to why
they had not made sure of their work.

Doggedly, and with long and bitter effort, Linton began to turn himself
so that he could get up. The pain from his wounds was excruciating, so
that each muscular effort brought a retching groan fro