ll of pockets. Looked like they weren't going to git
her. Soon it would be too late, even if they did find her. Besides,
there are a heap of mountain lions up in that country. I tell you her
folks were plumb worried."

Moya, listening to every word as she leaned forward, spoke vividly. "And
Mr. Kilmeny found her."

The sheriff's surprised eyes turned to her. "That's right, ma'am. He
did. I dunno how you guessed it, but you've rung the bell. He found her
and brought her down to the ranch. It just happened we had drapped in
there ten minutes before. So we gathered him in handy as the pocket in
your shirt. Before he could move we had the crawl on him."

The sheriff retired to the dining-room, whence came presently snatches
of cheerful talk between the prisoner and his captors. In their company
Jack Kilmeny was frankly a Western frontiersman.

"You passed close to me Wednesday night at the fork of Rainbow above the
J K ranch. I was lying on a ledge close to the trail. You discussed
whether to try Deer Creek or follow Rainbow to its headwaters," the
miner said.

"That was sure one on us. Hadn't been for the kid, I don't reckon we
ever would have took you," a deputy confessed.

"What beats me is why you weren't a hundred miles away in Routt County
over in yore old stamping ground," another submitted.

"I had my reasons. I wasn't looking to be caught anyhow. Now you've got
me you want to watch me close," the prisoner advised.

"We're watching you. Don't make any mistake about that and try any fool
break," Gill answered, quite undisturbed.

"He's the coolest hand I ever heard," Farquhar said to the party on the
porch. "If I were a highwayman I'd like to have him for a partner."

"He's not a highwayman, I tell you," corrected Moya.

"I hope he isn't, but I'm afraid he is," India confided in a whisper.
"For whatever else he is, Jack Kilmeny is a man."

"Very much so," the captain nodded, between troubled puffs of his pipe.

"And I'm going to stand by him," announced his sister with a determined
toss of her pretty head.

Moya slipped an arm quickly around her waist. She was more grateful for
this support than she could say. It meant that India at least had
definitely accepted the American as a relative with the obligation that
implied. Both girls waited for Ned Kilmeny to declare himself, for,
after all, he was the head of the family. He smoked in silence for a
minute, considering the facts in his stolid deliberate