er sottle this business with ye fust handed--man ter man." He
paused there, and his tone altered when he continued: "Thet paper'll lay
whar no man won't nuver see hit save myself--unless ye breaks yore
word. Ef I gits murdered, one man'll know whar thet paper's at--but not
what's in hit. He'll give hit over ter ther Harpers an' they'll
straightway hunt ye down an' kill ye like a mad dog. What does ye say?"

The other stood with face demoniacally impassioned, yet fading into the
pasty gray of fear--the fear that was the more unmanageable because it
was a new emotion which had never risen to confront him before.

"I knows when I've got ter knock under," he made sullen admission, at
last, "an' thet time's done come now. But I hain't ther only enemy ye've
got. S'pose atter all ther war breaks out afresh an' ye gits slain in
battle--or in some fray with other men. Then I'd hev ter die jest ther
same, albeit I didn't hev no hand in ther matter."

Thornton laughed.

"I hain't seekin' ter make ye gorryntee my long life, Bas. Ef I falls in
any pitch-battle or gits kilt in a fashion thet's p'intedly an outside
matter, ye hain't a-goin' ter suffer fer hit."

As the long-drawn breath went out between the parted lips of Bas Rowlett
he wilted into a spectacle of abject surrender, then turning he led the
way to the house, found pencil and paper, and wrote laboriously as the
other dictated. At the end he signed his name.

Then Parish Thornton said, "Now I aims ter hev ye walk along with me
till I gits my horse an' starts home. I don't 'low ter trust ye till
this paper's put in a safe place, an' should we meet up with anybody
don't forgit--I won't fail ter shoot ef ye boggles!"

CHAPTER XX

The sun, dropping into a western sea of amber and opal, seemed to grow
in diameter. Then it dipped until only a naming segment showed and the
barriers darkened against the afterglow.

Still Parish Thornton had not come home and Dorothy standing back of the
open window pressed both hands over eyes that burned ember hot in their
sockets.

Old Aaron Capper had mounted his horse a half-hour ago and ridden away
somewhere--and she knew that he, too, had begun to fret against this
insupportable waiting, and had set out on the unpromising mission of
searching for the ambassador--who might already be dead.

A nervous chill shook the girl and she started up from the seat into
which she had collapsed; frightened at the incoherent lack of san