“Inman means to set fire to the house to-night.  He won’t be able to hold back the boys much longer.  When ready, he will send word and ask the two ladies to come out to him, where he will hold them beyond reach of fire and bullet.  He expects there will be the hottest kind of shooting, and it will be a bad thing for you folks.  Capt.  Asbury may as well make his will, for I’m not the only one that will lay for him.

“Don’t forget my directions.  It will not be before 10 o’clock, and may be a little later.  Don’t let any one see this, and don’t drop a hint to Asbury.  It is meant for your good, and you will act like a sensible man.

    “D.V.”

CHAPTER XXVII.

ON PAROLE.

A new matter of interest claimed the immediate attention of the defenders within the home of ranchman Whitney.

It will be remembered that the sister had reported the approach of a horseman, whom she believed to be her brother.  The rider was now in plain sight, and a brief scrutiny through the glass by Hawkridge removed all doubt; she was right.

He was coming at an easy, swinging gallop, straight toward his home.  He must have seen the rustlers while yet a considerable way off, for he quickened the pace of his animal, stirred by a natural anxiety for his loved ones and by a curiosity to know the meaning of the strange condition of affairs.

Had he understood matters fully, while yet at a distance, he would have avoided a mistake which occasioned him and his friends intense regret, and which proved irreparable.

He did not cease his advance until within a hundred yards, when the cattlemen, who were watching his every movement, saw him bring his horse to a sudden halt.  At the same moment a couple of rustlers moved into view, their guns held so as to cover him.  He sat motionless until they came up, one on either side, when he was seen to be conversing earnestly with them.

“They have made him prisoner,” remarked Hawkridge, “just as I was sure they would.”

“Will they do him harm?” asked Mrs. Whitney, who, with Jennie, had descended the stairs and stood with the group near the front door.

“No,” was Hawkridge’s reassuring reply; “he must see the uselessness of resistance, and we are not fighting Indians who learned warfare from the late lamented Sitting Bull.”

It was noticed that Fred Whitney, despite the wound of a couple of days before, no longer wore his arm in a sling.  As he had said, he was ashamed to do so.

Brave as was the young man, he had judgment.  He knew that he was at the mercy of a score of rustlers, and quickly learned the situation.  Capt.  Asbury, Monteith Sterry, Dick Hawkridge and a number of cattlemen were besieged in his home.

While he was holding earnest converse with his captors one of them turned and addressed Inman, who was out of sight of the besieged, because of the intervening ridge.  His reply caused Whitney to dismount and walk in that direction, he, too, passing out of the field of vision.