“Well, why don’t you question her?” he demanded of Neilson.  “I suppose you know what she was doing.  She was trying to steal food.  It looks to me like she’s gone over to the opposite camp.”

Her father sighed, a peculiar sound that seemed to come from above the tree tops, as if fast-flying waterfowl were passing overhead.  “Is that so, daughter?” he asked simply.

“I was trying to take some of your food—­to Ben,” Beatrice replied softly.  “He’s in need of it.”

“You see, they’re on intimate terms,” Ray suggested viciously.  “Ben was in need of food—­so she came here to steal it.”

But Neilson acted as if he had not heard.  “Why didn’t you speak to us—­and tell us you were safe?” he asked.  “We’ve come all the way here to find you.”

“Perhaps you did.  If you had been here alone, I would have told you.  But Ray and Chan came all the way here to find Ben.  I heard what they said—­back there in the brush.  They intend to kill him when they find him.  I—­I didn’t want him killed.”

Her father stared at her from under his bushy brows.  “After carrying you from your home—­taking you into danger and keeping you a prisoner—­you still want to protect him?”

The girl nodded.  “And I want you to protect him, too,” she said.  “Against these men.”  Suddenly she moved forward in earnest appeal.  “Oh, Father—­I want you to save him.  He’s never touched me—­he’s treated me with every respect—­done everything he could for me.  When he was injured he told me to go back—­to take what little food there was, and go back—­”

“I can take it, then, that you’re out of food?” Ray asked.

“We’re starving—­and Ben’s sick.  Father, I make this one appeal—­if your love for me isn’t all gone, you’ll grant it.  I love him.  You might as well know that now, as later.  I want you to save the man your daughter loves.”

Chan cursed in the gloom, his lean face darkened; but Neilson made no answer.  Ray in his place sharply inhaled; but the sullen glow in his eyes snapped into a flame.

If Beatrice had glanced at Ray, she would have ceased her appeal and trusted everything to the doubtful mercy of flight,—­into the gloom of the forest.  As it was, she did not fully comprehend the cruel lust, like flame, that sped through his veins.  She would have hoped for no mercy if she could have seen the strange, black surge of wrath in his face.

“He has been kind to me—­and he was in the right, not in the wrong.  I know about the claim-jumping.  Father, I want you to stand between him and these men—­help him—­and give him food.  I didn’t speak to you because I was afraid for him—­afraid you’d kill him or do some other awful thing to him—­”

Slowly her father shook his head.  “But I can’t save him now.  He brought this on himself.”

“Remember, he was in the right,” the girl pleaded brokenly.  “You won’t—­you couldn’t be a partner to murder.  That’s all it would be—­murder—­brutal, terrible, cold-blooded murder—­if you kill him without a fight.  It couldn’t be in defense of me—­I tell you he hasn’t injured me—­but was always kind to me.  It would be just to take that letter away from him—­”