“What in the world is the matter?” she asked innocently, from the doorway.

“He’s got away—­we’ve been tricked!” Tom told her furiously.

“But—­how?”

“Never mind, Phyl.  Go back to your room.  There may be trouble yet.  By God, there will be if we find him, or his friends!” her father swore.

Another figure blocked the doorway.  This time it was Keller, hatless and coatless, as if he had come quickly from a hurried waking.  He, too, fired blandly the inevitable:  “What’s the trouble?”

“Nothing—­except that we are a bunch of first-class locoed fools,” snapped Tom.  “We’ve lost our prisoner—­that’s what’s the matter.”

Larrabie came in and looked inquiringly from one to another.  “I thought you kept him guarded.”

“We did, but they drew Tom off on a false trail,” explained Phil.

“I notice they worked the rest of us, too,” retorted his father tartly.

“I heard the shooting,” Keller said innocently.  His eyes drifted to a meeting with those of Phyllis.  His telegraphed a question, and hers answered that the prisoner was safe so far.

“A dead man could have heard it,” suggested Phil, not without sarcasm.  “Sounded like a battle—­and when we got there not a soul could be found.  Beats me how they got away so slick.”

Annoyance, disappointment, disgust were in the air.  Keller remained to be properly sympathetic, while Phyllis slipped back to her room, as she had been told to do.

She found Weaver sitting by the window looking out.  He turned his head quickly when she entered.

“Now, if you’ll kindly tell me what’s doing, I’ll not die of curiosity,” he began.

“It’s all your wicked men,” she told him bluntly.  “They have killed one of our herders and wounded another.  Mr. Keller and I met the wounded man as he was coming back to the ranch.  We stopped him and took him to a neighbor’s.  If they had known, my people would have revenged themselves on you.  They are hot-blooded men, quick to strike.  I was afraid—­we were both afraid of what they would do.  So we planned your escape.  Mr. Keller slipped into the chaparral, and feigned an attack upon the ranch, to draw the boys off.  I had got the other key to the cabin from the nail above father’s bed.  When Tom left, I came to you.  That is all.”

“But what am I to do here?”

“They will scour the valley and watch the pass.  If we had let you go, the chances are they would have caught you again.”

“And if they had caught me, you think they would have killed me?”

“Doesn’t the Bible say that he who takes the sword shall perish by the sword?  Are you a god, that you should kill when you please and expect to escape the law that has been written?”

“You say I deserve death, yet you save my life.”

“I don’t want blood on the hands of my people.”

“Personally, then, I don’t count in the matter,” said Weaver, with his old sneer.