Blount would have been less the lover than he was if he had not been moved to something much warmer than hatred.

“Let us say that you are doing your level best to save my faith in human nature, Patricia, girl,” he said soberly.  “Do you know what you are?  You are the one loyal person in a tricky world.  I am still fair enough to say that it was fine—­splendid!  And I only wish my father were worthier of such superb loyalty and affection.”

She looked at him curiously for a moment.  Then her mood changed in the twinkling of an eye, and she laughed and said:  “Yes, I think women are more loyal than men; and I am sure they are vastly more discerning at times.  Don’t you think—­”

The interruption was the appearance of two horsemen pushing their animals out of a small gorge on the right.  When they had gained the main road they came up, ambling easily, and Blount instantly recognized the leader of the pair.  It was Barto again.

“Howdy?” said the timber-looker, riding up to hang with one knee over the saddle while he grinned genially at the two castaways.  “Lost out ag’in, ain’t ye, Mr. Blount?  Couldn’t make out, nohow, to run yer chug-wagon over that there pine-tree, could ye?”

“Did you put the tree in the road?” snapped Blount, his anger rising promptly, now that there was a man to quarrel with.

“I reckon we did; and it was one Hades of a job, too,” was the cool reply.  “Had to drag the dern thing f’r more’n half a mile down the gulch with the hawss-ropes.”

Here was plenty of material for a wrathful explosion, but Blount controlled himself.

“By whose orders did you do it?” he demanded.

“Th’ boss’s.”

“Mr. Hathaway?”

“Not on yer life; it was the big boss this time.”

Blount’s quick glance aside at his companion was a wordless “I told you so!” and then to Barto:  “Well, now that you have stopped us, what’s next?”

The outlaw grinned again and kicked his horse a little nearer.

“I’m a-holdin’ you up sure enough this time, Mr. Blount—­jest like another little Billy th’ Kid,” he confided.  “You’re goin’ to gimme them papers you’ve got in your pocket, and then me an’ Kinky we rides away all peaceful and leaves you and the lady to set down quiet till somebuddy comes along to pick you up.”

Blount put his hand to his head.  His wound was throbbing painfully again, and the pain may have been partly responsible for his answer.

“When you get those papers you’ll take them from a dead man, Barto.  Do your instructions go that far?”

The man of many trades swung straight in his saddle and fell into the attitude of one listening.  Then the good-natured grin became a menacing scowl.

“Shuck them papers out, and do it sudden!” he commanded.

“No,” said Blount crisply.

Instantly the timber-looker’s pistol was out.

“Give ’em up!” he shouted; “shell ’em out, quick, ’r by the holy—­”