“You?” cried Eddie.  “What are you doin’ back here?  I gotta take you now,” and he started to draw his revolver; but Billy Byrne had him covered before ever his hand reached the grip of his gun.

“Put ’em up!” admonished Billy, “and listen to me.  This ain’t no time fer gunplay or no such foolishness.  I ain’t back here to be took—­get that out o’ your nut.  I’m tipped off that a bunch o’ siwashes was down here last night to swipe Miss Harding.  Come!  We gotta go see if she’s here or not, an’ don’t try any funny business on me, Eddie.  I ain’t a-goin’ to be taken again, an’ whoever tries it gets his, see?”

Eddie was down off the porch in an instant, and making for the ranchhouse.

“I’m with you,” he said.  “Who told you?  And who done it?”

“Never mind who told me; but a siwash named Esteban was to pull the thing off for Grayson.  Grayson wanted Miss Harding an’ he was goin’ to have her stolen for him.”

“The hound!” muttered Eddie.

The two men dashed up onto the veranda of the ranchhouse and pounded at the door until a Chinaman opened it and stuck out his head, inquiringly.

“Is Miss Harding here?” demanded Billy.

“Mlissy Hardie Kleep,” snapped the servant.  “Wally wanee here flo blekfas?”, and would have shut the door in their faces had not Billy intruded a heavy boot.  The next instant he placed a large palm over the celestial’s face and pushed the man back into the house.  Once inside he called Mr. Harding’s name aloud.

“What is it?” asked the gentleman a moment later as he appeared in a bedroom doorway off the living-room clad in his pajamas.  “What’s the matter?  Why, gad man, is that you?  Is this really Billy Byrne?”

“Sure,” replied Byrne shortly; “but we can’t waste any time chinnin’.  I heard that Miss Barbara was goin’ to be swiped last night—­I heard that she had been.  Now hurry and see if she is here.”

Anthony Harding turned and leaped up the narrow stairway to the second floor four steps at a time.  He hadn’t gone upstairs in that fashion in forty years.  Without even pausing to rap he burst into his daughter’s bedroom.  It was empty.  The bed was unruffled.  It had not been slept in.  With a moan the man turned back and ran hastily to the other rooms upon the second floor—­Barbara was nowhere to be found.  Then he hastened downstairs to the two men awaiting him.

As he entered the room from one end Grayson entered it from the other through the doorway leading out upon the veranda.  Billy Byrne had heard footsteps upon the boards without and he was ready, so that as Grayson entered he found himself looking straight at the business end of a sixshooter.  The foreman halted, and stood looking in surprise first at Billy Byrne, and then at Eddie Shorter and Mr. Harding.

“What does this mean?” he demanded, addressing Eddie.  “What you doin’ here with your prisoner?  Who told you to let him out, eh?”