“We shall have to leave at once, mother, without waiting to dress the children,” explained Fraser.  “Wrap them in blankets and take some clothes along.  I’ll drop you at the hotel and slip my prisoner into the jail the back way if I can; that is, if another plan I have doesn’t work.”

The oldest child awoke and caught sight of Fraser.  He reached out his hands in excitement and began to call:  “Uncle Steve!  Uncle Steve back again.”

Fraser picked up the youngster.  “Yes, Uncle Steve is back.  But we’re going to play a game that Indians are after us.  Webb must be good and keep very, very still.  He mustn’t say a word till uncle tells him he may.”

The little fellow clapped his hands.  “Goody, goody!  Shall we begin now?”

“Right this minute, son.  Better take your money with you, mother.  Is father here?”

“No, he is at the ranch.  He went down in the stage to-day.”

“All right, friends.  We’ll take the back way.  Tennessee, will you look out for Mr. Struve?  Sis will want to carry the baby.”

They passed quietly down-stairs and out the back door.  The starry night enveloped them coldly, and the moon looked down through rifted clouds.  Nature was peaceful as her own silent hills, but the raucous jangle of cursing voices from a distance made discord of the harmony.  They slipped along through the shadows, meeting none except occasional figures hurrying to the plaza.  At the hotel door the two men separated from the rest of the party, and took with them their prisoner.

“I’m going to put him for safe-keeping down the shaft of a mine my father and I own,” explained Steve.  “He wouldn’t be safe in the jail, because Dunke, for private reasons, has made up his mind to put out his lights.”

“Private reasons?” echoed the engineer.

“Mighty good ones, too.  Ain’t that right?” demanded the ranger of Struve.

The convict cursed, though his teeth still chattered with fright from the narrow escape he had had, but through his prison jargon ran a hint of some power he had over the man Dunke.  It was plain he thought the latter had incited the lynching in order to shut the convict’s mouth forever.

“Where is this shaft?” asked Neill.

“Up a gulch about half a mile from here.”

Fraser’s eyes fixed themselves on a young man who passed on the run.  He suddenly put his fingers to his lips and gave a low whistle.  The running man stopped instantly, his head alert to catch the direction from which the sound had come.  Steve whistled again and the stranger turned toward them.

“It’s Brown, one of my rangers,” explained the lieutenant.

Brown, it appeared, had just reached town and stabled his horse when word came to him that there was trouble on the plaza.  He had been making for it when his officer’s whistle stopped him.

“It’s all over except getting this man to safety.  I’m going to put him down an abandoned shaft of the Jackrabbit.  He’ll be safe there, and nobody will think to look for him in any such place,” said Fraser.