“You hadn’t ought to be out here.  It ain’t right.”

“I don’t remember asking you to act as a standard of right and wrong for me.”

He laughed awkwardly.  “We ain’t quarreling, are we, Miss Margaret?”

“Certainly I am not.  I don’t quarrel with anybody but my friends.”

“Well, I didn’t aim to offend you anyway.  You know me better than that.”  He let his voice fall into a caressing modulation and put a propitiatory hand on her skirt, but under the uncompromising hardness of her gaze the hand fell away to his side.  “I’m your friend—­ leastways I want to be.”

“My friends don’t lynch men.”

“But after what he did to your brother.”

“The law will take care of that.  If you want to please me call off your men before it is too late.”

It was his cue to please her, for so far as it was in him the man loved her.  He had set his strong will to trample on his past, to rise to a place where no man could shake his security with proof of his former misdeeds.  He meant to marry her and to place her out of reach of those evil days of his.  Only Struve was left of the old gang, and he knew the Wolf well enough to be sure that the fellow would delight in blackmailing him.  The convict’s mouth must be closed.  But just now he must promise t she wanted, and he did.

The promise was still on his lips when a third person strode into their conversation.

“Sorry I had to leave you so hastily, Miss Kinney.  I’m ready to take you to the hotel now if it suits you.”

Both of them turned quickly, to see the man from the Panhandle sauntering forth from the darkness.  There was a slight smile on his face, which did not abate when he nodded to Dunke amiably.

“You?” exclaimed the mine-owner angrily.

“Why, yes—­ me.  Hope we didn’t inconvenience you, seh, by postponing the coyote’s journey to Kingdom Come.  My friend had to take a hand because he is a ranger, and I sat in to oblige him.  No hard feelings, I hope.”

“Did you—­ Are you all safe?” Margaret asked.

“Yes, ma’am.  Got away slick and clean.”

“Where?” barked Dunke.

“Where what, my friend?”

“Where did you take him?”

Larry laughed in slow deep enjoyment.  “I hate to disappoint you, but if I told that would be telling.  No, I reckon I won’t table my cards yet a while.  If you’re playing in this game of Hi-Spy go to it and hunt.”

“Perhaps you don’t know that I am T. J. Dunke.”

“You don’t say!  And I’m General Grant.  This lady hyer is Florence Nightingale or Martha Washington, I disremember which.”

Miss Kinney laughed.  “Whichever she is she’s very very tired,” she said.  “I think I’ll accept your offer to see me to the hotel, Mr. Neill.”

She nodded a careless good night to the mine-owner, and touched the horse with her heel.  At the porch of the rather primitive hotel she descended stiffly from the saddle.