He was going to see his girl, going down to the Frying Pan to take her in his arms and whirl her into the land of romance to the rhythm of the waltz.  He wanted to shout it out to the chipmunks and the quails.  Ever and again he broke out with a line or two of a melody he had heard once from a phonograph.  No matter if he did not get the words exactly.  He was sure of the sentiment.  So the hills flung back his lusty: 

    “I love a lassie,
    A bonnie Hieland lassie,
    She’s as pure as the lily of the dell.”

Disaster fell upon him like a bolt out of a June sky.  His pony stumbled, went down heavily with its weight on his leg.  From the darkness men surged upon him.  Rough hands dragged at him.  The butt of a weapon crashed down on his hat and stunned him.

He became dimly aware that his leg was free from the horse, that he was struggling blindly to rise against the force that clamped him down.  He knew that he reached his feet, that he was lashing out furiously with both hands, that even as he grappled with one assailant a gleam of steel flashed across the moonlight and shot through him with a zigzag pain that blotted out the world.

As his mind swam back to consciousness through troubled waters a far-away voice came out of the fog that surrounded him.

“He’s coming to, looks like.  I reckon you ain’t bust his head, after all, Brad.”

Vague, grinning gargoyles mocked him from the haze.  Slowly these took form.  Features stood out.  The masks became faces.  They no longer floated detached in space, but belonged definitely to human beings.

“It ain’t our fault if you’re stove up some, pardner.  You’re too durned anxious to whip yore weight in wildcats,” one of the men grinned.

“Right you are, Tom.  He shore hits like a kicking mule,” chimed in a third, nursing a cheek that had been cut open to the bone.

A fourth spoke up, a leather-faced vaquero with hard eyes of jade.  “No hard feelings, friend.  All in the way of business.”  With which he gave a final tug at the knot that tied the hands of his prisoner.

“I’ve got Mr. Healy to thank for this, I expect,” commented the nester quietly.

“We’ve got no rope on yore expectations, Mr. Keller; but this outfit doesn’t run any information bureau,” answered the heavy-set, sullen fellow who had been called Brad.

There were four of them, all masked; but the ranger was sure of one of them, if not two.  The first speaker had been Tom Dixon; the last one was Brad Irwin, a rider belonging to the Twin Star outfit.

They helped the bound man to his horse and held a low-voiced consultation.  Three of his captors turned their horses toward the south, while Irwin took charge of Keller.  With his rifle resting across the horn of his saddle, the man followed his charge up the trail, winding among the summits that stood as sentinels around Gregory’s Pass.  Through the defile they went, descending into the little-known mountain parks beyond.