“That’s enough of a clean-up right now, Sig.  Dick butted in like you to help me,” he explained.

“The durned coyotes!” roared the big Norseman furiously, leaping at Leroy and tossing him over his head as an enraged bull does.  He turned upon the other three, shaking his tangled mane, but they were already in flight.

“I’ll show them.  I’ll show them,” he kept saying as he came back to the man he had rescued.

“You’ve showed them plenty, Sig.  Cut out the rough house before you maim some of these gents who didn’t invite you to their party.”

The ranger felt the earth sway beneath him as he spoke.  His wound had been torn loose in the fight, and was bleeding.  Limply he leaned against the tree for support.

It was at this moment he caught sight of Arlie and Briscoe as they ran up.  Involuntarily he straightened almost jauntily.  The girl looked at him with that deep, eager look of fear he had seen before, and met that unconquerable smile of his.

The rope was still round his neck and the coat was stripped from his back.  He was white to the lips, and she could see he could scarce stand, even with the support of the pine trunk.  His face was bruised and battered.  His hat was gone; and hidden somewhere in his crisp short hair was a cut from which blood dripped to the forehead.  The bound arm had been torn from its bandages in the unequal battle he had fought.  But for all his desperate plight he still carried the invincible look that nothing less than death can rob some men of.

The fretted moonlight, shifting with the gentle motion of the foliage above, fell full upon him now and showed a wet, red stain against the white shirt.  Simultaneously outraged nature collapsed, and he began to sink to the ground.

Arlie gave a little cry and ran forward.  Before he reached the ground he had fainted; yet scarcely before she was on her knees beside him with his head in her arms.

“Bring water, Dick, and tell Doc Lee to come at once.  He’ll be in the back room smoking.  Hurry!” She looked fiercely round upon the men assembled.  “I think they have killed him.  Who did this?  Was it you, Yorky?  Was it you that murdered him?”

“I bane t’ink it take von hoondred of them to do it,” said Siegfried.  “Dat fallar, Johnson, he bane at the bottom of it.”

“Then why didn’t you kill him?  Aren’t you Steve’s friend?  Didn’t he save your life?” she panted, passion burning in her beautiful eyes.

Siegfried nodded.  “I bane Steve’s friend, yah!  And Ay bane kill Johnson eef Steve dies.”

Briscoe, furious at this turn of the tide which had swept Arlie’s sympathies back to his enemy, followed Struve as he sneaked deeper into the shadow of the trees.  The convict was nursing a sprained wrist when Jed reached him.

“What do you think you’ve been trying to do, you sap-headed idiot?” Jed demanded.  “Haven’t you sense enough to choose a better time than one when the whole settlement is gathered to help him?  And can’t you ever make a clean job of it, you chuckle-minded son of a greaser?”