Owen dove forward and caught her as she fell, and then with a strength that was remarkable in his frail body he carried her to the lounge in the parlor.

Ho was compelled to leave her there momentarily, for he still entertained fears that Dale would escape the loop of the rope.  So he ran into the pantry, looked keenly at Dale, saw that, to all appearances, he was in the last stages of strangulation, and then went out again, to return to Mary.

But before he left Dale he snatched the man’s six-shooter from its sheath, for his own had been lost in the confusion of the rush of Dale’s men for the door.

Mary was sitting up on the lounge when Owen returned.  She was pale, and a haunting fear, cringing, abject, was in her eyes.

She got to her feet when she saw Owen and ran to him, crying.

Owen tried to comfort her, but his words were futile.

“You be brave, little woman!” he said.  “You must be brave!  Sanderson and the other men are in danger, and I’ve got to go to Okar for help!”

“I’ll go with you,” declared the girl.  “I can’t stay here—­I won’t.  I can’t stand being in the same house with—­with that!” She pointed to the kitchen.

“All right,” Owen said resignedly; “we’ll both go.  What did you do with the money?”

Mary disclosed the hiding place, and Owen took the money, carried it to the bunkhouse, where he stuffed it into the bottom of a tin food box.  Then, hurriedly, he saddled and bridled two horses and led them to where Mary was waiting on the porch.

Mounting, they rode fast toward Okar—­the little man’s face working nervously, a great eagerness in his heart to help the man for whom he had conceived a deep affection.

Banker Maison had made no mistake when he had told Sanderson that Judge Graney was honest.  Graney looked honest.  There was about him an atmosphere of straightforwardness that was unmistakable and convincing.  It was because he was honest that a certain governor had sent him to Okar.

And Graney had vindicated the governor’s faith in him.  Whenever crime and dishonesty raised their heads in Okar, Judge Graney pinned them to the wall with the sword of justice, and called upon all men to come and look upon his deeds.

Maison, Silverthorn, and Dale—­and others of their ilk—­seldom called upon the judge for advice.  They knew he did not deal in their kind.  Through some underground channel they had secured a deputyship for Dale, and upon him they depended for whatever law they needed to further their schemes.

Judge Graney was fifty—­the age of experience.  He knew something of men himself.  And on the night that Maison and Sanderson had come to him, he thought he had seen in Sanderson’s eyes a cold menace, a threat, that meant nothing less than death for the banker, if the latter had refused to write the bill of sale.

For, of course, the judge knew that the banker was being forced to make out the bill of sale.  He knew that from the cold determination and alert watchfulness in Sanderson’s eyes; he saw it in the white nervousness of the banker.