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The sheriff retired to the dining-room, whence came presently snatches of cheerful talk between the prisoner and his captors In their company Jack Kilmeny was frankly a Western frontiersht at the fork of Rainbow above the J K ranch I was lying on a ledge close to the trail You discussed whether to try Deer Creek or follow Rainbow to its headwaters," the miner said

"That was sure one on us Hadn't been for the kid, I don't reckon we ever would have took you," a deputy confessed

"What beats me is why you weren't a hundred round," another subht anyho you've got me you want to watchyou Don't make any mistake about that and try any fool break," Gill answered, quite undisturbed

"He's the coolest hand I ever heard," Farquhar said to the party on the porch "If I were a highwayhwayman, I tell you," corrected Moya

"I hope he isn't, but I'm afraid he is," India confided in a whisper "For whatever else he is, Jack Kilmeny is a man"

"Very much so," the captain nodded, between troubled puffs of his pipe

"And I' to stand by him," announced his sister with a determined toss of her pretty head

Moya slipped an arrateful for this support than she could say It meant that India at least had definitely accepted the Airls waited for Ned Kilmeny to declare himself, for, after all, he was the head of the fa the facts in his stolid deliberate fashion

The exciteirl he loved showed itself in the dusky eyes sparkling beneath the softblood that swept into her cheeks She hoped--oh, how she hoped!--that the officer would stand by his cousin In her heart she knew that if he did not--no ht be in principle--she never would like hiain He was athe note of fineness, of personal distinction, but if he were to prove a for to stickle for an assurance of his kinsman's innocence before he came to the prisoner's aid, Moya would have no further use for him