Shirley turned helplessly on her uncle, seized his arm and shook it
frantically. "Call them back! Call them back!" she pleaded.
Her uncle got uncertainly to his feet. "Not on your life!" he
growled, and in his cold gray eyes there danced the lights of a
thousand devils. "I told you the fellow was a ruffian. Now, perhaps,
you'll believe me. We'll hold him until Rondeau revives, and then--"
Shirley guessed the rest, and she realized that it was useless to
plead--that she was only wasting time. "Bryce! Bryce!" she called.
"Run! They're after you. Twenty of them! Run, run--for my sake!"
His voice answered her from the timber: "Run? From those cattle? Not
from man or devil." A silence. Then: "So you've changed your mind,
have you? You've spoken to me again!" There was triumph, exultation
in his voice. "The timber's too thick, Shirley. I couldn't get away
anyhow--so I'm coming back."
She saw him burst through a thicket of alder saplings into the
clearing, saw half a dozen of her uncle's men close in around him
like wolves around a sick steer; and at the shock of their contact,
she moaned and hid her face in her trembling hands.
Half man and half tiger that he was, the Black Minorca, as self-
appointed leader, reached Bryce first. The cholo was a squat,
powerful little man, with more bounce to him than a rubber ball;
leading his men by a dozen yards, he hesitated not an instant but
dodged under the blow Bryce lashed out at him and came up inside the
latter's guard, feeling for Bryce's throat.
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