That Miss Spencer was deeply agitated was evident at a glance, while
the nervous manner in which she glanced in the direction of those
distant gun shots, led Brant to jump to the conclusion that they were
in some way connected with her appearance.
"Oh, Lieutenant Brant," she cried, excitedly, "they are going to kill
him down there, and he never did it at all. I know he didn't, and so
does Mr. Wynkoop. Oh, please hurry! Nobody knew where you were, until
I saw your horse tied here, and Mr. Wynkoop has been hunting for you
everywhere. He is nearly frantic, poor man, and I cannot learn where
either Mr. Moffat or Mr. McNeil is, and I just know those dreadful
creatures will kill him before we can get help."
"Kill whom?" burst in Brant, springing down the bank fully awakened to
the realization of some unknown emergency. "My dear Miss Spencer, tell
me your story quickly if you wish me to act. Who is in danger, and
from what?"
The girl burst into tears, but struggled bravely through with her
message.
"It's those awful men, the roughs and rowdies down in Glencaid. They
say he murdered Red Slavin, that big gambler who spoke to me this
morning, but he did n't, for I saw the man who did, and so did Mr.
Wynkoop. He jumped out of the saloon window, his hand all bloody, and
ran away. But they 've got him and the town marshal up behind the
Shasta dump, and swear they're going to hang him if they can only take
him alive. Oh, just hear those awful guns!"
"Yes, but who is it?"
"Bob Hampton, and--and he never did it at all."
Before Brant could either move or speak, Naida swept past him, down the
steep bank, and her voice rang out clear, insistent. "Bob Hampton
attacked by a mob? Is that true, Phoebe? They are fighting at the
Shasta dump, you say? Lieutenant Brant, you must act--you must act
now, for my sake!"
She sprang toward the horse, nerved by Brant's apparent slowness to
respond, and loosened the rein from the scrub oak. "Then I will myself
go to him, even if they kill me also, the cowards!"
But Brant had got his head now. Grasping her arm and the rein of the
plunging horse, "You will go home," he commanded, with the tone of
military authority. "Go home with Miss Spencer. All that can possibly
be done to aid Hampton I shall do--will you go?"