After the manner of backwoods fathers Jeffery Neilson had offered no objections to his daughter's all-day excursion with Ben. The ways of the frontier are informal; and besides, he had every confidence in her ability to take care of herself. The only unfortunate phase of the affair concerned Ray. The latter would look with no favor upon the venture; and in all probability a disagreeable half-hour would ensue with him if he found it out.

The control of Ray Brent had been an increasingly difficult problem. Always sullen and envious, once or twice he had not been far from open rebellion. There is a certain dread malady that comes to men at the sight of naked gold, and Ray's degenerate type was particularly subject to it. Every day the mine had shown itself increasingly rich, and Ray's ambition had given way to greed, and his greed to avarice of the most dangerous sort. For instance, he had a disquieting way of gathering the nuggets into his hands, fondling them with an unholy love. Neilson realized perfectly, now, that the younger man would not be content with a fourth share or less; and on the other hand he resolutely refused to yield any of his own, larger share. Sometime the issue would bring them to grips. Ray's dreadful crime of a few days past had given him an added insolence and self-assurance that complicated the problem still further. The leopard that has once tasted human flesh is not to be trusted again. Finally, there remained this matter of Beatrice.

Neilson's love for his daughter forbade that he should force her to receive unwelcome attentions. Ray, on the other hand, had always insisted that his chief allow him a clear field. He would be infuriated when he heard of the trip she was taking with Ben to-day. Neilson straightened, resolving to meet the issue with old-time firmness.

When he heard his daughter's voice on the canoe landing, one hundred yards below, he was inordinately startled. She had not told him that their picnic would take them on to the water. The reason had been, of course, that Beatrice knew her father's distrust of the treacherous stream and either feared his refusal to her plan or wished to save him worry. Even now they were starting. He could hear the first stroke of the paddle through the hushed woods.

He turned toward the door, instinctively alarmed; then hesitated. After all, he could not tell her to come back. Beatrice would be mortified; and besides, there was nothing definite to fear. The river was almost as still as a lake for a long stretch immediately in front of the landing; even a poor canoeist could cross with ease. It was true that rapids, mile after mile of them past counting, lay just below, but surely the canoeists would stay at a safe distance above them. And if by any chance this young prospector had no skill with a canoe, Beatrice herself was an expert.

Yet what, in reality, did he know of Ben Darby? He had liked the man's face: whence he came and what was his real business on the Yuga he had not the least idea. All at once a baffling apprehension crept like a chill through his frame.

He could not laugh it away. It laid hold of him, refusing to be dispelled. It was as if an inner voice was warning him, telling him to rush down to the river bank and check that canoe ride at all costs. It occurred to him, for the moment, that this might be premonition of a disastrous accident, yet vaguely he sensed a plot, an obscure design that filled him with ghastly terror. Once more the man started for the door.

Unaware of his ground, he did not hurry at first. He hardly knew what to say, by what excuse he could call Beatrice back to the landing. His heart was racing incomprehensibly in his breast, and all at once he started to run.

At the first step he fell sprawling, and stark panic was upon him when he got to his feet again. And when he reached the landing the canoe was already near the opposite shore, heading swiftly downstream.

He saw in one glance that the craft was rather heavily laden, Fenris atop the pile of duffle, and that Ben was paddling with a remarkably fast, easy stroke. "Come back, Beatrice," he shouted. "You've forgotten something."

The girl turned, waving, but Ben's voice drowned out hers. "We'll see you later," he called in a gay voice. "We can't come back now."

"Come back!" Neilson called again. "I order you—"

He stared intently, hoping that the man would turn. Already they were practically out of hearing; and not even Beatrice was dipping her paddle in obedience to his command. Looking more closely, he saw that the man only was paddling.

Then his eye fell to the landing on which he stood, instinctively trying to locate the second paddle. It lay at his feet. A foolhardy thing to do, he thought, a broken paddle, out there above the rapids, would mean death and no other thing. Helpless in the current, the canoe could not be guided through those fearful gates of peril below. If by a thousandth chance it escaped the rocks, it would be carried for unnumbered miles into a land unknown, a territory that could be entered only by the greatest difficulty—packing day after day over range and through thicket with a great train of pack horses—and from which the egress, except by the same perilous water route, would be almost impossible. But the thought passed as he discerned the white paper that had been fastened in the paddle blade.

He bent for it with eager hand. He knew instinctively that it contained an all-important and sinister message for him. His eyes leaped over the bold writing on the exterior.

"To Ezra Melville's murderers," Ben had written. And with that reading Jeffery Neilson knew a terror beyond any experienced in the darkest nightmare of his iniquitous life.

It did not occur to him to bring the note, unopened, to Ray Brent. As yet he did not fully understand; yet he knew that the issue was one of seconds. Seconds must decide everything; his whole world hung in the balance. His hand ripped apart the sealed fold, and he held the sheet before his eyes.

Possessing only an elementary education Jeffery Neilson was not, ordinarily, a fast reader. Usually he sounded out his words only with the greatest difficulty. But to-day, one glance at the page conveyed to him the truth: from half a dozen words he got a general idea of the letter's full, dread meaning. Ben had written:

TO NEILSON AND HIS GANG:—

When you get this, Beatrice will be on her way to Back There—either there or on her way to hell.

Ezra Melville was my pard. A letter leaving his claim to me is in my pocket, and I alone know where Hiram's will is, leaving it to Ezram. Your title will never stand as long as those papers aren't destroyed. If you don't care enough about saving your daughter from me, at least you'll want those letters. Come and get them. I'll be waiting for you.

BEN DARBY.