An early moon stuck a pallid rim over the crest of the big, hill-like plateau as Parsons sat on his horse in the basin, and Parsons watched it rise in its silvery splendor and bathe the world with an effulgent glow. It threw house and timber on the plateau crest in bold relief, a dark silhouette looming against a flood of shimmering light, and Parsons could see the porch he knew so well, and could even distinguish the break in the timber that led to the house, which merged into the trail that stretched to Dawes.

Parsons was still laboring with the devils of indecision and doubt. He knew why Carrington had captured Marion, and he yearned to take the girl from the man—for her own sake, and for the purpose of satisfying his vengeance. But he knew that certain death awaited him up there should he venture to show himself to Carrington. And yet a certain desperate courage stole into Parsons as he watched from the basin, and when, about half an hour after he had seen the flicker of light filter out of one of the windows of the house, he saw a man emerge, mount a horse, and ride away, he drew a deep breath of resolution and urged his own horse up the slope. For the man who had mounted the horse up there was Carrington—there could be no doubt of that.

Shivering, though still obeying the courageous impulse that had seized him, Parsons continued to ascend the slope. He went half way and then halted, listening. No sound disturbed the solemn stillness that had followed Carrington’s departure.

Reassured, though by this time he was sweating coldly, Parsons accomplished the remainder of the intervening space upward. Far back in the timber he brought his horse to a halt, dismounted, and again listened. Hearing nothing that alarmed him, except a loud, angry voice from the rear of the house—a voice which he knew as Martha’s—he cautiously made his way to the front porch, tiptoed across it, and peered stealthily into the room out of which the light still shone, its flickering rays stabbing weakly into the outside darkness.

Looking into the room, Parsons could see Marion sitting in a chair. Her hands were bound, and she was leaning back in the chair, her hair disheveled, her face chalk-white, and her eyes filled with a haunting, terrible dread. Near the door, likewise seated on a chair, his back to the big room that adjoined the one in which he sat, was a villainous-looking man who was watching the girl with a leering grin.

The sight brought a murderous passion into Parsons’ heart, nerving him for the deed that instantly suggested itself to him. He crept off the porch again, moving stealthily lest he make the slightest sound that would warn the watcher at the door, and searched at a corner of the porch until he found what he was looking for—a heavy club, a spoke from one of the wheels of a wagon.

Parsons knew about where to find it, for during the days that he had sat on the porch nursing his resentment against Carrington, he had gazed long at the wagon-spoke, wishing that he might have an opportunity to use it on Carrington.

He took it, balancing it, testing its weight. And now a hideous terror seized him, almost paralyzing him. For though Parsons had robbed many men, he had never resorted to violence; and for a time he stood with the club in his hand, unable to move.

He moved at last, though, his face transformed from the strength of the passion that had returned, and he carefully stepped on the porch, crossed it, and stood, leaning forward, peering into the room through the outside door left open by Carrington. The outside door opened from the big room adjoining that in which the watcher sat, and Parsons could see the man, who, with his back toward the door, was still looking at Marion.

Entering the big room, Parsons saw Marion’s eyes widen as she looked full at him. He shook his head at her; her face grew whiter, and she began to talk to the other man.

Only a second or two elapsed then until Parsons struck. The man rolled out of his chair without a sound, and Parsons, leaping over him, trembling, his breath coming in great gasps, ran to Marion and unbound her hands.

Together they flew outside, where they found the girl’s horse tethered near a tree, and Parsons’ animal standing where he had left it.

Mounting, the girl whispered to Parsons. She was trembling, and her voice broke with a wailing quaver when she spoke:

“Where shall we go, Elam—where? We—I can’t go back to the Arrow! Oh, I just can’t! And Carrington will be back! Oh! isn’t there any way to escape him?”

“We’ll go to Dawes, girl; that’s where we’ll go!” declared Parsons, his dread and fear of the big man equaling that of the girl. “We’ll go to Dawes and tell them there just what kind of a man Carrington is—and what he has tried to do with you tonight! There must be some men in Dawes who will not stand by and see a woman persecuted!”

And as they rode the river trail toward the town, the girl, white and silent, riding a little distance ahead of him, Parsons felt for the first time in his life the tingling thrills that come of an unselfish deed courageously performed. And the experience filled him with the spirit to do other good and unselfish deeds.

They rode fast for a time, until the girl again spoke of Carrington’s announced intention to return shortly. Then they rode more cautiously, and it was well they did. For they had almost reached Dawes when they heard the whipping tread of a horse’s hoofs on the trail, coming toward them. They rode well back from the trail, and, concealed by some heavy brush, saw Carrington riding toward the big house. He went past them, vanishing into the shadows of the trees that fringed the trail, and for a long time the girl and Parsons did not move for fear Carrington might have slowed his horse and would hear them. And when they did come out of their concealment and were again on the Dawes trail, they rode fast, with the dread of Carrington’s wrath to spur them on.

It had been Martha’s voice that Parsons had heard when he had been standing in the timber near the front of the house. The negro woman was walking back and forth in the room where her captor had confined her, vigorously berating the man. She was a dusky thundercloud of wrath, who rumbled verbal imprecations with every breath. Her captor—a small man with a coarse voice, a broken nose, and a scraggy, drooping mustache—stood in the doorway looking at her fiercely, with obvious intent to intimidate the indignant Amazon.

At the instant Parsons heard her voice she was confronting the man, her eyes popping with fury.

“You let me out of heah this minute, yo’ white trash! Yo’ heah! An’ doan’ you think I’s scared of you, ’cause I ain’t! If you doan’ hop away from that do’, I’s goin’ to mash yo’ haid in wif this yere chair! You git away now!”

The man grinned. It was a forced grin, and his face whitened with it, betraying to Martha the fear he felt of her—which she had suspected from the moment he had brought her in and the light from the kitchen lamp shone on his face.

She took a threatening step toward him; a tentative movement, a testing of his courage. And when she saw him retreat from her slightly, she lunged at him, raising the chair she held in her hands.

Possibly the man was reluctant to resort to violence; he may have had a conviction that the detaining of Martha was not at all necessary to the success of Carrington’s plan to subjugate the white girl, or he might have been merely afraid of Martha. Whatever his thoughts, the man continued to retreat from the negro woman, and as she pursued him, her courage grew, and the man’s vanished in inverse ratio. And as he passed the center of the kitchen, he wheeled and ran out of the door, Martha following him.

Outside, the man ran toward the stable. For an instant Martha stood looking after him. Then, thinking Carrington was still in the house, and that there was no hope of her frightening him as she had frightened the little man who had stood guard over her, she ran to where her horse stood, clambered into the saddle, and sent the animal down the big slope toward Mullarky’s cabin, where she hoped to find Mullarky, to send him to the big house to rescue the girl from Carrington.