The two girls clung closely to one another, after the manner of frightened womankind, striving vainly to abstract a grain of courage from a united fear—in the eyes of each a growing terror.

"We must find Milt and give him warning!" gasped Sally faintly to her companion, at last gaining courage and voice as the two men went slowly down the ravine, their voices dropping lower and lower until they grew but a dull, unintelligible murmur to the attentive ears bent keenly to catch their meaning.

"Yes," agreed Sophronia, "without delay. Is Steve Judson the man you overheard talking to the Squire?"

"The very one. I recollected his voice the minute he begun to speak."

"A pretty pair of villains they are,—him an' Jade, too!"

Sally was already busied with her plans for her sweetheart's safety. "I'll try to beat 'em at their very own game," she said determinedly. "The first thing to be done is to see Milt."

"Yes, we must find him at once," agreed her companion.

"Let's go straight home, get our horses, and ride over to Mr. Pepper's where Milt works. We must see Milt himself, not trust to a message."

"He can't be badly wounded, else they wouldn't expect to try him tonight," said Sally thoughtfully, hope springing anew in her breast.

"Neither Jade, nor Steve talked like he was hurt at all. Perhaps he isn't."

As the girls talked and planned, beset by many fears and uncertainties, they walked hurriedly across the fields, keeping pace with their nimble tongues, and when Mr. Saunders' house was reached, they quickly saddled the horses, and set out forthwith on their quest.

Disappointment awaited them at their journey's end, for when they came to Mr. Pepper's place, they learned that Milt had gone across country to attend to some business for his employer, and it was uncertain at what hour he would return. Sophronia and Sally looked at one another in dire perplexity.

"Want to leave a message?" asked Mr. Pepper.

"If Mr. Derr comes any hour before midnight, tell him to ride over to my house," said Sophronia. "I have a very important message for him." They turned away. "He evidently isn't wounded, an' likely he won't get back in time to be summoned by the raiders," she added hopefully, as she and her companion rode homeward. "Now, what's to be done in the meantime?"

"I'm goin' straight home," declared Sally, "an' keep a sharp look-out at the gate. Mr. Pepper said Milt might come back by way of town. I can trump up some excuse to mother about not staying all night with you, as I intended. If Milt comes back to Mr. Pepper's you'll get to see an' warn him, an' if he comes by the gate—I'll get to do it. That's all we can do."

"Suppose we both fail?"

"Then I'll go to the old quarry tonight," answered Sally.

"No!" cried her companion aghast.

"Indeed, I will," insisted Sally, coolly, "I'll not only go, but I'll see that Milt's not convicted on the false words of those two lying villains."

"You're really not in earnest, Sally Brown!" cried Sophronia, half in astonishment, half in admiration at the daring announcement.

"But I am, I mean every word of it." The girl had inherited from her forbears a touch of that intrepid spirit that prevailed amid the hills.

"I wouldn't go for worlds!" cried Sophronia shuddering.

"I guess you would, if it was your sweetheart that was in danger."

"I don't believe I could go, even then," admitted Sophronia. "They'll kill you!" she declared in growing terror.

"Not when I tell them I sent a warning to the band by Milt, and point out the very man that did betray them."

"But remember, the leader of the night-raiders is Jade Beddow. He will surely do you an' Milt all the injury he can. Oh, Sally, don't think of running such a risk! Let's find Billy West an' ask him to go."

"It wouldn't be as safe as for me to go," demurred Sally. "I'm not afraid. They're not goin' to hurt me. Let me have your father's pistol when we get back. I'll take it along, an' use it, too, if there's need."

As the two girls excitedly discussed the situation, Sally decided that she would not go back home as she had first intended. There were too many chances of missing her sweetheart by so doing. Besides, if the two girls separated, Sally would not know whether her friend had seen Milt or not. This was a point they had both overlooked.

It was agreed, then, that the safer plan would be for Sally to remain at Mr. Saunders' until late bedtime, then, if Milt had not come, she would manage, with Sophronia's help, to slip quietly out of the house, saddle Joe and go direct to the old abandoned quarry where the farce of a trial would be held.

When bedtime came, and no sign of Derr, the two girls succeeded in slipping out of the house without detection, when they quickly saddled the patient Joe, and later parted in the darkness, Sophronia still urging her companion to think once again before starting forth on so perilous a journey.

Unshaken by her friend's forebodings, the toll-taker set out courageously into the lonely night, bent on accomplishing her sweetheart's release. She was familiar with the location of the dirt lane, at which she must turn off in order to reach the quarry, yet, in the haste of her mission and the perturbation of mind under which she was laboring, she turned into the wrong lane, and had gone some distance before discovering her mistake. By the time she had retraced her way many valuable moments were lost.

The night was wearing on. In the hilly and sparsely settled region through which she rode, it seemed already past midnight, and her road was solitary and forbidding. Even the rocks, and trees and clumps of bushes along the way took on grotesque and often threatening shapes to her excited imagination as she passed them in the semi-darkness.

At times, these dimly defined forms became terrifying monsters of the night, guarding the road along which she passed, like fabulous creatures of fairy-land protecting the approach to some magic domain. Vague, silent, mysterious, they loomed up on either hand—gigantic, somber sentinels.

The chill of the night air, which lay heavily in the shadowy ravines, between the uplifting hills, penetrated her clothing and seemed to reach with its benumbing breath her very heart, yet she pressed on, undaunted.

She paused a brief moment at a small brook that crossed the road on the way to the quarry, and as she listened there came the dull hoof-tread of approaching horses—a cavalcade, it seemed, as she hearkened in sudden nervous terror, for the raiders were evidently close at hand.

Were they coming from, or going to the quarry?

For the moment she could not decide whether the sound was behind or in front of her. The reverberant hills seemed to be playing pranks with the echoes, and as she sat motionless on her horse and listened, a feeling of faintness came over her at the possibility of the sound's direction.

What if she were too late, and the raiders, returning from the old quarry, had already wreaked their vengeance on the hapless victim? The thought appalled her in its cruel suggestion, and her heart grew heavy with forebodings; then close upon her terror and despair the glad fact rushed to her relief that the horsemen were behind, not in front of her, and there was yet time in which to state her lover's case.

The raiders' rendezvous lay beyond, some little distance up the road, as she remembered its location in bygone days. There was scarcely time to reach it before the hurrying horses. Perhaps it would be the better plan to conceal herself somewhere amid the shadows along the road until the cavalcade had passed, then quickly follow.

She recalled to mind that a little further down the brook was a thicket of water willows, now a splotch of blackness in the vague landscape, and, after a moment's hesitation, she turned her horse's head in this direction.

Scarcely had the obscurity of the spot enfolded her, when the raiders came sweeping by—an ominous shadowy band, crossing the shallow stream at the place she had but recently quitted, then galloping rapidly along the road which rose sharply toward the hill where lay the place of meeting.

The quarry was hollowed out of the far side of the hill, around whose base the stream wound lazily, and to go by way of the winding road was a more circuitous route, while to climb the hill shortened the distance greatly.

The girl decided on this latter route—she would climb the hill on foot. It would take less time, and time was now most precious. Possibly the raiders would place a sentry at the entrance of the quarry, so that she might not be able to gain access, even if she should go around by the road as she had at first intended.

Acting on this sudden decision, she quietly slipped from the saddle to the ground, hurriedly tied the bridle to a bending willow, and, after giving Joe a friendly, reassuring pat, started to climb the hill.

The way was rough and unfamiliar, and in the darkness, made yet more dense by clumps of cedar trees and bushes that thickly clothed the hillside, she was often compelled to grope her way along to keep from stumbling over the knotted roots of the trees that crept out from between crevices in the rocks, twisting over the ground like monster, hideous serpents, guarding the approach to the rendezvous.

The ascent was slow and tedious. Finally the summit was reached, and choosing her bearings from its commanding height, she began to descend the opposite side toward the quarry, the long accumulation of fallen cedar spines deadening the sound of her light footstep until she was able to reach the very edge of the excavated portion of the hill without detection, guided thither by a dim light below the surface that faintly defined its rugged outline.

Spent of breath, she crouched down in the shadows behind a clump of dwarfed cedar bushes fringing the ragged edge of broken rock, and peered cautiously into the quarry.

A scant fire had been hastily kindled close against the rocky wall, and in a semi-circle around it the raiders were now gathered. The wide-brimmed, slouch hats they wore partly concealed the faces beneath, and the girl's eager eyes traveled anxiously from one dark form to another.

Finally they rested on the object sought. Standing almost beneath the spot where she crouched in hiding was the accused, his head boldly erect, his bearing defiant, as if he feared no man, and cared naught for the two who had come to bear false witness against him, and to swear away his life.