The detective gave a start, and a shudder passed over his stalwart frame. The start and shudder were the result of far different causes than the men around him supposed, but they noticed his momentary agitation, and one of them exclaimed:
"We've got the right man! And now, boys, get a rope; there'll be no foolin' in this case!"
Meantime one of the men entered the cabin and whispered to
Renie, who was weeping over the body of her murdered father.
"They've caught the rascal, miss, and they're going to hang him!"
The girl uttered a scream, a wild piercing wail of anguish and terror! At that terrible moment it flashed across her mind that the men had caught Spencer Vance, and had concluded that the detective was the assailant of her father.
The girl rushed from the cabin screaming:
"Hold! Hold! do not harm that man! He is innocent! Hold!
Hold, I say!"
The girl advanced to the center of the group of men that surrounded the detective, still exclaiming:
"Do not harm that man! he is innocent! He is innocent!"
She approached close to the prisoner; one of the men held the the lantern so its gleam shone full in the detective's face, and he inquired: