"I've been paid back already; I don't want his gold. I am but a guardsman, and I'll see that he is guarded against all his foes as long as I remain here."
"That's it. No oath is needed by you, Riggs. You're worth all the gold in this chamber, and I'll see that you're rewarded. But woe to the tracker! Woe to the ferret who comes to Ranch Robin to play out his hand!"
Five minutes later the detective stood in the upper room and looked beyond the porch.
He was thinking fast.
At the first opportunity he quitted the house, and mounting his horse, rode off over the fields.
Across the bridge he rode and on beyond the sheep lands.
He wanted to be alone.
At last he sat on his steed with the landscape stretching beyond him in marvelous beauty.
A light wind, ladened with the scent of flowers, came to his nostrils, and he admired the scene for some time in utter silence.
Presently there appeared in the high grass, some distance from the spot where he had stopped, a figure that looked like a creeping Indian.