"You'll pay for this!" he cried somewhat shrilly, his face a black mask
of anger. "I'll give you just half a minute to release these ladies and
permit them to go with me in peace! If you refuse----"

The horseman interrupted.

"I said before you had not been ordered on your way, but now I've changed
my mind. Don't talk any more--get into your car and hike!"

The gleam in his eye achieved two results: It cowed the last vestige of
bravado in Bostwick's composition and ignited all the hatred of his
nature. He hesitated for a moment, his lips parting sidewise as if for a
speech of defiance which his moral courage refused to indorse. Then, not
daring to refuse the horseman's command, he climbed aboard the car, the
motor of which had never ceased its purring.

"You'll pay for this!" he repeated.

The girl, now pale again and tremendously disturbed, was regarding
Bostwick with a new, cold light in her eyes--a light that verged upon
contempt. She had never seen this lack of courageous spirit in the man
before.

"But, Searle! You're not going--you're not really going, like this?"

It was the horseman who replied.

"You see, his time is precious. Also in his present state of mind he is
certainly unfit company for--well, for Dave, here, a man who loves the
pure white dove of peace." The station owner grinned. Van turned once