"Didn't know yeou hed visitors, Frank," he said.

"So you refuse me an engagement, do you, Merriwell?" snarled Lawrence.

"All right! You'll wish you hadn't in a minute!"

He made a spring for the table and caught up the ma.n.u.script lying on it.

Then he leaped toward the open grate, where the fire was burning.

"That's the last of your old play!" he shouted, hurling the ma.n.u.script into the flames.

Both Frank and Ephraim sprang to save the play, but neither of them was in time to prevent Lawrence's revengeful act.

"You miserable cur!" panted Frank.

Out shot his fist, striking the fellow under the ear, and knocking him down.

At the same time Ephraim s.n.a.t.c.hed the ma.n.u.script from the fire and beat out the flames which had fastened on it.

Lawrence sat up, his hand going round to his hip. He wrenched out a revolver and lifted it.

Frank saw the gleam of the weapon, realized his danger, and dropped an instant before the pistol spoke.

The shot rang out, but even as he pressed the trigger, Lawrence realized that Merriwell had escaped. But beyond Frank, directly in line, he saw a pale-faced girl who had suddenly appeared in the open door. He heard her cry "Lawton!" and then, through the puff of smoke, he saw her clutch her breast and fall on the threshold, shot down by his own hand!

Horror and fear enabled him to spring up, plunge out of the open window, reach the horses, leap on one and go thundering away toward the moonlight mists as if Satan were at his heels.

There was a tumult at the Twin Star. There was hot mounting to pursue Lawrence and his companion. Carson had heard the shot. He had rushed down to find his daughter, shot in the side, supported in the arms of Frank Merriwell.

A few words had told Carson just what had happened.

He swore a fearful oath to follow Lawrence to death.

The girl heard the oath. She opened her eyes and whispered:

"Father--don't! He didn't mean--to shoot--me! It was--an--accident!"

"I'll have the whelp stiff at my feet before morning!" vowed the revengeful rancher.

He gave orders for the preparing of horses. He saw his daughter carried to her room. He lingered till the old black housekeeper was at the bedside to bind up the wound and do her best to save the girl.

Then Carson bounded down the stairs and sent a cowboy flying off on horseback for the nearest doctor, a hundred miles away.

"Kill the horse under ye, if necessary, Prescott!" he had yelled at the cowboy. "Get the doctor here as quick as you can!"

"All right, sir!" shouted Prescott, as he thundered away.

"Now!" exclaimed Kent Carson--"now to follow that murderous hound till I run him to earth!"

He found men and horses ready and waiting. He found Frank Merriwell and Bart Hodge there, both of them determined to take part in the pursuit.

"We know him," said Merriwell. "He fired that shot at me. We can identify him."

Frank believed that Lawrence had murdered the rancher's daughter, and he, like the others, was eager to run the wretch down.

They galloped away in pursuit, the rancher, four cowboys, Merriwell and Hodge, all armed, all grim-faced, all determined.

The sun had risen when they came riding back to the ranch. Ephraim Gallup met Frank.

"Did ye git ther critter?" he asked, in a whisper.

"No," was the answer.

"Then he got erway?" came in accents of disappointment from the Vermonter.

"No."

"Whut? Haow's that?"

"Neither Lawrence nor Fowler escaped."

"Then it was Fowler with him?"

"I believe so."

"Whut happened to um?"

"They attempted to ford Big Sandy River."

"An' got drownded?"

"No. Where they tried to cross is nothing but a bed of quicksands.

Horses and men went down into the quicksands. They were swallowed up forever."

The doctor came at last. He extracted the bullet from Blanche Carson's side, and he told her she would get well, as the wound was not dangerous.

Kent Carson heard this with deep relief. He went to the bedside of the girl and knelt down there.

"Blanche," he whispered, huskily, "can you forgive your old dad for treating you as he has? You are my own girl--my little Blanche--no matter what you have done."

"Father!" she whispered, in return, "I am glad you have come to me at last. But you know you are ashamed of me--you can never forget what I have done."

"I can forget now," he declared, thinking of the man under the quicksands of Big Sandy. "You are my daughter. I am not ashamed of you.

You shall never again have cause for saying that of me."

"Kiss me, papa!" she murmured.

Sobbing brokenly, he pressed his lips to her cheeks.

And when he was gone from the room she took a photograph from beneath her pillow and gazed at it long and lovingly.