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" are going to lynch a fellow named Guardley!" ejaculated Earl. "I wonder if it can be Jasper Guardley."

"It must be; it's not likely there is another Guardley up here—the name isn't as common as all that, returned Randy. "Shall we go?"

Earl hesitated. There was something appalling in a lynching, to his mind. Yet he was curious to know more of the crime for which the prisoner was about to suffer.

"Yes, we might as well—if Fred will watch the camp," he answered.

"I'll watch it as well as I can," answered Fred. The work he had been doing had tired him more than he would admit, and he was glad enough to take it easy. He knew Guardley, but took small interest in the man his father had sent up more than once for petty crimes.

In less than five minutes Earl and Randy were off, stalking over the hills and along Gold Bottom Creek as rapidly as their tired limbs would carry them.