CHAPTER XVII.

"Our bread was such as captives’ tears Have moistened many a thousand years, Since man first pent his brother men Like brutes within an iron den." It was a long chase that brought Hal Deering and Maurice Galbraith face to face with the ruffian, whom Hal readily identified. They found him with a group of new-found friends in the chief liquor saloon of a small, rather disreputable town, fifty miles from the Ranch. When the two young men entered the place, the man they were looking for asked them to join…