CHAPTER X.DEPUTIES ALL.
At the ranch, whither they rode in haste, Luck meant to leave his boys and go on with the sheriff to town.

But the Happy Family flatly refused to be left behind.

Even old Aleck Douglas--whom years and trouble had enfeebled until his very presence here with Jean and Lite was a health-seeking mission in the wonderful air of New Mexico--even old Aleck Douglas stamped his foot at Jean and declared that he was going, along to see that "the boy" got a square deal.

There wouldn't be any railroading Luck to the pew for something he didn't do, he asserted with a tragic meaning that wrung the heart of Jean.

It took Lite's arguments and Luck's optimism and, finally, the assurance of the sheriff that Luck was not under arrest and was in no danger of it, to keep the old man at the ranch.