"I—don't know what you mean," he faltered.

"You will," said Gurley brutally.

"Been across the valley to the herd yet?" asked Overstreet, elaborately careless.

Here was one question Ridley could answer with the truth. He spoke swiftly, eagerly. "No."

His questioner exchanged looks with Homer Dinsmore and laughed. The Ranger had betrayed himself. He had been so quick to deny that he had been near the herd that his anxiety gave him away. They knew he suspected them of having rustled the stock grazing on the slope. Very likely he had already verified his doubts as to burnt brands.

Homer Dinsmore spoke for the first time. His voice was harsh. "Why don't you tell the truth? You came to get evidence against us."

"Evidence?" repeated Arthur dully.

"To prove we're rustlin' stock. You know damn well."

"Why, I—I—"

"And you didn't come alone. Ellison never sent a tenderfoot like you out except with others. Where are the rest of yore party? Come through."

"I'm alone." Arthur stuck to that doggedly.

"If he's got a bunch of Rangers back of him we better burn the wind outa here," suggested Gurley, looking around uneasily.

Overstreet looked at him with scorn and chewed tobacco imperturbably. "Keep yore shirt on, Steve. Time enough to holler when you're hurt."

"I haven't got a bunch of Rangers with me," cried Ridley desperately, beads of sweat on his brow. It had come to him that if he persuaded these men he had no companions with him he would be sealing his doom. They could murder him with impunity. But he could not betray Jack. He must set his teeth to meet the worst before he did that. "I tell you I'm alone. I don't know what you mean about the cattle. I haven't been across the valley. I came here, and I hadn't slept all night. So I was all worn out. And somehow I fell asleep."

"All alone, eh?" Pete Dinsmore murmured it suavely. His crafty mind was weighing the difference this made in the problem before the outlaws—the question as to what to do with this man. They could not let him go back with his evidence. It would not be safe to kill him if he had merely strayed from a band of Rangers. But assuming he told the truth, that he had no companions, then there was a very easy and simple way out for the rustlers. The Ranger could not tell what he knew—however much or little that might be—if he never returned to town.

"I keep telling you that I'm alone, that I got lost," Arthur insisted. "What would I be doing here without a horse if I had friends?"

"Tha's right," agreed Gurley. "I reckon he got lost like he said."

He, too, by the same process of reasoning as Pete Dinsmore, had come to a similar conclusion. He reflected craftily that Ridley was probably telling the truth. Why should he persist in the claim that he was alone if he had friends in the neighborhood, since to persuade his captors of this was to put himself wholly in their power?

"You're easily fooled, Steve," sneered Homer. "I've camped with this bird, an' I tell you he's got a passel of Rangers with him somewheres. We're standin' here jawin' waitin' for them to round us up, I reckon."

Overstreet looked at Homer. His eyebrows lifted in a slight surprise. He and the younger Dinsmore had been side partners for years. Homer was a cool customer. It wasn't like him to scare. There was something in this he did not understand. Anyhow, he would back his pal's play till he found out.

"I expect you're right. We can easy enough prove it. Let's light out for the cap-rock an' hole up for a coupla days. Then one of us will slip out an' see if the herd's still here an' no Rangers in sight. We'll keep this gent a prisoner till we know where we're at? How's that?"

"You talk like we was the United States Army, Dave," growled Pete Dinsmore. "We got no way to take care o' prisoners. I'm for settlin' this thing right here."

The outlaws drew closer together and farther from Ridley. He was unarmed and wholly in their power. If he tried to run he could not get twenty yards. The voices of the men fell.

Arthur began to tremble. His face grew gray, his lips bloodless. On the issue of that conference his life hung. The easiest thing to do would be to make an end of him now. Would they choose that way out of the difficulty? He could see that Gurley had, for the moment at least, joined forces with Homer and Dave Overstreet against Pete, but he could hear none of the arguments.

"You're wrong, Pete. We're playin' safe. That's all. My notion is this guy's tellin' the truth. There's only one thing to do. I don't reckon any of us want him to go back to town. But if we do anything with him here, the Rangers are liable to find his body. Oncet up in the cap-rock we can dry-gulch him."

The older Dinsmore gave way with an oath. "All right. Have yore own way, boys. Majority rules. We'll postpone this discussion till later."

Gurley brought the horses. Arthur was mounted behind him, his feet tied beneath the belly of the horse. The rustlers rode in pairs, Homer Dinsmore and Overstreet in the rear.

"What makes you think this fellow has friends near, Homer?" asked his companion.

"He doesn't know enough to ride alone. But I don't care whether he's alone or not. I'm not goin' to have the boy killed. He stood by me on the island to a finish. Of course that wouldn't go with Steve an' Pete, so I put it on the other ground."

"Want to turn him loose, do you?"

"I'd swear him first to padlock his mouth. He'd do it, too, if he said so."

"Some risk that, old-timer."

"I got to do it, Dave. Can't throw him down, can I?"

"Don't see as you can. Well, make yore play when you get ready. I'll shove my chips in beside yours. I never yet killed a man except in a fight an' I've got no fancy for beginnin' now."

"Much obliged, Dave."

"How far do you 'low to go? If Pete gets ugly like he sometimes does, he'll be onreasonable."

"I'll manage him. If he does get set there'll be a pair of us. Mebbe I'm just about as stubborn as he is."

"I believe you. Well, I'll be with you at every jump of the road," Overstreet promised.

The discussion renewed itself as soon as the outlaws had hidden themselves in a pocket of the cap-rock. Again they drew apart from their prisoner and talked in excited but reduced voices.

"The Rangers have got no evidence we collected this fellow," argued Gurley. "Say he disappears off'n the earth. Mebbe he died of thirst lost on the plains. Mebbe a buffalo bull killed him. Mebbe—"

"Mebbe he went to heaven in a chariot of fire," drawled Overstreet, to help out the other's imagination.

"The point is, why should we be held responsible? Nobody knows we were within fifty miles of him, doggone it."

"That's where you're wrong. The Rangers know it. They're right on our heels, I tell you," differed Homer Dinsmore.

"We'll get the blame. No manner o' doubt about that," said Overstreet.

"Say we do. They can't prove a thing—not a thing."

"You talk plumb foolish, Steve. Why don't you use yore brains?" answered Homer impatiently. "We can go just so far. If we overstep the limit this country will get too hot for us. There'll be a grand round-up, an' we'd get ours without any judge or jury. The folks of this country are law-abidin', but there's a line we can't cross."

"That's all right," agreed Pete. "But there's somethin' in what Steve says. If this tenderfoot wandered off an' got lost, nobody's goin' to hold us responsible for him."

"He didn't no such thing get lost. Listen. Tex Roberts was with him the day Steve—fell over the box. Tex was with him when we had the rumpus with the Kiowas on the Canadian. Those lads hunt together. Is it likely this Ridley, who don't know sic' 'em, got so far away from the beaten trails alone? Not in a thousand years. There's a bunch of Rangers somewheres near. We got to play our hands close, Pete."

"We're millin' around in circles, Homer. Why does this fellow Ridley claim he's alone? He must know it's up to him to persuade us his friends are about two jumps behind us."

"One guess is as good as another. Here's mine," said Overstreet. "He wants to throw us off our guard. He's hopin' we'll pull some fool break an' the Rangers will make a gather of our whole bunch."

"Good enough," said Homer, nodding agreement. "Another thing. This lad Ridley's not game. But he's a long way from bein' yellow. He's not gonna queer the campaign of the Rangers by tellin' what he knows."

"Betcha I can make him talk," boasted Gurley. "Put a coupla sticks between the roots of his fingers an' press—"

"Think we're a bunch of 'Paches, Steve?" demanded Homer roughly. "Come to that, I'll say plain that I'm no murderer, let alone torture. I've killed when I had to, but the other fellow had a run for his money. If I beat him to the draw that was his lookout. He had no holler comin'. But this kid—not for me."

"Different here," said Pete evenly. "He knew what he was up against when he started. If it was us or him that had to go, I wouldn't hesitate a minute. Question is, what's safest for us?"

"The most dangerous thing for us is to harm him. Do that, an' we won't last a month in this country."

"What's yore idea, then, Homer? We can't hold him till Christmas. Soon as we let him go, he'll trot back an' tell all he knows," protested his brother irritably.

"What does he know? Nothin' except that we found him when he claimed to be lost an' that we looked after him an' showed him how to get home. Even if he's seen those cattle he can't prove we burned the brands, can he?"

"No-o."

"In a day or two we'll take the trail. I'll put it to Ridley that we haven't time to take him back to town an' that he'd sure get lost if we turned him loose here. We'll drop him somewheres on the trail after we've crossed the line."

"Fine an' dandy," jeered Gurley. "We'll introduce him to the herd an' take him along so's he'll be sure we're the rustlers."

They wrangled back and forth, covering the same ground time and again. At last they agreed to postpone a decision till next day.

Homer reported the issue of their debate, colored to suit his purpose, to the white-faced Ranger. "I reckon we'll have to look out for you, Ridley. It wouldn't do to turn you loose. You'd get lost sure. Mebbe in a day or two some of us will be driftin' in to town an' can take you along."

"If you'd start me in the right direction I think I could find my way back," Arthur said timidly.

"No chance, young fellow. You'll stay right here till we get good an' ready for you to go. See?"

The Ranger did not push the point. He knew very well it would not be of the least use. His fears were temporarily allayed. He felt sure that Homer Dinsmore would put up a stiff argument before he would let him be sacrificed.



CHAPTER XXXI

A PAIR OF DEUCES

From the lookout point among the rocks where he was stationed Overstreet shouted a warning to his companions below.

"Fellow with a white flag ridin' in. Looks like he might be a Ranger."

Pete Dinsmore dropped a coffee-pot and took three strides to his rifle. His brother Homer and Steve Gurley garnished themselves promptly with weapons. They joined the lookout, and from the big rocks could see without being seen.

The man coming to their hang-out had a handkerchief or a flour sack tied to the barrel of his rifle and was holding it in the air. He jogged along steadily without any haste and without any apparent hesitation. He was leading a saddled riderless horse.

A rifle cracked.

Pete Dinsmore whirled on Gurley angrily. "What you do that for?"

Malice, like some evil creature, writhed in Gurley's face. "It's that fellow Roberts. We got him right at last. Leggo my arm."

"I'll beat yore head off if you shoot again. Lucky for you you missed. Don't you see he comes here as a messenger. Ellison musta sent him."

"I don' care how he comes. He'll never go away except feet first." The man who had been horsewhipped by the Ranger was livid with rage.

Dinsmore swung him round by the shoulder savagely. "Who elected you boss of this outfit, Steve? Don't ride on the rope or you'll sure git a fall."

The eyes of Pete were blazing. Gurley gave way sullenly.

"Tha's all right. I ain't aimin' noways to cross you. I can wait to git this fellow if you say so."

The Ranger had pulled up his horse and was waving the improvised flag. Pete gave directions.

"Homer, you an' Dave go down an' find out what he wants. Don't bring him in unless you blindfold him first. We don't wanta introduce him to the place so as he can walk right in again any time."

The two men named walked out to meet the Ranger. They greeted him with grim little nods, which was exactly the salutation he gave them. The hard level eyes of the men met without yielding an eyebeat.

"Don't you know a flag of truce when you see it, Dinsmore?" demanded Roberts.

"Excuse that shot, Mr. Ranger," said Homer evenly. "It was a mistake."

"Gurley does make 'em," returned Jack, guessing shrewdly. "Some day he'll make one too many."

"I take it you came on business."

"Why, yes. Captain Ellison sent me with his compliments to get Ranger Ridley."

"Lost him, have you?"

"You can't exactly call him lost when we know where he is."

"Meanin' that he's here?"

"You ring the bell first shot."

Overstreet broke in, to mark time. "You think we've got him?"

"We do. Don't you?"

"And Ellison wants him, does he?"

"Wants him worse 'n a heifer cow does her calf." Roberts laughed softly, as though from some fund of inner mirth. "He's kinda hopin' you'll prove stubborn so as to give him a chance to come an' get him."

"Where is Ellison?"

The Ranger smiled. "He didn't give me any instructions about tellin' you where he is."

"H'mp! You can come in an' talk with Pete. We'll have to blindfold you," said Dinsmore.

The envoy made no objections. He dismounted. A bandana was tied across his eyes, and the men led him into the pocket of rock. The handkerchief was removed.

Jack told again what he had come for.

"How did you know we were here?" demanded Pete.

"It's our business to know such things." Jack did not think it wise to mention that he had been here once before, the same day he found Rutherford Wadley's body a few miles away at the foot of a bluff.

"Ridley told us he was alone—no Rangers a-tall with him, he said."

"Did he?" Jack showed amusement. "What did you expect him to tell you? He draws pay as a Ranger."

"What's Ellison's proposition?"

"Captain Ellison hasn't any proposition to make, if by that you mean compromise. You're to turn Ridley over to me. That's all."

"An' where do we get off?" snorted Pete. "What does that buy us?"

"It buys you six hours' time for a get-away. I've got no business to do it, but I'll promise to loaf around an' not report to Captain Ellison till after noon. I'll go that far."

"I don' know's we want to make any get-away. We could hold the fort right here against quite a few Rangers, I reckon."

"Suit yourself," said Jack indifferently.

Pete chewed tobacco slowly and looked down sullenly at a flat rock without seeing it. Anger burned in him like a smouldering fire in peat. He hated this man Roberts, and Ellison he regarded as a natural enemy. Nothing would have pleased him more than to settle his feud with the Ranger on the spot with a six-shooter. But that meant a hurried exit from the Panhandle at a sacrifice of his accumulated profits. This did not suit Dinsmore's plans. His purpose was to leave Texas with enough money to set him up in business in Colorado or Wyoming. It would not do to gratify his revenge just now. Nor did he dare to carry out his threat and let the Rangers attack him. His policy was to avoid any conflict if possible.

"Have to talk it over with the other boys," he said abruptly. "You wait here."

Jack sat down on a rock while the rustlers retired and discussed the situation. There was not room for much difference of opinion. The Rangers had forced their hand. All they could do was to slip out of the rim-rock and make for another zone of safety. This would involve losing the stock they had rustled, but their option was a choice of two evils and this was decidedly the lesser.

Pete announced their decision truculently, his chin thrust out.

"One of these days we'll tangle, you 'n' me, young fellow. But not to-day. Take Ridley an' git out pronto before I change my mind. For a plug of tobacco I'd go to foggin' the air right now."

The prisoner was brought forward. His weapons were restored to him. With the long strain of fear lifted at last from his mind, it was hard for him to keep down a touch of hysterical joy. But he managed to return Jack's casual greeting with one as careless to all appearance.

He had caught the drift of the talk and he played up to his friend promptly. "I was rather lookin' for you or one of the other boys about now, Jack," he said. "Mighty careless of me to get nabbed asleep."

Ten minutes later the two Rangers were outside the pocket riding across the plain.

"Hope Pete won't change his mind an' plump a few bullets at us. He's a right explosive proposition," said Roberts.

It was all Arthur could do to keep from quickening the pace. His mind wouldn't be easy until several miles lay between him and his late captors.

"Where's Captain Ellison waiting?" asked Ridley.

"He's probably at Tascosa or Mobeetie. I haven't seen him since you have."

"Didn't he send you to the Dinsmores after me?"

"Why, no."

Arthur drew a deep breath of relief. If he had weakened in his story that he was alone and had told the truth, he would have brought ruin upon both himself and his friend.

"You mean you went in there on a pure bluff, knowing how they hated you and what a big chance there was that they would murder you?"

"I took a chance, I reckon. But it looked good to me."

"If I had told them you and I were alone—"

"I figured you wouldn't do that. I had a notion my bluff would stick. They wouldn't think I'd come to them unless I had strong backin'. The bigger the bluff the better the chance of its workin'."

"Unless I had told that there were only two of us."

"That was one of the risks I had to gamble on, but I felt easy in my mind about that. You'll notice one thing if you stay with the Rangers, Art. They can get away with a lot of things they couldn't pull off as private citizens. The law is back of us, and back of the law is the State of Texas. When it comes to a showdown, mighty few citizens want to get us after them good and hard. We always win in the end. The bad-men all know that."

"Just the same, for cold nerve I never saw the beat of what you did now."

"Sho! Nothin' to that. A pair of deuces is good as a full house when your hand ain't called. We'll swing over to the left here an' gather up that bunch of rustled stock, Art."

Late that afternoon, as they were following the dust of the drive, Ridley voiced a doubt in his heart.

"Isn't there a chance that the Dinsmores will follow us and find out we're alone?"

"Quite a chance," agreed Jack cheerfully. "If so, we're liable to swap bullets yet. But I don't reckon they'll do that hardly. More likely they're hittin' the trail for Palo Duro to hole up."

The outlaws did not molest them during the drive. Four days later they reached town with their thirsty, travel-worn herd.

Captain Ellison was at the hotel and Jack reported to him at once.

The eyes of the little Ranger Chief gleamed. "Good boys, both of you. By dog, the old man won't write me any more sassy letters when he reads what you done. I always did say that my boys—"

"—Were a bunch of triflin' scalawags," Jack reminded him.

The Captain fired up, peppery as ever. "You light outa here and see if a square meal won't help some, you blamed impudent young rascal."



CHAPTER XXXII

THE HOLD-UP

When Wadley made to Jack Roberts the offer he had spoken of to his daughter, the face of that young man lighted up at once. But without hesitation he refused the chance to manage the A T O ranch.

"Sorry, but I can't work for you, Mr. Wadley."

The big Texan stiffened. "All right," he said huffily. "Just as you please. I'm not goin' to beg you on my knees to take the best job in the Panhandle. Plenty of good men want it."

The frank smile of the Ranger was disarming. "They don't want it any worse than I do, Mr. Wadley. I'm not a fool. Just because we had a difference oncet, I'm not standin' on my dignity. Nothin' like that. You're offerin' me a big chance—the biggest I'm ever likely to get. When you pick me to boss the A T O under yore orders, you pay me a sure-enough compliment, an' I'd be plumb glad to say yes."

"Well, why don't you?"

"Because the Rangers have got an unfinished job before them here, an' I'm not goin' to leave Captain Ellison in the lurch. I'll stick to my dollar a day till we've made a round-up."

The cattleman clapped him on the shoulder. "That's right, boy. That's the way to talk. Make yore clean-up, then come see me. I won't promise to hold this job open, but I want you to talk with me before you sign up with any one else."

But the weeks passed, and the Dinsmores still operated in the land. They worked under cover, less openly than in the old days, but still a storm-center of trouble. It was well known that they set the law at defiance, but no man who could prove it would produce evidence.

Meanwhile spring had made way for summer, and summer was beginning to burn into autumn. The little force of Rangers rode the land and watched for that false move which some day the Dinsmores would make to bring them within reach of the law.

On one of its trips in the early fall, the Clarendon stage left town almost half an hour late. It carried with it a secret, but everybody on board had heard a whisper of it. There was a gold shipment in the box consigned to Tascosa. A smooth-faced Ranger sat beside the driver with a rifle across his knees. He had lately been appointed to the force, and this was one of his first assignments. Perhaps that was why Arthur Ridley was a little conscious of his new buckskin suit and the importance of his job.

The passengers were three. One was a jolly Irish mule-skinner with a picturesque vocabulary and an inimitable brogue. The second wore the black suit and low-crowned hat of a clergyman, and yellow goggles to protect his eyes from the sun. He carried a roll of Scriptural charts such as are used in Sunday-Schools. The third was an angular and spectacled schoolmarm, for Tascosa was going to celebrate by starting a school.

Most of those on board were a trifle nervous. The driver was not quite at his ease; nor was the shotgun messenger. For somehow word had got out a day or two in advance of the gold shipment that it was to be sent on that date. The passengers, too, had faint doubts about the wisdom of going to Tascosa on that particular trip.

The first twenty miles of the journey were safely covered. The stage drew near to the place where now is located the famous Goodnight cattalo ranch.

From the farther side of a cut in the road came a sharp order to the driver. Two men had ridden out from the brush and were moving beside the stage. Each of them carried a rifle.

The driver leaned backward on the reins with a loud "Whoa!" It was an article of faith with him never to argue with a road-agent.

Ridley swung round to fire. From the opposite side of the road a shot rang out. Two more horsemen had appeared. The reins slid from the hands of the driver, and he himself from the seat. His body struck the wheel on the way to the ground. The bullet intended for the armed guard had passed through his head.

In the packed moments that followed, a dozen shots were fired, most of them by the outlaws, two by the man on the box. A bullet struck Arthur in the elbow, and the shock of it for a time paralyzed his arm. The rifle clattered against the singletree in its fall. But the shortest of the outlaws was sagging in his saddle and clutching at the pommel to support himself.

From an unexpected quarter there came a diversion. With one rapid gesture the man in the clergyman's garb had brushed aside his yellow goggles; with another he had stripped the outer cover of charts from his roll and revealed a sawed-off shotgun. As he stepped down to the road, he fired from his hip. The whole force of the load of buckshot took the nearest outlaw in the vitals and lifted him from his horse. Before he struck the ground he was dead.

In the flash of an eye the tide of battle had turned. The surprise of seeing the clergyman galvanized into action tipped the scale. One moment the treasure lay unguarded within reach of the outlaws; the next saw their leader struck down as by a bolt from heaven.

The lank bandit ripped out a sudden oath of alarm from behind the handkerchief he wore as a mask and turned his horse in its tracks. He dug home his spurs and galloped for the brow of the hill. The other unwounded robber backed away more deliberately, covering the retreat of his injured companion. Presently they, too, had passed over the top of the hill and disappeared.

The ex-clergyman turned to the treasure-guard. "How bad is it with you, Art?" he asked gently.

That young man grinned down a little wanly at Jack Roberts. He felt suddenly nauseated and ill. This business of shooting men and being shot at filled him with horror.

"Not so bad. I got it in the arm, Jack. Poor old Hank will never drive again."

The Ranger who had been camouflaged as a clergyman stooped to examine the driver. That old-timer's heart had stopped beating. "He's gone on his last long trip, Art."

"This schoolmarm lady has fainted," announced the mule-skinner.

"She's got every right in the world to faint. In Iowa, where she comes from, folks live in peace. Better sprinkle water on her face, Mike."

Jack moved over to the dead outlaw and lifted the bandana mask from the face. "Pete Dinsmore, just like I thought," he told Ridley. "Well, he had to have it—couldn't learn his lesson any other way."

Roberts drove the stage with its load of dead and wounded back to Clarendon. As quickly as possible he gathered a small posse to follow the bandits. Hampered as the outlaws were with a badly wounded man, there was a good chance of running them to earth at last. Before night he and his deputies were far out on the plains following a trail that led toward Palo Duro Canon.



CHAPTER XXXIII

THE MAN WITH THE YELLOW STREAK

Night fell on both a dry and fireless camp for the outlaws who had tried to rob the Clarendon-Tascosa stage. They had covered a scant twenty miles instead of the eighty they should have put behind them. For Dave Overstreet had been literally dying in the saddle every step of the way.

He had clenched his teeth and clung to the pommel desperately. Once he had fainted and slid from his seat. But the bandits could not stop and camp, though Dinsmore kept the pace to a walk.

"Once we reach Palo Duro, we'll hole up among the rocks an' fix you up fine, Dave," his companion kept promising.

"Sure, Homer. I'm doin' dandy," the wounded man would answer from white, bloodless lips.

The yellow streak in Gurley was to the fore all day. It evidenced itself in his precipitate retreat from the field of battle—a flight which carried him miles across the desert before he dared wait for his comrades. It showed again in the proposal which he made early in the afternoon to Dinsmore.

The trio of outlaws had been moving very slowly on account of the suffering of the wounded man. Gurley kept looking back nervously every few minutes to see if pursuers were visible. After a time he sidled up to Dinsmore and spoke low.

"They'll get us sure if we don't move livelier, Homer."

"How in Mexico can we move faster when Dave can't stand it?" asked Dinsmore impatiently.

"He's a mighty sick man. He hadn't ought to be on horseback at all. He needs a doctor."

"Will you go an' get him one?" demanded Homer with sour sarcasm.

"What I say is, let's fix him up comfortable, an' after a while mebbe a posse will come along an' pick him up. They can look after him better than we got a chance to do," argued Gurley.

"And mebbe a posse won't find him—what then?" rasped Dinsmore.

"They will. If they don't, he'll die easy. This is sure enough hell for him now."

"All right. Shall we stop right here with him?"

"That wouldn't do any good, Homer. The Rangers would get us too."

"I see. Yore idea is to let Dave die easy while we're savin' our hides. Steve, you've got a streak in you a foot wide."

"Nothin' like that," protested the man with the eyes that didn't track. "I'd stay by him if it was any use. But it ain't. Whyfor should you an' me stretch a rope when we can't help Dave a mite? It ain't reasonable."

Overstreet could not hear what was said, but he guessed the tenor of their talk. "Go ahead, boys, an' leave me. I'm about done anyhow," he said.

"If Gurley has a mind to go, he can. I'll stick," answered Dinsmore gruffly.

But Gurley did not want to go alone. There were possible dangers to be faced that two men could meet a good deal more safely than one. It might be that they would have to stand off a posse. They might meet Indians. The sallow outlaw felt that he could not afford just now to break with his companion. It was not likely that the Rangers would reach them that night, and he guessed craftily that Overstreet would not live till morning. The wound was a very serious one. The man had traveled miles before Dinsmore could stop to give him such slight first aid as was possible, and the jolting of the long horseback ride had made it difficult to stop the bleeding which broke out again and again.

After Dinsmore had eased the wounded man from his horse at dusk and laid him on a blanket with a saddle for a pillow, Overstreet smiled faintly up at him.

"It won't be for long, Homer. You'll be shet of me right soon now," he murmured.

"Don't you talk that-a-way, Dave. I don't want to be shet of you. After a good night's rest you'll feel a new man."

"No, I've got more than I can pack. It won't be long now. I'm right comfortable here. Steve's in a hurry. You go on an' hit the trail with him."

"Where did you get the notion I was yellow, old-timer? I've hunted in couples with you for years. Do you reckon I'm goin' to run like a cur now you've struck a streak o' bad luck?" asked Dinsmore huskily.

The dying man smiled his thanks. "You always was a stubborn son-of-a-gun, Homer. But Steve, he wants—"

"Steve can go to—Hell Creek, if he's so set on travelin' in a hurry. Here, drink some of this water."

The blanket of darkness fell over the land. Stars came out, at first one or two, then by thousands, till the night was full of them. The wounded man dozed and stirred and dozed again. It was plain that the sands of his life were running low. Dinsmore, watching beside him, knew that it was the ebb tide.

A little after midnight Overstreet roused himself, recognized the watcher, and nodded good-bye.

"So long, Homer. I'm hittin' the home trail now."

His hand groped feebly till it found that of his friend. A few minutes later he died, still holding the strong warm hand of the man who was nursing him.

Dinsmore crossed the hands of the dead outlaw and covered him with a blanket.

"Saddle up, Steve," he told Gurley.

While he waited for the horses, he looked down with a blur over his eyes. He had ridden hard and crooked trails all his life, but he had lost that day his brother and his best friend. The three of them had been miscreants. They had broken the laws of society and had fought against it because of the evil in them that had made them a destructive force. But they had always played fair with each other. They had at least been loyal to their own bad code. Now he was alone, for Gurley did not count.

Presently the other man stood at his elbow with the saddled horses. Dinsmore swung to the saddle and rode away. Not once did he look back, but he had no answer for Gurley's cheerful prediction that now they would reach Palo Duro Canon all right and would hole up there till the pursuit had spent itself, after which they could amble down across the line to Old Mexico or could strike the Pecos and join Billy the Kid. Only one idea was fixed definitely in his mind, that as soon as he could, he would part company with the man riding beside him.

When day came, it found them riding westward in the direction of Deaf Smith County. The Canon was not far south of them, but there was no need of plunging into it yet. The pursuit must be hours behind them, even if their trail had not been lost altogether. They rode easily, prepared to camp at the first stream or water-hole they reached.

"We'll throw off here," Dinsmore decided at the first brook they reached.

They unsaddled and hobbled their horses. While Gurley lighted a fire for the coffee, the other man strolled up the creek to get a shot at any small game he might find. Presently a brace of prairie-chickens rose with a whir of wings. The rifle cracked, and one of them fell fluttering to the ground. Dinsmore moved forward to pick up the bird.

Abruptly he stopped in his stride. He fancied he heard a faint cry. It came again, carried on the light morning breeze. He could have sworn that it was the call of a woman for help.

Dinsmore grew wary. He knew the tricks of the Indians, the wily ways with which they lured men into ambush. There had been rumors for days that the Indians were out again. Yet it was not like Indians to announce their presence before they pounced upon their prey. He moved very slowly forward under cover of the brush along the bed of the stream.

The voice came to him again, closer this time, and in spite of the distance clear as a bell. It was surely that of a white woman in trouble. Still he did not answer as he crept forward up the stream.

Then he caught sight of her—a girl, slim and young, stumbling forward through the grass, exhaustion showing in every line of the body.

She stretched out her hands to him across the space between, with a little despairing cry.



CHAPTER XXXIV

RAMONA GOES DUCK-HUNTING

"I'm going duck-hunting, Daddy," announced Ramona one evening at supper. "Quint Sullivan is going with me. We're to get up early in the morning and leave before daybreak."

They had been back at the ranch several weeks, and 'Mona was tired of practicing on the piano and reading Scott's novels after her work about the house was done. She was restless. Her father had noticed it and wondered why. He would have been amazed to learn that the longing to see or hear about a certain brindle-haired former line-rider of his had anything to do with her unrest. Indeed, Ramona did not confess this even to herself. She tried to think that she had been cooped up in the house too long. Hence the duck-hunting as an escape.

"All right, honey. I'll give Quint notice who his boss is to-morrow."

"I've already given him his orders, Dad," his daughter said, with a saucy little moue at her father.

Clint chuckled. "'Nough said. When you give orders I take a back seat. Every rider on the place knows that. I'm the most henpecked dad in Texas."

By daybreak Ramona and her escort were several miles from the ranch on their way to the nearest lake. Quint was a black-haired, good-looking youth who rode the range for the A T O outfit. Like most of the unmarried men about her between the ages of fifteen and fifty, he imagined himself in love with the daughter of the boss. He had no expectation whatever of marrying her. He would as soon have thought of asking Wadley to give him a deed to the ranch as he would of mentioning to Ramona the state of his feelings. But that young woman, in spite of her manner of frank innocence, knew quite accurately how matters stood, just as she knew that in due time Quint would transfer his misplaced affections to some more reciprocal object of them.

Her particular reason for selecting Quint as her companion of the day was that he happened to be a devoted admirer of Jack Roberts. All one needed to do was to mention the Ranger to set him off on a string of illustrative anecdotes, and Ramona was hungry for the very sound of his name. One advantage in talking to young Sullivan about his friend was that the ingenuous youth would never guess that the subject of their conversation had been chosen by her rather than by him.

"Did I ever tell you, Miss Ramona, about the time Texas an' me went to Denver? Gentlemen, hush! We ce'tainly had one large time."

"You boys ought not to spend your time in the saloons whenever you go to town. It isn't good for you," reproved the sage young woman who was "going-on seventeen."

She was speaking for a purpose, and Quint very innocently answered the question in her mind.

"No, ma'am. I reckon you're right. But we didn't infest the saloons none that time. Texas, he's one of these here good bad-men. He's one sure-enough tough nut, an' I'd hate to try to crack him, but the queer thing is he don't drink or chew or go hellin' around with the boys. But, say, he's some live lad, lemme tell you. What do you reckon he pulled off on me whilst we was in Denver?"

"Some foolishness, I suppose," said Ramona severely, but she was not missing a word.

"He meets up with a newspaper guy an' gets to fillin' him plumb full o' misinformation about me. To hear him tell it I was the white-haired guy from the Panhandle an' had come to Denver for to hunt a girl to marry. Well, that reporter he goes back an' writes a piece in his paper about how it was the chance of a lifetime for any onmarried fe-male, of even disposition an' pleasin' appearance, between the ages of twenty an' thirty-five, to marry a guaranteed Texas cowpuncher, warranted kind an' sound an' to run easy in double harness. An' would the ladies please come early to the St. Peter hotel an' inquire for Mr. Quint Sullivan."

"Did any of them come?" asked Ramona, her eyes dancing.

"Did they? Wow! They swarmed up the stairs an' crowded the elevators, while that doggoned Tex sicked 'em on me. Honest, I didn't know there was so many onmarried ladies in the world."

"How did you escape?" asked the girl, well aware that he was drawing the long bow.

"Ma'am, the fire department rescued me. But I ce'tainly did lie awake the balance of the trip tryin' to get even with Jack Roberts. But it's no manner of use. He lands right-side up every time."

After they had reached Crane Lake the cowpuncher tied the horses while Ramona started around to the far side, following the shore line and keeping her eyes open for ducks. The girl made a half-circuit of the lake without getting a shot. There were ducks enough to be seen, but as yet none of them were within range.

It might have been half an hour after Ramona left Sullivan that there came a shot from the other side of the lake. It was followed almost immediately by a second, a third, and a fourth. 'Mona caught sight of Quint running fast toward the horses. Her heart felt a sudden constriction as of an iron band tightening upon it, for half a dozen mounted Indians were in hot pursuit. She saw the boy reach the nearest bronco, jerk loose the bridle rein, vault to the saddle, and gallop away, lying low on the back of the horse. The Indians fired from their horses as they rode, but the man flying for his life did not take time to shoot.

For a moment 'Mona stood in plain view by the lake shore. Then she dropped among the rushes, her heart fluttering wildly like that of a forest bird held captive in the hand. She was alone, at the mercy of twoscore of hostile Indians. They would know that the cowboy had a companion because of the second bronco, and as soon as they returned from the pursuit they would begin a search for her. Perhaps they might not even wait till then. 'Mona lay there in despair while one might have counted a hundred. During that time she gave herself up for lost. She could neither move nor think. But presently there flowed back into her heart a faint hope. Perhaps she had not yet been seen. There was a little arroyo farther to the left. If she could reach it, still unnoticed, at least she could then run for her life.

She crept through the rushes on hands and knees, sinking sometimes wrist-deep in water. There was one stretch of perhaps thirty yards at the end of the rushes that had to be taken without cover. She flew across the open, a miracle of supple lightness, reached the safety of the little gulch, and ran as she had never run before. Every moment she expected to hear the crash of the pursuers breaking through the brush.

On the ranch she had lived largely an outdoor life, and in spite of her slenderness was lithe and agile. Beneath her soft flesh hard muscles flowed, for she had known the sting of sleet and the splash of sun. But the rapid climb had set her heart pumping fast. Her speed began to slacken.

Near the summit was a long, uptilted stratum of rock which led to the left and dipped over the ridge. She followed this because no tracks would here betray where she had escaped. For almost a quarter of a mile she descended on the outcropping quartz, flying in an ecstasy of terror from the deadly danger that might at any instant appear on the crest of the divide behind her.

Ramona came to a cleft in the huge boulder, a deep, narrow gash that looked as if it might have been made by a sword stroke of the gods. She peered into the shadowy gulf, but could not see the bottom of the fissure. A pebble dropped by her took so long to strike that she knew the chasm must be deep.

If she could get down into it, perhaps she might hide from the savages. It was her one possible chance of escape. The girl moved along the edge of the precipice trying to find a way down that was not sheer. An arrowweed thicket had struggled up from a jutting spar of rock. Below this was a ridge where her foot might find a support. Beyond was a rock wall that disappeared into empty space. But 'Mona could not choose. She must take this or nothing.

By means of the arrowweed she lowered herself over the edge while her foot groped for the spar of quartz. Her last look up the hill showed Indians pouring across the ridge in pursuit. Without hesitation she chose the chances of death in the cavern to the certainty of the torture waiting for her outside. Foot by foot she lowered herself, making the most of every irregularity in the rock wall that offered a grip for hand or foot. The distance down seemed interminable. She worked herself into a position where she could move neither up nor down. While her foot was searching for a brace one of her hands slipped and she went the rest of the way with a rush.

For a time she lay there in the darkness, shaken and bruised by the fall, a sharp pain shooting through one of her legs just above the ankle. During those minutes of daze voices came to her from the slit of light above. The painted face of an Apache leaned over the edge of the wall and looked into the gulf.

The girl made not the least movement. She did not stir to relieve the pain of her leg. Scarcely did she dare breathe lest the sound of it might reach those above.

The Apaches began to fire into the fissure. Ramona noiselessly dragged herself close to the overhanging wall. Shot after shot was flung into the cavern at random. Fortunately for Ramona the strain of the situation relaxed abruptly. A wave of light-headedness seemed to carry her floating into space. She fainted.

When she came to herself no sound reached the girl from above. The Indians had no doubt concluded that their victim was not in the cavern and taken up the pursuit again. But she knew the cunning of the Apache. Probably one or two braves had been left to watch the cleft. She lay quite still and listened. All she could hear was the fearful beating of her heart.

For hours she lay there without making a sound. The patience of the Apache is proverbial. It was possible they knew where she was and were waiting for her to deliver herself to them.

'Mona had one ghastly comfort. The little revolver she had brought along with which to shoot rattlesnakes was still in its scabbard by her side. If they would give her only a moment or two of warning, she would never fall alive into the hands of the redskins.

Time was unmarked for her in the darkness of the cavern. She could not tell whether it was still morning or whether the afternoon was nearing an end. Such a day, so full of dreadful horrors, so long from morning till night, she had never before passed. It seemed to her that a week of hours had come and gone before the light above began to fade.



CHAPTER XXXV

THE DESERT

It was only recently that Clint Wadley had become a man of wealth, and life in the Panhandle was even yet very primitive according to present-day standards. There was no railroad within one hundred and fifty miles of the A T O ranch. Once in two weeks one of the cowboys rode to Clarendon to get the mail and to buy small supplies. Otherwise contact with the world was limited to occasional visits to town.

As a little girl Ramona had lived in a one-room house built of round logs, with a stick-and-mud chimney, a door of clapboards daubed with mud at the chinks, and a dirt floor covered with puncheons. She had slept in a one-legged bedstead fitted into the wall, through the sides and ends of which bed, at intervals of eight inches, holes had been bored to admit of green rawhide strips for slats. She had sat on a home-made three-legged stool at a home-made table in homespun clothes and eaten a dish of cush[8] for her supper. She had watched her aunt make soap out of lye dripping from an ash-hopper. The only cooking utensils in the house had been a Dutch oven, a three-legged skillet, a dinner-pot, a tea-kettle, a big iron shovel, and a pair of pot-hooks suspended from an iron that hung above the open fire.

But those were memories of her childhood in southern Texas. With the coming of prosperity Clint had sent his children to Tennessee to school, and Ramona had been patiently trained to the feebleness of purpose civilization in those days demanded of women of her class and section. She had been taught to do fancy needlework and to play the piano as a parlor accomplishment. It had been made plain to her that her business in life was to marry and keep the home fires burning, and her schooling had been designed, not to prepare her as a mate for her future husband, but to fit her with the little graces that might entice him into choosing her for a wife.

Upon her return to the ranch Ramona had compromised between her training and her inheritance. She took again to horseback riding and to shooting, even though she read a good deal and paid due attention to her pink-and-white complexion.

So that when she looked up from the cavern in which she was buried and caught a gleam of a star in the slit of blue sky above, she was not so helpless as her schooling had been designed to make her. The girl was compact of supple strength. Endurance and a certain toughness of fiber had come to her from old Clint Wadley.

She began the climb, taking advantage of every bit of roughness, of every projection in the almost sheer wall. A knob of feldspar, a stunted shrub growing from a crevice, a fault in the rock structure, offered here and there toe-or hand-holds. She struggled upward, stopped more than once by the smooth surface against which her soft warm body was pressing. On such occasions she would lower herself again, turn to the right or the left, and work toward another objective.

Ramona knew that the least slip, the slightest failure of any one of her muscles, would send her plunging down to the bottom of the crevasse. The worst of it was that she could not put any dependence upon her injured leg. It might see her through or it might not.

It was within a few feet of the top, just below the arrowweed bush, that she came to an impasse. The cold wall offered no hand-hold by which she could gain the few inches that would bring her within reach of the bunched roots. She undid her belt, threw one end of it over the body of the bush, and worked it carefully down until she could buckle it. By means of this she went up hand over hand till she could reach the arrowweed. Her knee found support in the loop of the belt, and in another moment she had zigzagged herself inch by inch over the edge to the flat surface above.

No sign of the Apaches was to be seen. 'Mona recovered her belt and began to move up the rock spur toward the summit of the hill. A sound stopped her in her tracks. It was the beating of a tom-tom.

She knew the Indians must be camped by the lake. They were probably having a feast and dances. In any case she could not strike direct for home. She must keep on this side of the hill, make a wide circuit, and come in from the west.

Already her leg was paining her a good deal. Since five o'clock in the morning she had eaten nothing. Her throat was parched with thirst. But these were details that must be forgotten. She had to tramp more than twenty miles through the desert regardless of her physical condition.

The girl went at it doggedly. She limped along, getting wearier every mile of the way. But it was not until she discovered that she was lost to all sense of direction that she broke down and wept. The land here was creased by swales, one so like another that in the darkness she had gone astray and did not know north from south.

After tears came renewed resolution. She tried to guide herself by the stars, but though she could hold a straight course there was no assurance in her mind that she was going toward the A T O. Each step might be taking her farther from home. A lime kiln burned in her throat. She was so worn out from lack of food and the tremendous strain under which she had been carrying on that her knees buckled under her weight as she stumbled through the sand. The bad ankle complained continuously.

In this vast solitude there was something weird and eerie that shook her courage. Nor was the danger all fantastic imaginings. The Indians might yet discover her. She might wander far from beaten trails of travel and die of thirst as so many newcomers had done. Possibilities of disaster trooped through her mind.

She was still a child, on the sunny side of seventeen. So it was natural that when she sat down to rest her ankle she presently began to sob again, and that in her exhaustion she cried herself to sleep.

When her eyes opened, the sun was peeping over the desert horizon. She could tell directions now. The A T O ranch must be far to the northeast of where she was. But scarcely a mile from her ran a line of straggling brush. It must be watered by a stream. She hobbled forward painfully to relieve the thirst that was already a torment to her.

She breasted the rise of a little hill and looked down a gentle slope toward the thicket. For a moment her heart lost a beat. A trickle of smoke was rising from a camp-fire and a man was bending over it. He was in the clothes of a white man. Simultaneously there came to her the sound of a shot.

From her parched throat there came a bleating little cry. She hurried forward, and as she went she called again and still again. She was pitifully anxious lest the campers ride away before they should discover her.

A man with a gun in his hand moved toward her from the creek. She gave a little sobbing cry and stumbled toward him.

[Footnote 8: Cush is made of old corn bread and biscuits in milk, beaten to a batter and fried in bacon grease with salt.]



CHAPTER XXXVI

HOMER DINSMORE ESCORTS RAMONA

"I'm lost!" cried Ramona.

"Where from?" asked Dinsmore.

"From the A T O."

"You're Clint Wadley's daughter, then?"

She nodded. "We met Indians. I ... got away."

The girl knelt beside the brook, put her hands on two stones that jutted up from the water, and drank till her thirst was assuaged.

"I'm hungry," she said simply, after she had risen.

He led her back to the camp-fire and on the way picked up the bird he had shot. 'Mona saw that he noticed her limp, though he said nothing about it.

"I had an accident," she explained. "Fell down a rock wall while I was getting away from the 'Paches."

"They're out again, are they—the devils?" He asked another question. "You said 'we.' Who was with you when the Indians took after you?"

"Quint Sullivan. I was on the other side of Crane Lake from him and heard shots. I saw Quint running for the horses with the 'Paches after him."

"Did he get away?"

She shuddered. "He reached the horses. They rode after him. I don't know whether...." Her voice thinned away.

The man at the camp-fire turned, and at sight of them dropped a sudden, startled oath.

Ramona looked at him, then at Dinsmore. A faint tremor passed through her slight body. She knew now who these men were.

"What's she doin' here?" demanded Gurley.

"She's lost. The 'Paches are out, Steve."

"Where are they?"

"Up at Crane Lake last night."

"Are they headed this way?"

"Don't know. She"—with a jerk of his thumb toward Ramona—"bumped into 'em an' got away."

"We'd better light a shuck out o' here," said Gurley, visibly disturbed.

"Why? They ain't liable to come this way more than any other. We'll have breakfast an' talk things over. Fix up this bird, Steve. Cook it in the skillet. She's hungry."

Ramona observed that both the men referred to her as she whenever any reference was made to her.

While they ate breakfast the girl told the story of her experience. Dinsmore watched her with a reluctant admiration. The lines of her figure drooped with weariness, but fatigue could not blot out the grace of her young vitality.

"When can we start for home?" Ramona asked after she had eaten.

"For the A T O?" asked the lank, sallow outlaw brutally. "What's ailin' you? Think we're goin' to take you home with the 'Paches between us an' there? We ain't plumb crazy."

"But I must get home right away. My father—he'll be frightened about me."

"Will he?" jeered Gurley. "If he knew you was in such good company he'd be real easy in his mind." The man flashed a look at her that made the girl burn with shame.

"We could go round an' miss the 'Paches," suggested Ramona timidly.

"Forget that notion," answered Gurley, and there was a flash of cruelty in his eyes. "Mebbe you misremember that I'm obligated to you, miss, for what that condemned Ranger Roberts did to me when I fell over the box in front of the store. We'll settle accounts whilst you're here, I reckon."

The girl appealed to Dinsmore. "You're not going to let him ... mistreat me, are you?"

The pathos of her situation, the slim, helpless, wonderful youth of the girl, touched the not very accessible heart of Dinsmore.

"You bet I'm not. He'll cut out that kind o' talk right now," he said.

The eyes of Ramona met his, and she knew she was safe. This man had the respect for a good woman that was characteristic of the turbulent West in its most lawless days. He might be a miscreant and a murderer, but he would fight at the drop of a hat in response to the appeal of any woman who was "straight."

"Playin' up to Clint, are you, Homer?" sneered the other man. "You better take her straight home like she wants, since you're so friendly to the family."

"That's exactly what I'm goin' to do," retorted Dinsmore. "Any objections?"

Gurley dropped his sneer instantly. His alarm voiced itself in a wheedling apology. "I didn't go for to rile you, Homer. O' course you cayn't do that. We got to stick together. The Indians is one reason. An' there's another. No need for me to tell you what it is."

"You'll have to wait for me in the canon till I get back. It's not far from here to you-know-where. I'm goin' to take the horses an' see this girl back to her home."

"You're good," Ramona said simply.

"You're not figurin' on takin' my horse, are you?" Gurley burst out with an oath.

"You've done guessed it, Steve. You'll have to hoof it into the canon."

"Like hell I will. Take another think, my friend."

The eyes of the men clashed, one pair filled with impotent rage, the other cold and hard as polished steel on a frosty morning.

Gurley yielded sullenly. "It's no square deal, Homer. We didn't bring her here. Why cayn't she go along with us an' hole up till the 'Paches are gone an' till ... things kinda settle down?"

"Because she's got no business with folks like us. Her place is back at the A T O, an' that's where I aim to take her. She's had one hell of a time, if you ask me. What that kid needs is for her home folks to tuck her up in bed an' send her to sleep. She's had about all the trouble a li'l' trick like her can stand, I shouldn't wonder."

"You ain't her nurse," growled Gurley.

"That's why I'm goin' to take her home to those that are. 'Nuff said, Steve. What I say goes."

"You act mighty high-heeled," grumbled the other man.

"Mebbeso," replied Dinsmore curtly. "Saddle the horses, Steve."

"I dunno as I'm yore horse-rustler," mumbled Gurley, smothering his sullen rage. None the less he rose slowly and shuffled away toward the hobbled horses.

'Mona touched Dinsmore on the sleeve. Her soft eyes poured gratitude on him. "I'll remember this as long as I live. No matter what anybody says I'll always know that you're good."

The blood crept up beneath the tan of the outlaw's face. It had been many years since an innocent child had made so naive a confession of faith in him. He was a bad-man, and he knew it. But at the core of him was a dynamic spark of self-respect that had always remained alight. He had ridden crooked trails through all his gusty lifetime. His hand had been against every man's, but at least he had fought fair and been loyal to his pals. And there had never been a time when a good woman need be afraid to look him in the face.

"Sho! Nothin' to that. I gotta take you home so as you won't be in the way," he told her with a touch of embarrassed annoyance.

No man alive knew this country better than Homer Dinsmore. Every draw was like its neighbor, every rolling rise a replica of the next. But the outlaw rode as straight a course as if his road had been marked out for him by stakes across the plains. He knew that he might be riding directly toward a posse of Rangers headed for Palo Duro to round up the stage robbers. He could not help that. He would have to take his chance of an escape in case they met such a posse.

The sun climbed high in the heavens.

"How far do you think we are now from the ranch?" asked Ramona.

"Most twenty miles. We've been swingin' well to the left. I reckon we can cut in now."

They climbed at a walk a little hill and looked across a wide sweep of country before them. Ramona gave a startled cry and pointed an outstretched finger at some riders emerging from a dry wash.

"'Paches!" cried Dinsmore. "Back over the hill, girl."

They turned, but too late. On the breeze there came to them a yell that sent the blood from 'Mona's heart.



CHAPTER XXXVII

ON A HOT TRAIL

Roberts picked up from the fort a Mescalero Apache famous as a trailer. He reckoned to be rather expert in that line himself, but few white men could boast of such skill as old Guadaloupe had.

Jumbo Wilkins was one of the posse Jack had hastily gathered. "I'm good an' glad I was in town an' not out herdin' vacas, Tex. A fellow kinda needs a little excitement oncet in a while. I got a hunch we're goin' to git these birds this time."

"You're the greatest little optimist I ever did see, Jumbo," answered the Ranger with a smile. "We're goin' to strike a cold trail of men who know every inch of this country an' are ridin' hell-for-leather to make a get-away. We're liable to ride our broncs to shadows an' never see hair or hide of the fellows we want. I'd like to know what license you've got for yore hunch."

"You're such a lucky guy, Tex. If you was lookin' for a needle in a haystack you'd find it in yore mouth when you picked up a straw to chew on."

"Lucky, nothin'. A man makes his own luck, I always did tell you, an' I haven't bumped into any yet. You don't see any big bunch of fat cows with my brand on 'em, do you? I'm pluggin' along for a dollar a day with a promise from Cap Ellison that I'll probably cash in soon with my boots on. Old Man Luck always hides behind the door when I pass, if there's any such Santa Claus in the business."

"All the way you look at it. Didn't Clint Wadley offer you the job of bossin' the best cow-ranch in the Panhandle?"

"An' didn't I have to turn down his offer an' hang on to a dollar-a-day job?"

"Then you saved Miss 'Mona from that bull an' made a friend of her."

"Yes, an' then I butted in an' kept the Kiowas from mussin' up Art Ridley, who is liable to ask me to stand up with him when he marries Miss Ramona," added the Ranger.

"Shucks! She'll never marry Ridley so long as you're runnin' around unbranded, son."

"A lot you know about girls, Jumbo," said Roberts with a rueful grin. "I don't know sic' 'em about the things they like. I'm one chaparral-raised roughneck. That little lady never wasted two thoughts on me. But Art—he knows a lot about books an' style an' New York's four hundred. He's good to look at, clean, knows how to talk, an' makes a sure-enough hit with the girls."

"He's a sissy boy beside you. No Texas girl would look twice—"

"Nothin' a-tall to that. Didn't he save Clint Wadley's life? Didn't he stay by Dinsmore when the Kiowas had 'em holed? He fought good enough to get shot up this mo'nin', didn't he? No, sir. You'll find he's got me backed off the map so far as Miss Ramona goes. I know it, old-timer."

"Where do you get that notion you're a roughneck, Tex?" asked Jumbo. "You've read more books than any man on the range. You don't hell around like most of the boys. You don't drink. Mebbe you ain't exactly pretty, but yore face doesn't scare critters when they see it onexpected. An' when the band begins to play—Gentlemen, watch Tex."

"If the girls would only let you do the pickin' for 'em, Jumbo," suggested Roberts with his sardonic smile.

Through rabbit weed and curly mesquite, among the catclaw and the prickly pear, they followed the faint ribbon trail left by the outlaws in their retreat from the scene of the hold-up.

When it was too late to cut sign any longer, the Ranger gave orders to throw in to a small draw where the grass was good. At daybreak they were on the trail again and came within the hour to the body of Overstreet. They dug a grave in a buffalo run with their knives and buried the body as well as they could before they picked up again the tracks of two horses now traveling much faster.

"They're headin' for Palo Duro, looks like,'" commented Roberts.

"Looks like," agreed his friend.

Early in the afternoon the posse reached the little creek where the outlaws had breakfasted. Old Guadaloupe crisscrossed the ground like a bloodhound as he read what was written there. But before he made any report Roberts himself knew that a third person had joined the fugitives and that this recruit was a woman. The Ranger followed the Apache upstream, guessed by some feathers and some drops of blood that one of the outlaws had shot a prairie-hen, and read some hint of the story of the meeting between the woman and the bandit.

Was this woman some one who had been living in Palo Duro Canon with the outlaws? Or was this meeting an accidental one? The odd thing about it was that there was no sign of her horse. She had come on foot, in a country where nobody ever travels that way.

Roberts told Guadaloupe to find out where the party had gone from the camp. He himself followed into the desert the footsteps of the woman who had come across it toward the creek. He was puzzled and a little disturbed in mind. She had not come from the canon. What was a woman doing alone and on foot in this desert empty of human life for fifty miles or more?

He found no answer to his questions and reluctantly returned to the camp-fire. Guadaloupe was ready with his report. One man had started out on foot along the edge of the canon. The other man and the woman had struck on horseback across the plain.

"We'll follow those on horseback," decided the Ranger at once. He could not have told why the urgent impulse was on him to do this, nor why he did not split his party and send part of his men in pursuit of the foot traveler. Later he laid it to what Jumbo would have called a hunch.

He was puzzled by the direction the two riders were taking. It led neither to the A T O nor to Tascosa, and was making no account of the streams where the travelers would have to find water. They seemed to be plunging ignorantly into the desert, but since Gurley or Dinsmore was one of the two this could not be. Either of these men could have traveled the Panhandle blindfolded.

They followed the tracks for hours. The line of travel was so direct that it told of purpose. Dinsmore—if the man were Dinsmore—evidently knew just what he was doing. Then, abruptly, the tracks pointed to the right, straight for the A T O.

But not for long. At the summit of a little rise the riders had plainly stopped for a few moments, then had turned and galloped fast for the southwest. The lengthening tracks, the sharpness of them, the carelessness with which the riders took the rougher ground to follow a straight line, all suggested an urgent and imperative reason.

That reason became plain to Roberts in another minute. A great number of tracks swept in from the left and blotted out those of the two flying riders.

"Chiricahua Apaches," grunted Guadaloupe. The scout had a feud with that branch of the tribe and was at war with them.

"How many?" questioned Jack.

The Indian held up the fingers of both hands, closed them, opened them, and a third time shut and lifted the fingers.

"Thirty?" asked the Ranger.

The Apache nodded.

"Dinsmore 's makin' for Palo Duro," remarked Wilkins as they followed at a canter the plain trail marked for them. "I'll bet he don't throw down on himself none on that race either. He's sure hell-bent on gettin' there."

One of the riders called to the Rangers. "Look over to the left, Tex. We got company."

A little group of riders—three, four, five of them—emerged from behind a clump of Spanish bayonet and signaled with a bandana handkerchief. As they rode closer the heart of the Ranger died under his ribs. His stomach muscles tightened, and he felt a prickling of the skin run down his back. For Clint Wadley rode at the head of these men, and like a flash of lightning the truth had seared across the brain of Jack Roberts. His daughter was the woman riding to escape from the savages.

The face of Wadley confirmed the guess of the Ranger. On the unshaven face of the cattleman dust was caked. His eyes were red and inflamed from the alkali and the tears he had fought back fifty times. The expression of the man was that of one passing through the torments of hell.

In five broken sentences he told his story. Quint Sullivan, escaping from his pursuers after a thirty-mile run, had reached the ranch in the middle of the night. Clint had gathered together such men as were at hand and started at once. At Crane Lake he had found no trace of her. He could not escape the conviction that the Apaches had captured Ramona and taken her with them.

On this last point the Ranger offered him comfort, though it was sorry comfort at that. Five hours ago she was still safe, but in terrible danger.

"Dinsmore's a man—none gamer in Texas, Mr. Wadley. He won't desert her," said Jumbo. "You couldn't 'a' picked a better man to look out for her."

"How do you know it's Dinsmore? Perhaps it's that yellow wolf Gurley," answered the father out of his tortured heart.

Jack was riding on the other side of Wadley. He, too, carried with him a private hell of fear in his heart, but he knew that the big cattleman was nearly insane with anxiety.

"Because the man with Miss Ramona was takin' her back to the ranch when they bumped into the 'Paches. You know Steve Gurley would never have taken her home in the world," replied the Ranger.

"What can one man do against thirty? He'll do what Quint here did—run to save his own hide."

Young Sullivan winced. It was the truth. He had run and left the girl to the mercy of these devils. But his one chance of helping her had been to run. He tried to say as much.

"I know that, Quint. I'm not blamin' you," broke out the father in his agony. "But my little lamb—in the hands of 'Paches—God!" Wadley covered his eyes with his hand and tried to press back from his brain the horrible visions he kept seeing.

Jumbo stuck to his one valid point. "Bite yore teeth into this, Clint. She's got ridin' beside her as game a man as ever threw his leg over leather. He knows this country like you do yore ranch. He'll hole up in Palo Duro where the 'Paches won't find 'em, an' if the devils do he'll sure stand 'em off till we blow in."

His friend on the other side of the cattleman backed him up strongly, but the heart of the Ranger was heavy with dread.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

DINSMORE TO THE RESCUE

If 'Mona lives to be eighty the high-lights of that wild ride will never fade from her memory. The mesas rolled in long swells as far as the eye could see. Through the chaparral the galloping horses plunged while the prickly pear and the cholla clutched at their flanks and at the legs of the riders. Into water-gutted arroyos they descended, slid down breakneck shale ridges, climbed like heather cats the banks of dry washes, pounded over white porous malpais on which no vegetation grew.

Now Dinsmore was in front of her picking out the best way, now he was beside her with cool, easy words of confidence, now he rode between her and the naked Apaches, firing with deliberate and deadly accuracy.

"Don't look back," he warned her more than once. "My job is to look out for them. Yours is to see yore horse don't throw you or break a leg in a prairie-dog hole. They cayn't outrun us. Don't worry about that."

The man was so easy in manner, apparently so equal to the occasion, that as the miles slid behind them her panic vanished. She felt for the small revolver in her belt to make sure it was safe. If she should be thrown, or if her horse should be shot, one thing must be done instantly. She must send a bullet crashing into her brain.

To the right and to the left of her jets of dirt spat up where the shots of the Indians struck the ground. Once or twice she looked back, but the sight of the bareback riders at their heels so unnerved her that she obeyed the orders of her companion and resisted the dreadful fascination of turning in her saddle.

It had seemed to 'Mona at first with each backward glance that the Indians were gaining fast on them, but after a time she knew this was not true. The sound of their shots became fainter. She no longer saw the spitting of the dust from their bullets and guessed they must be falling short.

Her eyes flashed a question at the man riding beside her. "We're gaining?"

"That's whatever. We'll make the canon all right an' keep goin'. Don't you be scared," he told her cheerfully.

Even as he spoke, Ramona went plunging over the head of her horse into a bunch of shin-oak. Up in an instant, she ran to remount. The bronco tried to rise from where it lay, but fell back helplessly to its side. One of its fore legs had been broken in a prairie-dog hole.

Dinsmore swung round his horse and galloped back, disengaging one foot from the stirrup. The girl caught the hand he held down to her and leaped up beside the saddle, the arch of her foot resting lightly on the toe of his boot. Almost with the same motion she swung astride the cow-pony. It jumped to a gallop and Ramona clung to the waist of the man in front of her. She could hear plainly now the yells of the exultant savages.

The outlaw knew that it would be nip and tuck to reach Palo Duro, close though it was. He abandoned at once his hopes of racing up the canon until the Apaches dropped the pursuit. It was now solely a question of speed. He must get into the gulch, even though he had to kill his bronco to do it. After that he must trust to luck and hold the redskins off as long as he could. There was always a chance that Ellison's Rangers might be close. Homer Dinsmore knew how slender a thread it was upon which to hang a hope, but it was the only one they had.

His quirt rose and fell once, though he recognized that his horse was doing its best. But the lash fell in the air and did not burn the flank of the animal. He patted its neck. He murmured encouragement in its ear.

"Good old Black Jack, I knew you wouldn't throw down on me. Keep a-humpin', old-timer.... You're doin' fine.... Here we are at Palo Duro.... Another half-mile, pal."

Dinsmore turned to the left after they had dropped down a shale slide into the canon. The trail wound through a thick growth of young foliage close to the bed of the stream.

The man slipped down from the back of the laboring horse and followed it up the trail. Once he caught a glimpse of the savages coming down the shale slide and took a shot through the brush.

"Got one of their horses," he told 'Mona. "That'll keep 'em for a while and give us a few minutes. They'll figure I'll try to hold 'em here."

'Mona let the horse pick its way up the rapidly ascending trail. Presently the canon opened a little. Its walls fell back from a small, grassy valley containing two or three acres. The trail led up a ledge of rock jutting out from one of the sheer faces of cliff. Presently it dipped down behind some great boulders that had fallen from above some time in the ages that this great cleft had been in the making.

A voice hailed them. "That you, Homer?"

"Yep. The 'Paches are right on our heels, Steve."

Gurley let out a wailing oath. "Goddlemighty, man, why did you come here?"

"Driven in. They chased us ten miles. Better 'light, ma'am. We're liable to stay here quite a spell." Dinsmore unsaddled the horse and tied it to a shrub. "You're sure all in, Black Jack. Mebbe you'll never be the same bronc again. I've got this to say, old pal. I never straddled a better hawss than you. That goes without copperin'." He patted its sweat-stained neck, fondled its nose for a moment, then turned briskly to the business in hand. "Get behind that p'int o' rocks, Steve. I'll cover the trail up. Girl, you'll find a kind of cave under that flat boulder. You get in there an' hunt cover."

'Mona did as she was told. Inside the cave were blankets, a saddle, the remains of an old camp-fire, and a piece of jerked venison hanging from a peg driven between two rocks. There were, too, a rifle leaning against the big boulder and a canvas bag containing ammunition.

The rifle was a '73. She busied herself loading it. Just as she finished there came to her the crack of Dinsmore's repeater.

The outlaw gave a little whoop of exultation.

"Tally one."



CHAPTER XXXIX

A CRY OUT OF THE NIGHT

Night fell before the rescue party reached Palo Duro. The canon was at that time a terra incognita to these cattlemen of the Panhandle. To attempt to explore it in the darkness would be to court disaster. The Apaches might trap the whole party.

But neither the Ranger nor Wadley could endure the thought of waiting till morning to push forward. The anxiety that weighed on them both could find relief only in action.

Jack made a proposal to Ramona's father. "We've got to throw off and camp here. No two ways about that. But I'm goin' to ride forward to Palo Duro an' see what I can find out. Want to go along?"

"Boy, I had in mind that very thing. We'll leave Jumbo in charge of the camp with orders to get started soon as he can see in the mo'nin'."

The two men rode into the darkness. They knew the general direction of Palo Duro and were both plainsmen enough to follow a straight course even in the blackest night. They traveled at a fast road gait, letting the horses pick their own way through the mesquite. Presently a star came out—and another. Banked clouds scudded across the sky in squadrons.

At last, below their feet, lay the great earth rift that made Palo Duro. It stretched before them an impenetrable black gulf of silence.

"No use trying to go down at random," said Jack, peering into its bottomless deeps. "Even if we didn't break our necks we'd get lost down there. My notion is for me to follow the bank in one direction an' for you to take the other. We might hear something."

"Sounds reasonable," agreed Wadley.

The cattleman turned to the left, the Ranger to the right. Roberts rode at a slow trot, stopping every few minutes to listen for any noise that might rise from the gulch.

His mind was full of pictures of the girl, one following another inconsequently. They stabbed him poignantly. He had a white dream of her moving down the street at Tascosa with step elastic, the sun sparkling in her soft, wavy hair. Another memory jumped to the fore of her on the stage, avoiding with shy distress the advances of the salesman he had jolted into his place. He saw her grave and gay, sweet and candid and sincere, but always just emerging with innocent radiance from the chrysalis of childhood.

Her presence was so near, she was so intimately close, that more than once he pulled up under an impression that she was calling him.

It was while he was waiting so, his weight resting easily in the saddle, that out of the night there came to him a faint, far-away cry of dreadful agony. The sound of it shook Jack to the soul. Cold beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. Gooseflesh ran down his spine. His hand trembled. The heart inside his ribs was a heavy weight of ice. Though he had never heard it before, the Ranger knew that awful cry for the scream of a man in torment. The Apaches were torturing a captured prisoner.

If Dinsmore had been captured by them the chances were that 'Mona had been taken, too, unless he had given her the horse and remained to hold the savages back.

Roberts galloped wildly along the edge of the rift. Once again he heard that long-drawn wail of anguish and pulled up his horse to listen, the while he shook like a man with a heavy chill.

Before the sound of it had died away a shot echoed up the canon to him. His heart seemed to give an answering lift of relief. Some one was still holding the Apaches at bay. He fired at once as a message that help was on the way.

His trained ear told him that the rifle had been fired scarcely a hundred yards below him, apparently from some ledge of the cliff well up from the bottom of the gulch. It might have come from the defenders or it might have been a shot fired by an Apache. Jack determined to find out.

He unfastened the tientos of his saddle which held the lariat. A scrub oak jutted up from the edge of the cliff and to this he tied securely one end of the rope. Rifle in hand, he worked over the edge and lowered himself foot by foot. The rope spun round like a thing alive, bumped him against the rock wall, twisted in the other direction, and rubbed his face against the harsh stone. He had no assurance that the lariat would reach to the foot of the cliff, and as he went jerkily down, hand under hand, he knew that at any moment he might come to the end of it and be dashed against the boulders below.

His foot touched loose rubble, and he could see that the face of the precipice was rooted here in a slope that led down steeply to another wall. The ledge was like a roof pitched at an extremely acute angle. He had to get down on hands and knees to keep from sliding to the edge of the second precipice. At every movement he started small avalanches of stone and dirt. He crept forward with the utmost caution, dragging the rifle by his side.

A shot rang out scarcely fifty yards from him, fired from the same ledge upon which he was crawling.

Had that shot been fired by an Apache or by those whom he had come to aid?



CHAPTER XL

GURLEY'S GET-AWAY

The boulder cave to which the Apaches had driven Dinsmore and Ramona had long since been picked out by the outlaws as a defensible position in case of need. The ledge that ran up to it on the right offered no cover for attackers. It was scarcely three feet wide, and above and below it the wall was for practical purposes perpendicular. In anticipation of a day when his gang might be rounded up by a posse, Pete Dinsmore had gone over the path and flung down into the gulch every bit of quartz big enough to shelter a man.

The contour of the rock face back of the big boulders was concave, so that the defenders were protected from sharpshooters at the edge of the precipice above.

Another way led up from the bed of the creek by means of a very rough and broken climb terminating in the loose rubble about the point where the ledge ran out. This Dinsmore had set Gurley to watch, but it was not likely that the Indians would reach here for several hours a point dangerous to the attacked.

Of what happened that day Ramona saw little. She loaded rifles and pushed them out to Dinsmore from the safety of the cave. Once he had shouted out to her or to Gurley news of a second successful shot.

"One more good Indian. Hi-yi-yi!" The last was a taunt to the Apaches hidden below.

There came a time late in the afternoon when the serious attack of the redskins developed. It came from the left, and it was soon plain that a number of Apaches had found cover in the rough boulder bed halfway up from the creek. Ramona took Dinsmore's place as guard over the pathway while he moved across to help Gurley rout the sharpshooters slowly edging forward.

One hour of sharp work did it. Man for man there never was any comparison between the Indians and the early settlers as fighting men. Dinsmore and Gurley, both good shots, better armed and better trained than the Apaches, drove the bucks back from the boulder bed where they were deployed. One certainly was killed, another probably. As quickly as they could with safety disengage themselves the braves drew down into the shelter of the brush below.

But Dinsmore knew that the temporary victory achieved could not affect the end of this one-sided battle. The Apaches would wipe all three of them out—unless by some miracle help reached them from outside. Ramona, too, knew it. So did Gurley.

As the darkness fell the fingers of 'Mona crept often to the little revolver by her side. Sometime soon—perhaps in three hours, perhaps in twelve, perhaps in twenty-four—she must send a bullet into her brain. She decided quite calmly that she would do it at the last possible moment that would admit of certainty. She must not make any mistake, must not wait till it was too late. It would be a horrible thing to do, but—she must not fall alive into the hands of the Apaches.

Crouched behind his boulder in the darkness, Gurley too knew that the party was facing extinction. He could not save the others by staying. Was it possible to save himself by going? He knew that rough climb down through the boulder beds to the canon below. The night was black as Egypt. Surely it would be possible, if he kept well to the left, to dodge any sentries the Indians might have set.

He moistened his dry lips with his tongue. Furtively he glanced back toward the cave where the girl was hidden. She could not see him. Nor could Dinsmore. They would know nothing about it till long after he had gone. Their stupidity had brought the Apaches upon them. If they had taken his advice the savages would have missed them by ten miles. Why should he let their folly destroy him too? If he escaped he might meet some freight outfit and send help to them.

The man edged out from his rock, crept noiselessly into the night. He crawled along the steep rubble slide, wary and soft-footed as a panther. It took him a long half-hour to reach the boulder bed. Rifle in hand, he lowered himself from rock to rock, taking advantage of every shadow....

An hour later Dinsmore called to 'Mona. "Asleep, girl?"

"No," she answered in a small voice.

"Slip out with these cartridges to Steve and find out if anythin's doin'. Then you'd better try to sleep. 'Paches don't attack at night."

Ramona crept along the ledge back of the big boulders. Gurley had gone—vanished completely. Her heart stood still. There was some vague thought in her mind that the Indians had somehow disposed of him. She called to Dinsmore in a little stifled shout that brought him on the run.

"He's gone!" she gasped.

The eyes of Dinsmore blazed. He knew exactly how to account for the absence of the man. "I might 'a' known it. The yellow coyote! Left us in the lurch to save his own hide!"

"Perhaps he's gone for help," the girl suggested faintly.

"No chance. He's playin' a lone hand—tryin' for a get-away himself," her companion said bitterly. "You'll have to take his place here. If you see anything move, no matter what it is, shoot at it."

"If I call you will you come?" she begged.

"On the jump," he promised. "Don't go to sleep. If they should come it will be up through the boulder bed. I'm leavin' you here because you can watch from cover where you can't possibly be seen. It's different on the other side."

She knew that, but as soon as he had left her the heart of the girl sank. She was alone, lost in a night of howling savages. The horrible things they did to their captives—she recalled a story whispered to her by a girl friend that it had been impossible to shake out of her mind. In the middle of the night she had more than once found herself sitting bolt upright in bed, wakened from terrible dreams of herself as a prisoner of the Apaches.

'Mona prayed, and found some comfort in her prayers. They were the frank, selfish petitions of a little child.

"God, don't let me die. I'm so young, and so frightened. Send Daddy to save me ... or Jack Roberts."

She recited the twenty-third Psalm aloud in a low voice. The fourth verse she went back to, repeating it several times.

"'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'"

And the last verse:

"'Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.'"

Somehow she felt less lonely afterward. God was on her side. He would send her father or Jack Roberts.

Then, into her newborn calm, there came a far cry of agony that shattered it instantly. Her taut nerves gave way like a broken bow-string. Her light body began to shake. She leaned against the cold rock wall in hysterical collapse.

The voice of Dinsmore boomed along the passageway. "It's a cougar, girl. They've got a yell like the scream of lost souls. I've often heard it here."

Ramona knew he was lying, but the sound of his cheerful voice was something. She was not utterly alone.

Again that shriek lifted into the night and echoed up the canon. The girl covered her ears with her hands and trembled violently. A shot rang out from the other end of the passage.

"Saw one of 'em movin' down below," the outlaw called to her.

But Ramona did not hear him. She had fainted.



CHAPTER XLI

HOMING HEARTS

Jack crept closer, very carefully. He was morally certain that the defenders held the ledge, but it would not do to make a mistake. Lives were at stake—one life much more precious than his own.

He drew his revolver and snaked forward. There was nothing else to do but take a chance. But he meant at least to minimize it, and certainly not to let himself be captured alive.

It was strange that nobody yet had challenged him. He was close enough now to peer into the darkness of the tunnel between the boulders and the wall. There seemed to be no one on guard.

He crept forward to the last boulder, and his boot pressed against something soft lying on the ground. It moved. A white, startled face was lifted to his—a face that held only the darkness of despair.

He knelt, put down his revolver, and slipped an arm around the warm young body.

"Thank God!" he cried softly. He was trembling in every limb. Tears filled his voice. And over and over again he murmured, "Thank God!... Thank God!"

The despair in the white face slowly dissolved. He read there doubt, a growing certainty, and then a swift, soft radiance of joy and tears.

"I prayed for you, and you've come. God sent you to me. Oh, Jack, at last!"

Her arms crept round his neck. He held her close and kissed the sweet lips salt with tears of happiness.

He was ashamed of himself. Not since he had been a little boy had he cried till now. His life had made for stoicism. But tears furrowed down his lean, brown cheeks. The streak in him that was still tender-hearted child had suddenly come to the surface. For he had expected to find her dead at best; instead, her warm, soft body was in his arms, her eyes were telling him an unbelievable story that her tongue as yet could find no words to utter. There flamed in him, like fire in dead tumbleweeds, a surge of glad triumph that inexplicably blended with humble thankfulness.

To her his emotion was joy without complex. The Ranger was tough as a hickory withe. She knew him hard as tempered steel to those whom he opposed, and her heart throbbed with excitement at his tears. She alone among all women could have touched him so. It came to her like a revelation that she need never have feared. He was her destined mate. Across that wide desert space empty of life he had come straight to her as to a magnet.

And from that moment, all through the night, she never once thought of being afraid. Her man was beside her. He would let no harm come to her. Womanlike, she exulted in him. He was so lithe and brown and slender, so strong and clean, and in all the world there was nothing that he feared.