would she forget Cordts. She peered up at him. In the dim
light of the few stars she recognized Joel Creech's father.

"Oh, thank God!" she whispered, in the shock of blessed relief. "I
thought--you were--Cordts!"

"Keep quiet," he whispered back, sternly, and with rough hand he shook
her.

Lucy awoke to realities. Something evil menaced her, even though this
man was not Cordts. Her mind could not grasp it. She was
amazed--stunned. She struggled to speak, yet to keep within that
warning command.

"What--on earth--does this--mean?" she gasped, very low. She had no
sense of fear of Creech. Once, when he and her father had been friends,
she had been a favorite of Creech's. When a little girl she had ridden
his knee many times. Between Creech and Cordts there was immeasurable
distance. Yet she had been violently seized and carried out into the
sage and menaced.

Creech leaned down. His gaunt face, lighted by terrible eyes, made her
recoil. "Bostil ruined me--an' killed my hosses," he whispered, grimly.
"An' I'm takin' you away. An' I'll hold you in ransom for the King an'
Sarchedon--an' all his racers!"

"Oh!" cried Lucy, in startling surprise that yet held a pang. "Oh,
Creech! ... Then you mean me no harm!"

The man straightened up and stood a moment, darkly silent, as if her
query had presented a new aspect of the case. "Lucy Bostil, I'm a
broken man an' wild an' full of hate. But God knows I never thought of
thet--of harm to you.... No, child, I won't harm you. But you must obey
an' go quietly, for there's a devil in me."

"Where will you take me?" she asked.

"Down in the canyons, where no one can track me," he said. "It'll be
hard goin' fer you, child, an' hard fare.... But I'm strikin' at
Bostil's heart as he has broken mine. I'll send him word. An' I'll tell
him if he won't give his hosses thet I'll sell you to Cordts."

"Oh, Creech--but you wouldn't!" she whispered, and her hand went to his
brawny arm.

"Lucy, in thet case I'd make as poor a blackguard as anythin' else I've
been," he said, forlornly. "But I'm figgerin' Bostil will give up his
hosses fer you."

"Creech, I'm afraid he won't. You'd better give me up. Let me go back.
I'll never tell. I don't blame you. I think you're square. My dad
is.... But, oh, don't make ME suffer! You used to--to care for me, when
I was little."

"Thet ain't no use," he replied. "Don't talk no more.... Git up hyar
now an' ride in front of me."

He led her to a