lean mustang. Lucy swung into the saddle. She thought
how singular a coincidence it was that she had worn a riding-habit. It
was dark and thick, and comfortable for riding. Suppose she had worn
the flimsy dress, in which she had met Slone every night save this one?
Thought of Slone gave her a pang. He would wait and wait and wait. He
would go back to his cabin, not knowing what had befallen her.

Suddenly Lucy noticed another man, near at hand, holding two mustangs.
He mounted, rode before her, and then she recognized Joel Creech.
Assurance of this brought back something of the dread. But the father
could control the son!

"Ride on," said Creech, hitting her horse from behind.

And Lucy found herself riding single file, with two men and a
pack-horse, out upon the windy, dark sage slope. They faced the
direction of the monuments, looming now and then so weirdly black and
grand against the broad flare of lightning-blazed sky.

Ever since Lucy had reached her teens there had been predictions that
she would be kidnapped, and now the thing had come to pass. She was in
danger, she knew, but in infinitely less than had any other wild
character of the uplands been her captor. She believed, if she went
quietly and obediently with Creech, that she would be, at least, safe
from harm. It was hard luck for Bostil, she thought, but no worse than
he deserved. Retribution had overtaken him. How terribly hard he would
take the loss of his horses! Lucy wondered if he really ever would part
with the King, even to save her from privation and peril. Bostil was
more likely to trail her with his riders and to kill the Creeches than
to concede their demands. Perhaps, though, that threat to sell her to
Cordts would frighten the hard old man.

The horses trotted and swung up over the slope, turning gradually,
evidently to make a wide detour round the Ford, until Lucy's back was
toward the monuments. Before her stretched the bleak, barren, dark
desert, and through the opaque gloom she could see nothing. Lucy knew
she was headed for the north, toward the wild canyons, unknown to the
riders. Cordts and his gang hid in there. What might not happen if the
Creeches fell in with Cordts? Lucy's confidence sustained a check.
Still, she remembered the Creeches were like Indians. And what would
Slone do? He would ride out on her trail. Lucy shivered for the
Creeches if Slone ever caught up with them, and remembering his
wild-horse-hunter's skill at tr