cent fell back, and for a minute the girl's heart leaped
with the hope that they were about to abandon the siege. Apparently the
man in the scarlet kerchief had no such expectation. He deserted his
position behind the pine and ran back, crouching low in the brush, to
another little clump of trees closer to the bluff. The reason for this
was at first not apparent to her, but she understood presently when the
men who had fallen back behind the rolling hillocks appeared again well
in to the edge of the bluff. Only by his timely retreat had the man
saved himself from being outflanked.

It was very plain that the attackers meant to take their time to finish
him in perfect safety. He was surrounded on every side by a cordon of
rifles, except where the bare face of the butte hung down behind him.
To attempt to scale it would have been to expose himself as a mark for
every gun to certain death.

It was now that she heard the man who seemed to be directing the attack
call out to another on his right. She was too far to make out the words,
but their effect was clear to her. He pointed to the brow of the butte
above, and a puncher in white woolen chaps dropped back out of range
and swung to the saddle upon one of the ponies bunched in the rear. He
cantered round in a wide circle and made for the butte. His purpose was
obviously to catch their victim in the unprotected rear, and fire down
upon him from above.

The young woman shouted a warning, but her voice failed to carry. For a
moment she stood with her hands pressed together in despair, then
turned and swiftly scudded to her machine. She sprang in, swept forward,
reached the rim of the mesa, and plunged down. Never before had she
attempted so precarious a descent in such wild haste. The car fairly
leaped into space, and after it struck swayed dizzily as it shot down.
The girl hung on, her face white and set, the pulse in her temple
beating wildly. She could do nothing, as the machine rocked down, but
hope against many chances that instant destruction might be averted.

Utterly beyond her control, the motor-car thundered down, reached the
foot of the butte, and swept over a little hill in its wild flight. She
rushed by a mounted horseman in the thousandth part of a second. She was
still speeding at a tremendous velocity, but a second hill reduced this
somewhat. She had not yet recovered control of the machine, but, though
her eyes instinctively followed the white road that fl