t began to fade,
darkness swept over the land, and she had to keep moving in order not
to chill.

Never had she known such a night. It seemed to the tortured girl that
morning would never come. She counted the stars above her. Sometimes
there were more. Sometimes fewer. After an eternity they began to
fade out in the sky. Day was at hand.

She fired the fifth shot from her revolver. Her voice was hoarse from
shouting, but she called every few minutes. Then, when she was at the
low ebb of hope, there came an answer to her call. She fired her last
shot. She called and shouted again and again. The voice that came
back to her was close at hand.

"I'm down in the prospect hole," she cried. Another moment, and she
was looking up into the face of a man, Dan Meldrum. In vacant
astonishment he gazed down at her.

"Whad you doing here?" he asked roughly.

"I fell in. I've been here all night." Her voice broke a little.
"Oh, I'm so glad you've come."

It was of no importance that he was a man she detested, one who had
quarreled with her father and been thrashed by her brother for
insulting her. All she thought of was that help had come to her at
last and she was now safe.

He stared down at her with a kind of drunken malevolence.

"So you fell in, eh?"

"Yes. Please help me out right away. My riata is tied to Blacky's
saddle."

He looked around. "Where?"

"Isn't Blacky there? He must have broken loose, then. Never mind.
Pass me down the end of a young sapling and you can pull me up."

"Can I?"

For the first time she felt a shock of alarm. There was in his voice
something that chilled her, something inexpressibly cruel.

"I'll see my father rewards you. I'll see you get well paid," she
promised, and the inflection of the words was an entreaty.

"You will, eh?"

"Anything you want," she hurried on. "Name it. If we can give it to
you, I promise it."

His drunken brain was functioning slowly. This was the girl who had
betrayed him up in Chicito Canon, the one who had frustrated his
revenge at Hart's. On account of her young Rutherford had given him
the beating of his life and Hal had driven him from Huerfano Park.
First and last she was the rock upon which his fortunes had split. Now
chance had delivered her into his hands. What should he do with her?
How could he safely make the most of the opportunity?

It did not for an instant occur to him to haul her from the pit and
send he