r rejoicing on the homeward way. He intended to make her pay in
full. But how? How get his revenge and not jeopardize his own safety?

"Won't you hurry, please?" she pleaded. "I'm hungry--and thirsty.
I've been here all night and most of yesterday. It's been . . . rather
awful."

He rubbed his rough, unshaven cheek while his little pig eyes looked
down into hers. "That so? Well, I dunno as it's any business of mine
where you spend the night or how long you stay there. I had it put up
to me to lay off 'n interfering with you. Seems like yore family got
notions I was insulting you. That young bully Jeff jumped me whilst I
wasn't looking and beat me up. Hal Rutherford ordered me to pull my
freight. That's all right. I won't interfere in what don't concern
me. Yore family says 'Hands off!' Fine. Suits me. Stay there or get
out. It's none of my business. See?"

"You don't mean you'll . . . leave me here?" she cried in horror.

"Sure," he exulted. "If I pulled you out of there, like as not you'd
have me beat up again. None o' my business! That's what yore folks
have been drilling into me. I reckon they're right. Anyhow, I'll play
it safe."

"But--Oh, you can't do that. Even you can't do such a thing," she
cried desperately. "Why, men don't do things like that."

"Don't they? Watch me, missie." He leaned over the pit, his broken,
tobacco-stained teeth showing in an evil grin. "Just keep an eye on
yore Uncle Dan. Nobody ever yet done me a meanness and got away with
it. I reckon the Rutherfords won't be the first. It ain't on the
cyards," he boasted.

"You're going away . . . to leave me here . . . to starve?"

"Who said anything about going away? I'll stick around for a while.
It's none of my business whether you starve or live high. Do just as
you please about that. I'll let you alone, like I promised Jeff I
would. You Rutherfords have got no call to object to being starved,
anyhow. _Whad you do to Dave Dingwell in Chicito_?"

After all, she was only a girl in spite of her little feminine
ferocities and her pride and her gameness. She had passed through a
terrible experience, had come out of it to apparent safety and had been
thrown back into despair. It was natural that sobs should shake her
slender body as she leaned against the quartz wall of her prison and
buried her head in her forearm.

When presently the sobs grew fewer and less violent, Beulah became
aware without look