ing up that her tormentor had taken away his
malignant presence. This was at first a relief, but as the hours
passed an acute fear seized her. Had he left her alone to die? In
spite of her knowledge of the man, she had clung to the hope that he
would relent. But if he had gone--

She began again to call at short intervals for help. Sometimes tears
of self-pity choked her voice. More than once she beat her brown fists
against the rock in an ecstasy of terror.

Then again he was looking down at her, a hulk of venom, eyes bleared
with the liquor he had been drinking.

"Were you calling me, missie?" he jeered.

"Let me out," she demanded. "When my brothers find me--"

"If they find you," he corrected with a hiccough.

"They'll find me. By this time everybody in Huerfano Park is searching
for me. Before night half of Battle Butte will be in the saddle.
Well, when they find me, do you think you won't be punished for this?"

"For what?" demanded the man. "You fell in. I haven't touched you."

"Will that help you, do you think?"

His rage broke into speech. "You're aimin' to stop my clock, are you?
Take another guess, you mischief-making vixen. What's to prevent me
from emptying my forty-four into you when I get good and ready, then
hitting the trail for Mexico?"

She knew he was speaking the thoughts that had been drifting through
his mind in whiskey-lit ruminations. That he was a wanton killer she
had always heard. If he could persuade himself it could be done with
safety, he would not hesitate to make an end of her.

This was the sort of danger she could fight against--and she did.

"I'll tell you what's to prevent you," she flung back, as it were in a
kind of careless scorn. "Your fondness for your worthless hide. If
they find me shot to death, they will know who did it. You couldn't
hide deep enough in Chihuahua to escape them. My father would never
rest till he had made an end of you."

Her argument sounded appallingly reasonable to him. He knew the
Rutherfords. They would make him pay his debt to them with usury.

To stimulate his mind he took another drink, after which he stared down
at her a long time in sullen, sulky silence. She managed at the same
time to irritate him and tempt him and fill his coward heart with fear
of consequences. Through the back of his brain from the first there
had been filtering thoughts that were like crouching demons. They
reached toward her and drew