Since they had left the top of Keams Canon Margaret had been sure all
was not right. Aside from the fact that the guide was drunk at present,
she was convinced that there had been something wrong with him all
along. He did not act like the Indians around Ashland. He did not act
like a trusted guide that her friends would send for her. She wished
once more that she had kept Hazel Brownleigh's letter. She wondered how
her friends would find her if they came after her. It was then she began
in earnest to systematically plan to leave a trail behind her all the
rest of the way. If she had only done it thoroughly when she first began
to be uneasy. But now she was so far away, so many miles from anywhere!
Oh, if she had not come at all!

And first she dropped her handkerchief, because she happened to have it
in her hand--a dainty thing with lace on the edge and her name written
in tiny script by her mother's careful hand on the narrow hem. And then
after a little, as soon as she could scrawl it without being noticed,
she wrote a note which she twisted around the neck of a red chessman,
and left behind her. After that scraps of paper, as she could reach them
out of the bag tied on behind her saddle; then a stocking, a bedroom
slipper, more chessmen, and so, when they halted at dusk and prepared to
strike camp, she had quite a good little trail blazed behind her over
that wide, empty plain. She shuddered as she looked into the gathering
darkness ahead, where those long, dark lines of mesas looked like
barriers in the way. Then, suddenly, the Indian pointed ahead to the
first mesa and uttered one word--"Walpi!" So that was the Indian village
to which she was bound? What was before her on the morrow? After eating
a pretense of supper she lay down. The Indian had more firewater with
him. He drank, he uttered cruel gutturals at his squaw, and even kicked
the feet of the sleeping papoose as he passed by till it awoke and cried
sharply, which made him more angry, so he struck the squaw.

It seemed hours before all was quiet. Margaret's nerves were strained to
such a pitch she scarcely dared to breathe, but at last, when the fire
had almost died down, the man lay quiet, and she could relax and close
her eyes.

Not to sleep. She must not go to sleep. The fire was almost gone and the
coyotes would be around. She must wake and watch!

That was the last thought she remembered--that and a prayer that the
angels would keep watch once ag