e
prisoner, as she and Westcott had suspected.

Through the co-operation of Lacy he had been brought to this desert
den, where he could be held indefinitely, with no chance of
discovery--killed if necessary. She had heard of such places as this,
read of them, yet never before had she realised the possibility of
their real existence. It all seemed more like a delirium of fever than
an actual fact. She rubbed her eyes, gazing about on the rock walls,
scarcely sure she was actually awake. Why, one might ride across that
desert, and pass by within a hundred yards of its rim, and never even
be aware of the existence of this sunken valley. Perhaps not a dozen
men outside this gang of outlaws had ever gazed down into its green
depths, and possibly no others knew of that narrow, winding trail
leading down to its level. Yet these men must have made use of it for
years, as a place to hide stolen cattle, and into which to retreat
whenever pursuit became dangerous.

Those huts without were not newly built, and this underground cavern
had been extended and changed by no small labour. What deeds of
violence must have happened here; what scenes of unbridled debauchery
this desert rendezvous must have witnessed. She shuddered at the
thought, comprehending that these cells had never been chiselled
without a purpose, and that she was utterly helpless in the hands of a
band of thieves and cutthroats, to whom murder meant little enough, if
it only served their ends. Mendez, no doubt, was brute and monster,
yet it was Juan Cateras whom she really feared--he was cruel, slimy,
seeking to hide his hatefulness behind that hideous smile; and he had
already chosen her for his victim. Who would save her--Mendez? Lacy?
God, she did not know: and somehow neither of these was the name which
arose to her lips, almost in the form of prayer; the name she whispered
with a faint throb of hope in its utterance--Jim Westcott.

The big miner was all she had to rely upon; he had been in her mind all
through the long ride; he arose before her again now, and she welcomed
the memory with a conscious throb of expectation. Those people back
there could not conceal for long her absence from him; if he lived he
would surely seek her again.

Her womanly instinct had read the message in the man's eyes; she was of
interest to him, he cared; it was no mere ordinary friendliness which
would bring him back; no! not even their mutual connection with the
ca