e hotel to talk with Miss
Winters and I started to walk home alone. I took the short cut across
the empty block just below Brinker's. He was waiting among the
cottonwoods there--he and two Mexicans. As soon as he stepped into the
light I was afraid."

"Why didn't you cry out?"

"I didn't like to make a scene about nothing. And after that first
moment I had no time. He caught hold of me and put his hand across my
mouth. Horses were there ready saddled. He lifted me in front of him and
kept my mouth covered till we were clear of the town. It didn't matter
how much I screamed when we had reached the desert."

"I didn't think even Harrison had the nerve to kidnap an Arizona girl
and bring her across the line. If he had happened to meet a bunch of
cowpunchers--"

"He didn't start after me. It was you he wanted. But he found out you
weren't in town and took me instead. All the way down he talked about
you--boasted how he would marry me in spite of you and how he would take
you and have Pasquale flay you alive."

Yeager lifted a warning finger. "Remember you have a friend here.
Good-night."

He lowered himself quickly, slid down the porch post, and disappeared
into the darkness almost instantly.

Ruth heard voices. One gave commands, the others answered mildly with
"Si, Excellency." Dim figures moved about below, one heavy, bulky,
dominating. He gestured, snapped out curt directions, and presently
vanished. Two guards were left. They paced up and down beneath her
window. She understood that Pasquale was providing against any chance of
escape. Half an hour ago she would have shuddered. Now she could even
smile faintly at his precautions. Steve would evade them when the right
time came.

Her confidence in him, since it looked only to the results, was greater
than that he felt in his own power. The range-rider saw the difficulties
before him. He was alone in a camp of wild, ignorant natives who moved
at the nod of Pasquale. When he let himself think of Ruth as a prisoner
at the mercy of that savage old outlaw's whim, the heart of Steve failed
him. What could one man do against so many?

He felt that she was perfectly safe for the present, but Yeager found it
impossible to sleep in the stable. Taking his blankets with him, he
slipped noiselessly out to the cottonwood clump back of Pasquale's
headquarters. Here, at least, he could see the light in her window and
be sure that all was well with her.

As he moved noisele