intently. "If I'm all that,"
he told her coolly, "you can figure out about what'll happen to you if
you _don't_ marry me. If you saw what I done to Fred Thurman, what do
you reckon I'd do to _you_?" He looked at her for a minute, shrugged his
shoulders and rode on, crossing the creek and taking a trail which
Lorraine did not know. Much of the time they traveled in the water,
though it slowed their pace. Where the trail was rocky, they took it and
made better time.

Snake lagged a little on the upgrades, but he was well trained to lead
and gave little trouble. Lorraine thought longingly of Yellowjacket and
his stubbornness and tried to devise some way of escape. She could not
believe that fate would permit Al Woodruff to carry out such a plan.
Lone would overtake them, perhaps,--and then she remembered that Lone
would have no means of knowing which way she had gone. If Hawkins and
Senator Warfield came after them, her plight would be worse than ever.
Still, she decided that she must risk that danger and give Lone a clue.

She dropped a glove beside the trail, where it lay in plain sight of any
one following them. But presently Al looked over his shoulder, saw that
one of her hands was bare, and tied Snake's reins to his saddle and his
own horse to a bush. Then he went back down the trail until he found the
glove. He put it into his pocket, came silently up to Lorraine and
pulled off her other glove. Without a word he took her wrists in a firm
clasp, tied them together again to the saddle horn, pulled off her tie,
her hat, and the pins from her hair.

"I guess you don't know me yet," he remarked dryly, when he had
confiscated every small article which she could let fall as she rode. "I
was trying to treat yuh white, but you don't seem to appreciate it. Now
you can ride hobbled, young lady."

"Oh, I could _kill_ you!" Lorraine whispered between set teeth.

"You mean you'd like to. Well, I ain't going to give you a chance." His
eyes rested on her face with a new expression; an awakening desire for
her, an admiration for the spirit that would not let her weep and plead
with him.

"Say! you ain't going to be a bit hard to marry," he observed, his eyes
lighting with what was probably his nearest approach to tenderness. "I
kinda wish you liked me, now I've got you."

He shook her arm and laughed when she turned her face away from him,
then remounted his horse. Snake moved reluctantly when Al started on.
Lorraine felt h