ope slipping from her. With her hands tied, she could do
nothing at all save sit there and ride wherever Al Woodruff chose to
lead her horse. He seemed to be making for the head of Spirit Canyon, on
the side toward Bear Top.

As they climbed higher, she could catch glimpses of the road down which
her father had driven almost to his death. She studied Al's back as he
rode before her and wondered if he could really be cold-blooded enough
to kill without compunction whoever he was told to kill, whether he had
any personal quarrel with his victim or not. Certainly he had had no
quarrel with her father, or with Frank.

It was long past noon, and she was terribly hungry and very thirsty, but
she would not tell Al her wants if she starved. She tried to guess at
his plans and at his motive for taking her away like this. He had no
camping outfit, a bulkily rolled slicker forming his only burden. He
could not, then, be planning to take her much farther into the
wilderness; yet if he did not hide her away, how could he expect to keep
her? His motive for marrying her was rather mystifying. He did not seem
sufficiently in love with her to warrant an abduction, and he was too
cool for such a headlong action, unless driven by necessity. She
wondered what he was thinking about as he rode. Not about her, she
guessed, except when some bad place in the trail made it necessary for
him to stop, tie Snake to the nearest bush, lead his own horse past the
obstruction and come back after her. Several times this was necessary.
Once he took the time to examine the thongs on her ankles, apparently
wishing to make sure that she was not uncomfortable. Once he looked up
into her sullenly distressed face and said, "Tired?" in a humanly
sympathetic tone that made her blink back the tears. She shook her head
and would not look at him. Al regarded her in silence for a minute, led
Snake to his own horse, mounted and rode on.

He was a murderer; he had undoubtedly killed many men. He would kill her
if she attempted to escape--"and he could not catch me," Lorraine was
just enough to add. Yet she felt baffled; cheated of the full horror of
being kidnapped.

She had no knowledge of a bad man who was human in spots without being
repentant. For love of a girl, she had been taught to believe, the worst
outlaw would weep over his past misdeeds, straighten his shoulders, look
to heaven for help and become a self-sacrificing hero for whom audiences
might be cou