re is your chief?"

"He has gone on ahead, miss, to prepare for your coming, leaving me to
escort you."

"I am content, for one is as bad as the other," was the reply, and,
leaping into her saddle again, she fell in behind the man Wolf, and the
march was again begun.

Night came on, but the outlaws rode on for an hour or more, when they
halted at a small spring in a thicket.

Celeste was made more comfortable in a shelter of boughs, hastily cut
and thrown up, and when supper was ready she ate heartily of
antelope-steak, crackers, and coffee.

She was rather glad to have got rid of the masked chief, of whom she
stood in the greatest awe, and Wolf never spoke to her unless she
addressed some remark to him.

When she lay down upon the blanket-bed, spread upon fine straw, which
he had made for her, she sank at once to sleep.

She had no thought of escape, for what could she do there alone in that
wild, trackless land? She would bide her time and await the result, be
it what it might.

She was awakened early in the morning, and the march was at once begun
again, a halt being made a couple of hours later for breakfast.

While it was being prepared she was allowed to wander at will, Wolf
calling her only when it was ready, and thus showing that they had not
the slightest idea that she would do so foolish a thing as to escape
from them, to perish in the wilderness, or meet death by being attacked
by wild beasts.

When the start was again made, Wolf said:

"When we halt for our noon camp, miss, I will have to blindfold you, and
bind your hands."

"Ah! you consider me very dangerous, then?" she said, with a smile.

"You doubtless are dangerous, miss, in more ways than one; but it is to
prevent your seeing where we take you that you are to be blindfolded."

"Do you think I could guide a party after you?"

"You have the nerve to do it, miss."

"But why bind my hands?"

"To prevent your removing the bandage from your eyes, miss."

"I will pledge you my word that I will not do so."

"I believe you would keep your word, miss; but the chief is a man who is
merciless, and his orders were to blindfold and bind you, and if I
disobey he would shoot me down as though I were in reality a wolf."

"Perhaps not much loss, but I will submit," said Celeste with a sigh,
for she had enjoyed the scenery, and her freedom as well this far, and
now must be both blindfolded and bound.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE TWO FUGITIVES.