t the helpless girl, who watched him with
smouldering hate in her eyes.

"Hit's you-all orter be a-doin' these-hyar chores," he declared, with
a grin. "An' they's a good time a-comin' when ye'll be plumb tickled
to death to wait on yer Danny boy. A good time comin', cuss ye!"

He devoured his food ravenously, washing it down with the coffee.
Finally, he brought slices of bread and bacon to Plutina, and laid
them in her lap. He loosened her right hand and so permitted her to
feed herself. It was her impulse to refuse the offering, but she
resisted the folly, knowing the necessity of food, if she would have
energy for the ordeal before her. So, she gulped down the bread and
meat, and drank from the dipper full of coffee. Then, her bonds were
tightened again, and the two renewed their march.

The going was harder here, up and down the rock-strewn slopes. Fatigue
lay very heavy on Plutina, after the strains of the two days. Only her
hate of the man at her side bolstered up pride, so that she compelled
herself to keep moving by sheer force of will. It was already dusk,
when, at last, they issued from the wood and went forward over the
shore of the pool at Sandy Creek Falls.

"Wall, hyar we be!" Hodges cried loudly. There was satisfaction in his
voice.

That satisfaction aroused Plutina from the apathy into which she had
fallen, during the last half-mile of difficult scrambling, made more
toilsome by the constraint of her bound wrists. Now, puzzlement
provoked interest in her surroundings. She had expected that the
outlaw would bear her away to the most convenient or the most
inaccessible of the various secret retreats with which rumor credited
him. But here was neither cave nor shack--only the level space of
sand, the mist-wreathed pool, the rushing volume of the falls, the
bleak wall of the cliff which towered above them where they had halted
at its base. She knew this place. There could be no cavern at hand.
Her eyes searched the space of the inclosure wonderingly. Then, they
went to the man, whom she found regarding her bewilderment with a
smirk of gratification.

"Hyar we be, right on the door-step, so to say," he bellowed. "If ye
kain't see the door-step yit, ye will mighty quick, unless thet pore
feller ye shot has gone an' died a-waitin' fer you-all to come an'
nuss 'im.... Yep, he was a-watchin', all right," he added briskly.
"Hyar hit comes!"

Plutina's eyes followed her captor's and, far above, she made ou