nse, he laid his
pipe aside and stretched out upon his blanket, leaning upon an elbow.
She heard him sigh, vaguely made out when he let his head slip down
upon an arm, saw that he had grown still, and was lying stretched out
across the main threshold.

Now she must stand motionless while every fibre of her being demanded
action; now she must curb impetuosity to the call of caution. As the
seconds passed, all but insupportable in their tedious slowness, she
stood rigid and tense, waiting. But soon she knew that the drug had
had its will with him, that he was steeped in deep sleep, that no
longer must she wait, that now at length she might act.

Carrying her saddle-blanket she came to him and stood quietly looking
down into his upturned face. At last she could let the tears burst
into her eyes unchecked, now she could suddenly go down on her knees
beside him, for an instant laying her cheek lightly against his in the
first caress. Would it be the last? He stirred a little and sighed
again. She drew back, still upon her knees again breathlessly rigid.
But his stupor clung heavily to him, and she knew that it would hold
him thus for hours.

A score of burning questions clamoring in her mind she disposed of
briefly, since time was of the essence.

"If I let you have your way, Rod Norton," she whispered, "you will go
on from crime to tragedy. If I hand you over to the law, I will be
betraying you for no end; for your type of man finds the way to break
jail and so force his own hand to further violence. There is the one
way out. . . . And God help me to succeed. God forgive me if I fail!"

She stole by him and stepped upon the outer ledge. She was leaving him
helpless . . . the thought presented itself that she would have another
thing to answer for if one of the many men with such cause to hate him
should come upon him thus. Well, that was but one of the more remote
chances she must take. There was scant enough likelihood that any one
should come here before she could race into Las Estrellas and back.

Then it was that she saw Patten. She did not know at first that it was
Patten, but just that within a few feet of her upon the ledge which she
must travel to the steps a man was standing, his body jerking back,
pressed against the rocks as he saw her. She drew back swiftly, her
blood in riotous tumult.

But now, above aught else, the one thought in her mind was that there
was no time for loitering, that t