n."

Once more they pressed forward. The lightning had ceased. With a last
grumble, and a scatter of drops, the clouds were pulling apart. Here and
there a few stars shone. These thinned the darkness considerably, and,
at a point where the coulee shallowed, Dallas was able dimly to see the
toiling shapes ahead. Marylyn was wavering.

"Spunky little sister!" urged the elder girl. Lifting the rifle to her
left shoulder, she came alongside to give the support of an arm.

"Where's the cartridge belt?" she whispered.

"Heavy,"--panted the other--"dropped it."

And now despite Dallas' aid, Marylyn straggled weakly. Another mile, and
with scarcely a sigh of warning, she sank again, exhausted.

"Charley," called Dallas. The Squaw joined them. "You take one
arm--that's it." She took the other. Thus they proceeded.

Marylyn was almost a dead weight. When the channel was clogged with
rocks, she could not put one jaded foot before the other, and was fairly
dragged. On clear sandy stretches she did better. Complete collapse was
near, however; her head was swinging upon her breast; she prattled
brokenly.

Finally Dallas stopped. "Hide--hide," she counselled between breaths, "a
dark place----"

Ignoring the advice, the outcast thrust his bow and arrows into her
hands; then squatting before Marylyn, he seized her wrist, drew her,
limp and half-dead, upon his back, and staggered on.

"Hold to Charley, dear," begged Dallas. "He's carrying you pick-a-back."

The younger girl murmured gratefully, and locked her hands beneath The
Squaw's chin. This left his arms free to part a path through the
thickets of burweed and plantain that choked the defile, and, for fully
a half-hour, he kept a good jog. But, well worn and hampered as he was,
he began then to wobble.

Dallas gave him the weapons and received Marylyn upon her own shoulders.
Notwithstanding the long way, her vigour remained splendid. And when
there came a tendency to lag, she fought it stoutly. Not until her limbs
refused their service, did she drop down.

Under her wild rye made a cool, stiff couch. She reached through it and
dug her fingers into the wet earth. Marylyn toppled over back and lay
beside her, prone. Charley leaned on an elbow, breathing hard,
watching----

When, far behind, down the shadowy crack through which they had come,
sounded wild whoops.

They scrambled up, terror-stricken. Like hunted deer, they whipped away
again, knowing that, in their wak