. The girl was too tired and anxious
to care for food, but she made herself take a little. They packed the
saddlebags with bacon, beans, coffee and flour. Blackwell tightened again
the cinches and once more the two took the trail.

They made camp in a pocket opening from a gulch far up in the hills. With
her own _reata_ he fastened her hands behind her and tied the girl
securely to the twisted trunk of a Joshua tree. To make sure of her he lay
on the rope, both hands clinched to the rifle. In five minutes he was
asleep, but it was long before Kate could escape from wakefulness. She was
anxious, her nerves were jumpy, and the muscles of arms and shoulders were
cramped. At last she fell into troubled catnaps.

From one of these she awoke to see that the morning light was sifting
through the darkness. Her bones and muscles ached from the constraint of
the position in which the rope held them. She was shivering with the chill
of an Arizona mountain night. Turning her body, the girl's eyes fell upon
her captor. He was looking at her in the way that no decent man looks at a
woman. Her impulse was to scream, to struggle to her feet and run. What
did he mean? What was he going to do?

But something warned her this would precipitate the danger. She called
upon her courage and tried to still the fearful tumult in her heart.
Somehow she succeeded. A scornful, confident pride flashed from her eyes
into his. It told him that for his life he dared not lay a finger upon her
in the way of harm. And he knew it was true, knew that if he gave way to
his desire no hole under heaven would be deep enough to hide him from the
vengeance of her friends.

He got sullenly to his feet. "Come. We'll be going."

Within the hour they saw some of his hunters. The two were sweeping around
the lip of a mountain park nestling among the summits. A wisp of smoke
rose from the basin below. Grouped about it were three men eating
breakfast.

"Don't make a sound," warned Blackwell.

His rifle covered her. With all her soul she longed to cry for help. But
she dared not take the risk. Even as the two on the edge of the bowl
withdrew from sight one of the campers rose and sauntered to a little
grove where the ponies were tethered. The distance was too far to make
sure, but something in the gait made the girl sure that the man was Curly.
Her hands went out to him in a piteous little gesture of appeal.

She was right. It was Curly. He was thinking of her at