and
thither. Before entering the river, Bela paused again, and bent her
head to listen.

"Too late!" she said. "We can't pass!"

At the same moment the horses burst from behind the willows a quarter
of a mile across the sand. They had the ford!

"We can't pass," Bela repeated, and then with a gasp, in which was
more of anger than fear, she added: "An' they got guns, too!"

CHAPTER XI

THE ISLAND

Seeing the dugout, the men raised a shout and bore down upon them
across the sand. Bela was not yet in the river. She swiftly brought
the dugout around and paddled down the lake shore across the river
from the men.

They, suspecting her of a design to land on this side, pulled up their
horses, and returning to the ford, plunged across. Whereupon Bela
coolly paddled out into the lake. By this manoeuvre she was enabled
to get out of range of their guns before they got to the water's edge.

Holding her paddle, she turned to watch them. The sounds of their
curses came down the wind. They were directed against Sam, not Bela.

Sam smiled bitterly. "I catch it both ways," he muttered.

"You want them catch you?" asked Bela, with an odd look.

Sam scowled at her helplessly.

She rested on her paddle, looking up and down the shore and out on the
lake, manifestly debating with herself what to do. To Sam their
situation seemed hopeless. Finally Bela took up the paddle with an air
of resolution.

"Well, what the devil are you goin' to do?" demanded Sam.

"We go to the island," she answered coolly.

An island! Sam's heart sank. He saw his escape indefinitely postponed.
To be kept prisoner on an island by a girl! Intolerably humiliating
prospect! How would he ever be able to hold up his head among men
afterward?

"What the devil are you up to, anyhow?" he broke out angrily again.
"Do you think this will do you any good? What do you expect to gain by
it?"

"What you want me do?" asked Bela sullenly, without looking at him.

"Land, and tell them the truth about what happened!"

"They too mad," said Bela. "Shoot you before they listen. Not believe,
anyway."

Sam could not deny the reasonableness of this.

"Oh, damn!" he cried impotently. "You've got me into a nice mess! Are
you crazy, or just bad? Is it your whole idea to make trouble between
men? I've heard of women like that. One would think you wanted ----
Say! I'll be likely to thank you for this, won't I? The sight of you
is hateful to me!"

Bela made