nkets and his coat. He gave him a sup or two of whiskey, then
gathered buffalo chips and made a fire in which he heated some large
rocks. These he tucked in beneath the blankets beside the shivering body.
Slowly the heat warmed the invalid. After a time he fell once more into
troubled sleep.

Billie drove his horse away and pelted it with stones to a trot. He could
not keep it with him without risking discovery, but he was almost as much
afraid that its arrival in Los Portales might start a search for the
hidden fugitives. There was always a chance, of course, that the bay
would stop to graze on the plains and not be found for a day or two.

The rest of the night the Texan put in digging a cave with a piece of
slaty shale. The clay of the bank was soft and he made fair progress. The
dirt he scooped out was thrown by him into the river.

Chapter XII

The Good Samaritan

A girl astride a buckskin pony rode down to the river to water her mount.
She carried across the pommel of her saddle a small rifle. Hanging from
the cantle strings was a wild turkey she had shot.

It was getting along toward evening and she was on her way back to Los
Portales. The girl was a lover of the outdoors and she had been hunting
alone. In the clear, amber light of afternoon the smoke of the town rose
high into the sky, though the trading post itself could not be seen until
she rounded the bend.

As her horse drank, a strange thing happened. At a point directly
opposite her a bunch of tumble weeds had gathered against the bank of the
shrunken stream. Something agitated them, and from among the brush the
head and shoulders of a man projected.

Without an instant of delay the girl slipped from the pony and led it
behind a clump of mesquite. Through this she peered intently, watching
every move of the man, who had by this time come out into the open. He
went down to the river, filled his hat with water, and disappeared among
the tumble weeds, gathering them closely to conceal the entrance of his
cave.

The young woman remounted, rode downstream an eighth of a mile, splashed
through to the other side, and tied her pony to a stunted live-oak. Rifle
in hand she crept cautiously along the bank and came to a halt behind a
cottonwood thirty yards from the cave. Here she waited, patiently,
silently, as many a time she had done while stalking the game she was
used to hunting.

The minutes passed, ran into an hour. The westering sun slid