fuge were within touch of her finger tips. Then memory of
the storm and her escape from it flashed back to her.

She climbed easily the rough side of the cavern and looked around. The
wind had died so that not even a murmur of it remained. As far as the eye
could see the lava flow extended without a break. But she knew the cavern
in which she had slept lay at a right angle to the line of her advance.
All site had to do was to face forward and keep going till she reached
the plain. The reasoning was sound, but it was based on a wrong premise.
Lee had clambered out of the fissure on the opposite side from that by
which she had entered. Every step she took now carried her farther into
the bad lands.

Morning broke to find her completely at sea. Even the boasted weather of
the Southwest played false. A drizzle of rain was in the air. Not until
late in the afternoon did the sun show at all and by that time the
wanderer was so deep in the Mal-Pais that when night closed down again
she was still its prisoner.

She was hungry and fagged. The soles of her boots were worn out and her
feet were badly blistered. Again she took refuge in a deep crevice for
the night.

The loneliness appalled her. No living creature was to be seen. In all
this awful desolation she was alone. Her friends at Live-Oaks would think
she was at the Ninety-Four Ranch. Even if they searched for her she would
never be found. After horrible suffering she would die of hunger and
thirst. She broke down at last and wept herself to sleep.

Chapter XXVII

"A Lucky Guy"

Lee had the affrighted look of one roused suddenly from troubled dreams.
The whimper that had drawn the attention of Prince must have come from
her restless, tortured sleep. Not till his second match flared had she
been really awake.

"Thank God!" he cried brokenly, all the pent emotion of the long night
vibrant in his tremulous voice.

She began to sob, softly, pitifully.

The match went out, but even in the blackness of the pit he could not
escape the look of suffering he had seen on her face. Her habit was to do
all things with high spirit. He could guess how much she had endured to
bring those hollow shadows under her dusky eyes. The woe of the girl
touched his heart sharply, as if with the point of a rapier.

He stooped, lifted her gently, and gathered her like a hurt child into
his arms. "You poor lost lamb," he murmured. And again he cried, "Thank
God, I came in time."