n tricked of
his life, his happiness, his right to well-being, the whole force of
the man's anger flared. Brent Palmer lay there cursing him
artistically. That man had done it; that man was in his power. He
would get even. How?

Estrella, too, lay huddled, helpless and defenseless, at his feet. She
had done it. He would get even. How?

He had spoken no word. He spoke none now, either in answer to
Estrella's appeals, becoming piteous in their craving for relief from
suspense, or in response to Brent Palmer's steady stream of insults and
vituperations. Such things were far below. The bitterness and anger
and desolation were squeezing his heart. He remembered the silly
little row of potatoes sewn in the green hide lying along the top of
the adobe fence, some fresh and round, some dripping as the rawhide
contracted, some black and withered and very small. A fierce and
savage light sprang into his eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE RAWHIDE

First of all he unhitched the horses from the buckboard and turned them
loose. Then, since he was early trained in Indian warfare, he dragged
Palmer to the wagon wheel, and tied him so closely to it that he could
not roll over. For, though the bronco-buster was already so fettered
that his only possible movement was of the jack-knife variety,
nevertheless he might be able to hitch himself along the ground to a
sharp stone, there to saw through the rope about his wrists. Estrella,
her husband held in contempt. He merely supplemented her wrist bands
by one about the ankles.

Leisurely he mounted Button and turned up the wagon trail, leaving the
two. Estrella had exhausted herself. She was capable of nothing more
in the way of emotion. Her eyes tight closed, she inhaled in deep,
trembling, long-drawn breaths, and exhaled with the name of her Maker.

Brent Palmer, on the contrary, was by no means subdued. He had
expected to be shot in cold blood. Now he did not know what to
anticipate. His black, level brows drawn straight in defiance, he
threw his curses after Johnson's retreating figure.

The latter, however, paid no attention. He had his purposes. Once at
the top of the arroyo he took a careful survey of the landscape, now
rich with dawn. Each excrescence on the plain his half-squinted eyes
noticed, and with instant skill relegated to its proper category of
soap-weed, mesquite, cactus. At length he swung Button in an easy lope
toward what looked to be a