Brent Palmer understood. He
writhed in the struggle of desperation, foaming blasphemies. The
uncouth bundle rolled here and there. But inexorably the other, from
the advantage of his position, drew the thongs tighter.

And then, all at once, from vituperation the bronco-buster fell to
pleading, not for life, but for death.

"For God's sake, shoot me!" he cried from within the smothering folds
of the rawhide. "If you ever had a heart in you, shoot me! Don't
leave me here to be crushed in this vise. You wouldn't do that to a
yellow dog. An Injin wouldn't do that, Buck. It's a joke, isn't it?
Don't go away and leave me, Buck. I've done you dirt. Cut my heart
out, if you want to; I won't say a word, but don't leave me here for
the sun--"

His voice was drowned in a piercing scream, as Estrella came to
herself and understood. Always the rawhide had possessed for her an
occult fascination and repulsion. She had never been able to touch it
without a shudder, and yet she had always been drawn to experiment with
it. The terror of her doom had now added to it for her all the vague
and premonitory terrors which heretofore she had not understood.

The richness of the dawn had flowed to the west. Day was at hand.
Breezes had begun to play across the desert; the wind devils to raise
their straight columns. A first long shaft of sunlight shot through a
pass in the Chiricahuas, trembled in the dust-moted air, and laid its
warmth on the rawhide. Senor Johnson roused himself from his gloom to
speak his first words of the episode.

"There, damn you!" said he. "I guess you'll be close enough together
now!"

He turned away to look for his horse.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE DESERT

Button was a trusty of Senor Johnson's private animals. He was never
known to leave his master in the lurch, and so was habitually allowed
certain privileges. Now, instead of remaining exactly on the spot
where he was "tied to the ground," he had wandered out of the dry
arroyo bed to the upper level of the plains, where he knew certain
bunch grasses might be found. Buck Johnson climbed the steep wooded
bank in search of him.

The pony stood not ten feet distant. At his master's abrupt appearance
he merely raised his head, a wisp of grass in the corner of his mouth,
without attempting to move away. Buck Johnson walked confidently to
him, fumbling in his side pocket for the piece of sugar with which he
habitually soothed Button'