Yuma, and get cash out of that. Oh, we will get
the finances somehow! I'll write a lawyer soon as we get back to
Whitely's--God! what's that?"

They halted, holding breath to listen.

"A coyote," said Pike.

"No, only one animal screams like that--a wildcat in the timber. But
it's no wildcat."

Again the sound came. It was either from a distance or else muffled
by the barrier of the hill, a blood-curdling scream of sickening
terror.

A cold chill struck the men as they looked at each other.

"The carrion crows knew!" said Kit. "You hold the stock, Pike."

He quickly slipped his rifle from its case, and started up the knoll.

"The stock will stand," said Pike. "I'm with you."

As the two men ran upward to the summit and away from the crunching of
their own little outfit in the bed of the dry river, they were struck
by the sound of clatter of hoofs and voices.

"Bub, do you know where we are?" asked Pike--"this draw slants south
and has brought us fair into the Palomitas trail where it comes into
the old Yaqui trail, and on south to hell."

"To hell it is, if it's the slavers again after women," said Kit.
"Come quiet."

They reached the summit where cacti and greasewood served as shield,
and slightly below them they saw, against the low purple hills, clouds
of dust making the picture like a vision and not a real thing, a line
of armed horsemen as outpost guards, and men with roped arms stumbling
along on foot slashed at occasionally with a _reata_ to hasten their
pace. Women and girls were there, cowed and drooping, with torn
garments and bare feet. Forty prisoners in all Kit counted of those
within range, ere the trail curved around the bend of a hill.

"But that scream?" muttered Kit. "All those women are silent as death,
but that scream?" Then he saw.

One girl was in the rear, apart from the rest of the group. A
blond-bearded man spurred his horse against her, and a guard lashed at
her to keep her behind. Her scream of terror was lest she be separated
from that most woeful group of miserables. The horse was across the
road, blocking it, as the man with the light beard slid from the
saddle and caught her.

Kit's gun was thrown into position as Pike caught his hand.

"_No!_" he said. "Look at her!"

For the Indian girl was quicker far. From the belt of her assailant
she grasped a knife and lunged at his face as he held her. His one
hand went to his cheek where the blood streamed, and his other to