Ride! The Yaquis are upon us!" he cried,
driving the spurs into his horse. He was followed by Cortes, who in turn
was followed by the others. The entire band gave a vivid moving picture of
a reckless run down a narrow trail, by a hundred men, any one of whom
would have considered it utter madness had he been alone.

Marc Scott, stopped by a mesquite bush near the bottom of the canyon, lay
for a few moments where he had fallen, literally too shaken to move. When
he realized what had happened to him, he crawled to his feet and listened.
All was still. The sounds from above had ceased, and a cloud of dust
hovering over the trail was the only evidence that he had not imagined the
passing of a crowd of men.

"By golly, I believe they didn't hear me after all!" he gasped. Then the
thought came to him of Polly--alone on the trail above him. A sickening
fear shook him; how could she possibly have escaped those men? In a blind
fury he started to climb the ravine. It had been hard going before--now,
in spite of his body, stiff and shaken, he did not feel the effort. His
face was purple with heat and exertion, his hands were bloody with the
cactus he had clutched when falling, but his terror for the girl dwarfed
all physical discomfort. Panting and choking, he forged ahead. If he could
only reach Jasper he would follow that cloud of dust until he knew what
had happened to the woman he loved.

Jasper and the mare, uninfluenced by motives either of fear or anger,
still grazed by the clump of brush and allowed the almost exhausted Scott
to lead them back to the trail. He mounted Jasper, and turned the mare
loose. He started down the trail after the vanished band at a pace quite
as reckless as their own.

"Marc! Marc Scott!" Polly's voice rose desperately as she saw him
disappearing down the trail. "Come back here!"

Scott turned, bewildered, to see Polly running wildly toward him. She
flung herself upon him and upon Jasper before he could dismount, pouring
out the story of the men who had gone down the trail.

"And the worst of it was," she wept, stormily, "that I didn't even try to
warn you. I just made for that cave and hid myself. That's the sort of a
girl I am."

"Did you, honey? Do you know, that strikes me as mighty sensible? I don't
hold much with girls saving men's lives outside the movies, where they're
well paid for it. It strikes me life-saving is a man-sized job."

"But you're all scratched! What in the world----"