, and as inhuman.

"'Erbe't, who am I?" she breathed.

Mabyn, seeing that Natalie heard and understood, beside himself, and
reckless with rage, flung out his arm, throwing her heavily to the
ground. "You! damn you!" he cried. "You're just my----"

Natalie, with a low cry of horror, instinctively clapped her heels to
her horse's ribs, and set off down the hill. Garth wheeled after her.

"Oh, stay--stay and help her!" she gasped.

"You come first!" said Garth grimly.

Mabyn, as Natalie turned, sprang after her; and running desperately,
managed to cling to her stirrup. Casting off the last vestiges of
manliness he wept and prayed her to wait for him. Her horse, Caspar,
kicked out wildly, and struck him off. He lay on the ground sobbing and
cursing; striving to drag himself along with clawing hands.

Just before they gained the watercourse, Garth looked over his shoulder;
and his heart leapt into his throat. The brown woman was reaching for
Mabyn's rifle. He shouted a warning; and desperately strove to throw
his horse behind Natalie. But it was too late. Hard upon his voice, the
shot rang. A strange, low cry broke from Natalie; and she reeled in her
saddle. Garth, spurring ahead, grasped Caspar's bridle, and caught her
from falling. A pang, far more dreadful than the hurt of a bullet, smote
his own breast.

XVI

NATALIE WOUNDED

The frightened horses struggled over the watercourse, and gained the
trees before Garth, hampered as he was, succeeded in drawing their heads
together, and stopping them. Slipping out of the saddle without
loosening his grasp of Natalie, he lifted her off, ever careful to
shield her from possible further shots with his own body. He remembered
Mabyn's was a single-shot weapon; and he counted on the time it would
take the Indian woman to obtain ammunition, and reload. Quickly and
tenderly laying Natalie on the ground under shelter of a stump, he
unslung his own rifle. But as he dropped to his knee, and raised it, he
saw the woman on the edge of the cut-bank swing the stock of her gun
around her head, and send the weapon spinning out over the water.
Meanwhile Mabyn was running up the hill toward her with significant
action. No immediate further danger threatened. Garth put the pair out
of his mind, and bent over Natalie. What happened to the woman at
Mabyn's hands was a matter of indifference to him now.

Natalie's left arm hung useless; and a soaking crimson stain spread
broadly