able to sit up. She bowed her back, and
buried her face in her crossed arms.

"Ride with me after them!" urged Garth. "They have less than an hour's
start! We will overtake them at their first camp. Rouse yourself!"

But Rina only shook her head; and continued to murmur: "He want me die!
He glad I die!"

Garth's desperate need brought craft to his aid. "Very well," he said
coolly. "I shoot him on sight! Mabyn goes first!"

Rina, touched home, raised an agitated face. "No! No!" she said
tremblingly. "Grylls, him took her--not 'Erbe't!"

"No matter!" he said, feigning to leave her. "Mabyn dies like a
dog--unless you come with me."

Rina struggled to her knees, and clutched at him. "Wait a minute!" she
stammered.

"Come with me, and I promise you his life, if I can save it," he urged.
"I will give it to you!"

She attempted to rise; and he lifted her. She stood swaying dizzily,
clinging to his arm for support.

"I come," she said faintly at last. "Tak' me to the water, then go get
your horses. When you come back I ride with you."

She stopped in the cabin, and got an herb she knew of to restore her.
Garth then carried her down the hill, and laying her at the brink of the
water, where she could drink and bathe her face, he hastened back to his
own shack.

It was now light enough to see a way through the wood. A spectral mist
hung suspended a few feet over the lake; beneath it the water was like a
steel cuirass, reflecting bordering foliage as black as jet. Charley had
gone for the horses as a matter of course and was even now landing them.
The boy's whilom rosy cheeks were as white as the mist; and his face was
twisted with pain. His jaw was set doggedly; and he worked ahead without
question or comment.

No orders were required; they laboured instinctively. Saddles were
carried out, and flung on the dripping beasts; and while Charley girthed
them, Garth rolled the blankets, and made three bundles of grub, as
heavy as he dared ask each horse to carry, in addition to his rider.
Natalie's little rifle he gave to Charley; the second Winchester had
been won back in the raid, and the twenty-two was the only other weapon
they possessed. In twenty minutes they were ready. Securing the door of
the hut against the entrance of animals, they hastened to pick up Rina.

They found her waiting, outwardly collected; her old walled, sullen
self--but in the early light her skin showed a deathly, yellowish gray.
Refusing any