"You're a fool!" declared Kester. "Let the women alone! I never knowed a
man to monkey with one yet, that he didn't get the worst of it."

Chavis paid no attention to this remonstrance. He seized Ruth's pony by
the bridle and began to lead it up the slope toward the plateau. Kester
laid a restraining hand on his arm. He spoke rapidly; he seemed to have
become, in a measure, imbued with the same passion that had taken
possession of Chavis.

"Leave the cayuse here; she'll be huntin' for it, directly; she'll come
right down here. Give her time."

Chavis, however, while he obeyed the suggestion about leaving the pony
where it was, did not follow Kester's suggestion about waiting, but began
to run up the slope toward the plateau, scrambling and muttering. And
Kester, after a short instant of silent contemplation, followed him.

Ruth no longer trembled. She knew that if she was to escape from the two
men she would have to depend entirely upon her own wit and courage, and
in this crisis she was cool and self-possessed. She waited until she saw
the two men vanish behind the shoulder of the cut where she had seen the
horse's head, and then she clambered over the edge of the wall, grasping
some gnarled branches, and letting herself slide quickly down. In an
instant she felt her feet come in contact with the flat rock under which
the men had been when she had first heard them talking. It seemed a great
distance to the ground from the rock, but she took the jump bravely, not
even shutting her eyes. She landed on all fours and pitched headlong,
face down, in the dust, but was up instantly and running toward her pony.

Seizing the bridle, she looped it through her arm, and then, pulling at
the animal, she ran to where the horses of the two men stood, watching
her, and snorting with astonishment and fright. With hands that trembled
more than a little, she threw the reins over their heads, so that they
might not drag, and then, using the quirt, dangling from her wrist by a
rawhide thong, she turned their heads toward the declivity and lashed
them furiously. She watched them as they went helter-skelter, down into
the valley, and then with a smile that might have been grim if it had not
been so quavering, she mounted her own animal and rode it cautiously up
the slope toward the plateau.

As she reached the plateau, her head rising above its edge, she saw that
Chavis and Kester were a good quarter of a mile from her and running
tow