."

"Allus c'ud lass' fair to middlin'," grinned the man through yellow,
stumpy teeth. "That's why I tote a rope. An' I sure had a purty target."

Plimsoll scowled at him and he rode off. Molly, the lariat twisted about
her upper body from shoulders to waist, constricting her arms, fastened
where she could not reach it by a hitch, sat on Blaze, looking with
steady contempt at Plimsoll, who held her bridle rein. He regarded her
with sleek complacency and then his eyes slowly traveled over her
rounded figure, accented by her riding toggery.

"Grown to be quite a beauty, quite a woman, Molly, my dear," he said.
"Never should have suspected you'd turn out such a wonder. Clothes make
the woman, but it takes a proper figure to set them off. And you've got
all of that."

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"I'm not going to tell you--yet. It depends upon circumstances, my dear.
We'll all have a little chat after lunch. I'd take that rope off if I
wasn't afraid I might lose you. You are quite precious."

She looked through him as if he had been a sheet of glass. From her
first sight of him, back in childhood, she had known instinctively the
man was evil. But she was not afraid. The blood that ran in her veins
was pure and bore in its crimson flood the sturdy heritage of pioneers
who had outfaced dangers of death and torture and shame. She was all
westerner. The blood was fighting blood. She felt it urged in her pulses
while her brain bade her bide her time. Rage mounted as she faced the
possible issues of this capture, the flaunting dismissal of young Keith.

Plimsoll must be either very sure of his ground or desperate, she
fancied. Both, perhaps. Molly had come into contact with life in the raw
long before she went east. Education had not made a prude of her nor
tainted her clean purity. She faced the fact and, for the time, she
ignored the man. She had even time to think of young Donald turned
tenderfooted into the mountains, to wonder whether he would be able to
find his way back or get lost in the ranges. She heard the laughter that
followed the rifle-shots and surmised that they were having their idea
of a joke with the lad.

If he got back--then Sandy would come after her. She was very sure of
Sandy and that he would find her. Until he did she must use her wits.

And Grit, gallant Grit, wounded and lying in the chaparral!

Though she still gazed through Plimsoll rather than at him, the scorn
showed