dless lips.

She looked around in vain for the horse spoken of by Pawnee Brown. Not
an animal was in sight. Then she remembered what the scout had said
about riding down the ravine, and she set off on foot.

Not far from the mouth of the cave the ravine forked into two branches,
the smaller fork ending at the distance of quarter of a mile in a cul de
sac, or blind pocket. Not knowing she was making any mistake, she
entered this fork and kept on running, expecting each instant to find
Pawnee Brown coming up behind her.

"Oh, dear, I can't be right!"

Such was the cry which escaped her when she came to a halt, realizing
she could go no further in that direction. On both sides and in front
arose a series of rocks, more or less steep, and covered only with scrub
brush, impossible to ascend.

She looked behind. No one was coming. All about her was as silent as a
tomb.

"Perhaps I had better go back," she mused, but the thought of
encountering an Indian made her shiver. In her life in the open she had
had many an encounter with a wild animal, but redskins were as yet
almost new to her, and her experience with the hideous Yellow Elk had
been one she did not care to repeat.

She had just turned to move back to the ravine proper, when a sound
among the rocks caused her to pause. She looked intently in the
direction, but could see nothing out of the ordinary.

"Hullo, there, miss; what are you doing away out here?"

The cry came from the rocks on her right. Turning swiftly, she saw an
evil-looking man scowling down upon her from a small opening under one
of the rocky walls of the _cul de sac_. The man was Louis Vorlange.

Nellie did not know the fellow; indeed she had never heard of him. But
there was that in the spy's manner which was not at all reassuring as he
leaped down to where she stood.

"I say, how did you come here?" went on Vorlange.

"I--I just escaped from an Indian who carried me off from Arkansas
City," answered Nellie.

"An Indian! Who was it, do you know?"

"A fellow named Yellow Elk."

Vorlange uttered a low whistle.

"Where is he now?" he questioned.

"I left him back in yonder hills, in a cave."

Again the spy uttered a whistle, but whether of surprise or dismay
Nellie could not tell.

"Were you alone with Yellow Elk?"

"I was for a time. But a white man came to my aid and the two had a
fight."

"Who was the white man?"

Before she gave the matter a second thought, Nellie answered