her carrying off by the bandits seemed
fantastically impossible.

So this was her "escape" from scenes of adventure. This was the
"great, safe, quiet West," where she should forget her perils in New
York and wait for others to forget them. She thought of her promise to
Harry that she would not try to get into any more scrapes. In her
former dangers--even when there seemed hope--she had a buoying
trust that there was one man who could save her. He had always saved
her. In his protecting shelter she had come to feel almost immune from
harm. But with Harry three thousand miles away and totally ignorant of
her need of him no sense of imagined protection sustained her now. She
took it for granted that Mr. Haines had been made a prisoner or
killed. She knew the word would reach Mrs. Haines and the latter would
invoke all the powers in the State to find her; but she was, sure she
would be dead before anyone unearthed this fearful hiding place.

The light at the far end of the cave grew steadily more dim and Pauline
judged that the day was waning.

A rustling sound caught her ear. Sounds are animate or inanimate.
This was unmistakably the sound of a living thing.

Pauline trembled a little but she stood up. Was it man or beast that
she had for companion in the mysterious cave?

She took a faltering step forward. The sound seemed to come nearer.
The cave had gone almost pitch dark, and, suddenly, from the mid-level
of the back wall--from the rock ledge--there flashed upon the sight
of the imprisoned girl two beady, burning eyes.

CHAPTER XIV

THE GREAT WHITE QUEEN

Hal Haines' best driving team was lathered with foam and the buckboard
swung through the gate on two wheels as Bill Cabot drove back to the
Double Cross Ranch.

The young cowboy whom Haines had ordered to carry the news of disaster
to Mrs. Haines, seeing the buckboard and only Cabot driving, knew
instantly that something had gone wrong.

"What is it, Will?" she called, running down to the gate. "Didn't she
come? Has anything happened to Hal?"

"She was held up and carried off, Mrs. Haines."

"I know; I know. You played the joke; but what happened?" She looked
at the foaming horses. "What made you drive home like this?" she
demanded.

"She wasn't carried off by us, Mrs. Haines. Some other crowd got ahead
of us--some crowd that meant what they was doing. The Boss and the
boys has got the trail by this time, I guess. The Boss s