before venturing
into the cave where Miss Gray was doubtless in a dead faint. The man was
breathing, but still unconscious from the blow on the head. Bonner
quickly tied his hands and feet, guarding against emergencies in case
of his own incapacitation as the result of the bullet wound in his leg;
then he hobbled off with the lantern past the groaning Amazon in quest
of Rosalie Gray. It did not occur to him until afterward that single
handed he had overcome a most desperate band of criminals, so simply had
it all worked out up to the time of the encounter with the woman.

A few yards beyond where the old woman lay moaning he came upon the cave
in which the bandits made their home. Holding the lantern above his
head, Bonner peered eagerly into the cavern. In the farthest corner
crouched a girl, her terror-struck eyes fastened upon the stranger.

"How do you do, Miss Gray," came the cheery greeting from his lips. She
gasped, swept her hand over her eyes, and tried piteously to speak. The
words would not come. "The long-prayed-for rescue has come. You are
free--that is, as soon as we find our way out of this place. Let me
introduce myself as Jack, the Giant Killer--hello! Don't do that! Oh,
the devil!" She had toppled over in a dead faint.

How Wicker Bonner, with his wounded leg, weak from loss of blood, and
faint from the reaction, carried her from the cave through the passage
and the trap-door and into the tent can only be imagined, not described.
He only knew that it was necessary to remove her from the place, and
that his strength would soon be gone. The sun was tinting the east
before she opened her eyes and shuddered. In the meantime he had
stanched the flow of blood in the fleshy part of his leg, binding the
limb tightly with a piece of rope. It was an ugly, glancing cut made by
a bullet of large calibre, and it was sure to put him on crutches for
some time to come. Even now he was scarcely able to move the member. For
an hour he had been venting his wrath upon the sluggish Anderson Crow,
who should have been on the scene long before this. Two of his captives,
now fully conscious, were glaring at their companions in the tent with
hate in their eyes.

Rosalie Gray, wan, dishevelled, but more beautiful than the reports had
foretold, could not at first believe herself to be free from the
clutches of the bandits. It took him many minutes--many painful
minutes--to convince her that it was not a dream, and that in tr