sounds of a hurried
search she suddenly felt sure that they were hunting for her. She
knew it. She did not wonder at it. But she wondered if she were really
Madeline Hammond, and if it were possible that brutal men would harm
her. Then the tramping of heavy feet on the floor of the adjoining room
lent her the last strength of fear. Pushing with hands and shoulders,
she moved the door far enough to permit the passage of her body. Then
she stepped up on the sill and slipped through the aperture. She saw no
one. Lightly she jumped down and ran in among the bushes. But these
did not afford her the cover she needed. She stole from one clump to
another, finding too late that she had chosen with poor judgment. The
position of the bushes had drawn her closer to the front of the house
rather than away from it, and just before her were horses, and beyond
a group of excited men. With her heart in her throat Madeline crouched
down.

A shrill yell, followed by running and mounting guerrillas, roused her
hope. They had sighted the cowboys and were in flight. Rapid thumping of
boots on the porch told of men hurrying from the house. Several horses
dashed past her, not ten feet distant. One rider saw her, for he turned
to shout back. This drove Madeline into a panic. Hardly knowing what she
did, she began to run away from the house. Her feet seemed leaden. She
felt the same horrible powerlessness that sometimes came over her when
she dreamed of being pursued. Horses with shouting riders streaked
past her in the shrubbery. There was a thunder of hoofs behind her. She
turned aside, but the thundering grew nearer. She was being run down.

As Madeline shut her eyes and, staggering, was about to fall, apparently
right under pounding hoofs, a rude, powerful hand clapped round her
waist, clutched deep and strong, and swung her aloft. She felt a heavy
blow when the shoulder of the horse struck her, and then a wrenching of
her arm as she was dragged up. A sudden blighting pain made sight and
feeling fade from her.

But she did not become unconscious to the extent that she lost the sense
of being rapidly borne away. She seemed to hold that for a long time.
When her faculties began to return the motion of the horse was no
longer violent. For a few moments she could not determine her position.
Apparently she was upside down. Then she saw that she was facing the
ground, and must be lying across a saddle with her head hanging down.
She could not