The Greatest Adventure Books - MacLeod Raine Edition. William MacLeod Raine

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      "Am I your prisoner, Miss Sanderson?" he presently wanted to know.

      "I'm not thinking of prisoners just now," she answered shortly, with an anxious backward glance.

      Presently she pulled up and wheeled her horse, so that when he halted they sat facing each other.

      "Let me see your arm," she ordered.

      Obediently he held out to her the one that happened to be nearest. It was the unwounded one. An angry spark gleamed in her eye.

      "This is no time to be fresh. Give me the other."

      "Yes, ma'am." he answered, with deceptive meekness.

      Without comment, she turned back the sleeve which came to the wrist gauntlet, and discovered a furrow ridged by a rifle bullet. It was a clean flesh wound, neither deep nor long enough to cause him trouble except for the immediate loss of blood. To her inexperience it looked pretty bad.

      "A plumb scratch," he explained.

      She took the kerchief from her neck, and tied it about the hurt, then pulled down the sleeve and buttoned it over the brown forearm. All this she did quite impersonally, her face free of the least sympathy.

      "Thank you, ma'am. You're a right friendly enemy."

      "It isn't a matter of friendship at all. One couldn't leave a wounded jack rabbit in pain," she retorted coldly, taking up the trail again.

      There was room for two abreast, and he chose to ride beside her. "So you tied me up because it was your Christian duty," he soliloquized aloud. "Just the same as if I had been a mangy coyote that was suffering."

      "Exactly."

      He let his cool eyes rest on her with a hint of amusement. "And what were you thinking of doing with me now, ma'am?"

      "I'm going to take you up to Jim Yeager's mine. He is doing his assessment work now, and he'll look out for you for a day or two."

      "Look out for me in a locked room?" he wanted to know casually.

      "I didn't say so. It isn't my business to arrest criminals," she told him icily.

      His eyes gleamed mischief. "Is it your business to help them to escape?"

      "I'm not helping you to escape. I'll not risk your dying in the hills alone. That is all."

      "Jim Yeager is your friend?"

      "Yes."

      "And you guarantee he'll keep his mouth padlocked and not betray me?"

      "He'll do as he pleases about that," she said indifferently.

      "Then I don't reckon I'll trouble his hospitality. Good-by, Miss Sanderson. I've enjoyed meeting you very much."

      He checked his pony and bowed.

      "Where are you going?" the girl exclaimed.

      "Up Bear Creek."

      "It's twenty miles. You can't do it."

      "Sure I can. Thanks for your kindness, Miss Sanderson. I'll return the handkerchief some day," and with a touch swung round his pony.

      "You're not going. I won't have it, and you wounded!"

      He turned in the saddle, smiling at her with jaunty insouciance.

      "I'll answer for Jim. He won't betray you," she promised, subduing her pride.

      "Thanks. I'll take your word for it, but I won't trouble your friend. I've had all the Christian charity that's good for me this mo'ning," he drawled.

      At that she flamed out passionately: "Do you want me to tell you that I like you, knowing what you are? Do you want me to pretend that I feel friendly when I hate you?"

      "Do you want me to be under obligations to folks that hate me?" he came back with his easy smile.

      "You have lost a lot of blood. Your arm is still bleeding. You know I can't let you go alone."

      "You're ce'tainly aching for a chance to be a Good Samaritan, Miss Sanderson."

      With this he left her. But he had not gone a hundred yards before he heard her pony cantering after his. One glance told him she was furious, both at him and at herself.

      "Did you come after your handkerchief, ma'am? I'm not through with it yet," he said innocently.

      "I'm going with you. I'm not going to leave you till we meet some one that will take charge of you," she choked.

      "It isn't necessary. I'm much obliged, ma'am, but you're overestimating the effect of this pill your friend injected into me."

      "Still, I'm going. I won't have your death on my hands," she told him defiantly.

      "Sho! I ain't aimin' to pass over the divide on account of a scratch like this. There's no danger but what I can look out for myself."

      She waited in silence for him to start, looking straight ahead of her.

      He tried in vain to argue her out of it. She had nothing to say, and he saw she was obstinately determined to carry her point.

      Finally, with a little chuckle at her stubbornness, he gave in and turned round.

      "All right. Yeager's it is. We're acting like a pair of kids, seems to me." This last with a propitiatory little smile toward her which she disdained to answer.

      Yeager saw them from afar, and recognized the girl.

      "Hello, Phyllis!" he shouted down. "With you in a minute."

      The girl slipped to the ground, and climbed the steep trail to meet him. Her crisp "Wait here," flung over her shoulder with the slightest turn of the head, kept Keller in the saddle.

      Halfway up she and the man met. The one waiting below could not hear what they said, but he could tell she was explaining the situation to Yeager. The latter nodded from time to time, protested, was vehemently overruled, and seemed to leave the matter with her. Together they retraced their way. Young Yeager, in flannel shirt and half-leg miner's boots, was a splendid specimen of bronzed Arizona. His level gaze judged the man on horseback, approved him, and met him eye to eye.

      "Better light, Mr. Keller. If you come in we'll have a look at your arm. An accident like that is a mighty awkward thing to happen to a man on the trail. It's right fortunate Miss Sanderson found you so soon after it happened."

      The nester knew a surge of triumph in his blood, but it did not show in the impassive face which he turned upon his host.

      "It was right fortunate for me," he said, swinging from the saddle. Incidentally he was wondering what story had been narrated to Yeager, but he took a chance without hesitation. "A fellow oughtn't to be so careless when he's got a gun in his hand."

      "You're right, seh. In this country of heavy underbrush a man's gun is liable СКАЧАТЬ