“Come, my darling,” he said, mockingly. “It is time that we were on the way.”
“I am not going anywhere with you,” was the answer.
“Really, you do yourself wrong by such conduct as this. You are going somewhere with me and at once.”
“I will not.”
“I have no time to waste. Will you go with me quietly or shall I call some of the Indians to carry you? They are not very courteous knights, and perhaps—”
“I will go with you,” she said, quickly, “but woe to you if you cherish any evil thought against me, for with the first weapon I can reach I will kill you.”
He made no answer but took her hand and led her at a rapid pace up the little valley until he reached the south end. Two Indians bearing a number of new lariats accompanied them and they stopped at the base of the almost perpendicular cliff and began to climb like cats until they reached a ledge fifty feet above the bottom of the canon. Then they sent down the ends of a doubled lariat which was formed into a sort of chair at the bottom, and at a sign from Rafe, Myrtle took her place in it and was raised to the ledge above. The rope was lowered again and Rafe came up, hand over hand, and reached the ledge panting for breath. The Indians slid down the lariats, which Rafe flung down to them and the two departed, leaving Rafe and Myrtle standing on the ledge.
“It will trouble your good friends to follow us here,” said Rafe, laughing. “Capital scouts they may be but I doubt if they could track us up this cliff.”
“You will find it hard to deceive my father,” she replied, “if he once takes your trail.”
“I don’t think he will trouble me any more,” replied Rafe, with a grim smile, turning away his head. “Your father was a plucky and keen-witted man, but it is out of his power to harm me now.”