Hours later she sat up with a start and realized she had been asleep. The light of another gray dawn was seeping into the room. Again she opened the door. The men were still there. Their backs were toward her. She decided to chance it, to try to slip by them and out of the building. She must get away before the other man returned.
She moved softly, slowly. She was halfway there, when a board creaked, and the men turned. She leaped forward, but before she could reach the outer door the Mexican had her by the hair. She screamed and kicked at him.
“Yuh leetle fury,” he growled. “I theenk I’ll tame yuh.”
He buried both hands in her hair and shook her, yanked her about. He shifted his hands to her throat. Tighter and tighter he gripped.
Suddenly a terrific uproar rocked the room. The man released her, and she fell back against the wall. The air was filled with smoke. Slowly it cleared, and she saw Jim-twin Allen standing close to the door she had tried to reach. There was a smoking gun in his hand. Against the farther wall stood the tall man with the long mustache, his hands upraised, On the floor at her feet sprawled the Mexican, flat on his face, his arms and legs twisted grotesquely.
Snippets crossed to Allen. “I knew you would come,” she said simply.
He smiled at her. “Get back in there,” he snapped to the tall man who had been her captor. The man quailed in fright and backed, hands still raised, into the room where Snippets had been a prisoner.
“Come on, kid,” said Allen. “We got to get out of here.”
The two grays were waiting close to the house. A rifle hung on Honey Boy’s saddle.
“Do yuh think Princess will know yuh?” Allen asked.