He drew a knife and stooped over the old prospector.
With a cry, Marta sprang to do his bidding.
In those first hours of her enforced ride in the night with Sonora Jack and the Lizard, the girl was still too bewildered and frightened to think clearly. But when the outlaw ordered the Lizard to take the pack mule and go one way, while he with Marta went another, in order to confuse any possible pursuers, she caught, from her captors’ words and actions, a gleam of hope. Hugh Edwards and Natachee would arrive at her home in the morning. They would not be long in setting out to find her. With this hope, and the assurance from the outlaws’ manner toward her that she was in no immediate personal danger, the girl’s courage returned and she was able to consider her situation with some degree of calmness. She did not know that Bob had been killed. But certainly he had not returned after being called from the house by that noise at the barn; nor had she heard his voice. This, together with the fact that neither Sonora Jack nor the Lizard had mentioned the old prospector or referred to him in any way, led her to believe that he was dead. She could not know how seriously Thad was hurt. Try as she might, she could find no hint of the outlaw’s purpose in taking her away. When the Lizard would have talked to her, Sonora Jack ordered him, curtly, to keep his mouth shut and look after the pack mule.
Morning came and they were in the Vaca Hills. When Sonora Jack and the Lizard had made camp, and breakfast was over, the outlaw ordered the girl to rest and sleep because there was a long hard ride before her and she would need all her strength. Then, telling the Lizard that he would call him later to take his turn watching for any one following on their trail, Sonora Jack went to the top of a hill, from which he could overlook the country to the east.
No sooner had his leader left the camp than the Lizard approached Marta.
With a leering grin twisting his ratlike features, he said:
“You’re a-ridin’ with me after all, ain’t ye?”
The girl, making no effort to hide her disgust, did not answer.
“Still a-feelin’ high an’ mighty, be ye? Wal, you’d best be a-gettin’ over hit. You’re a long way from th’ Cañada del Oro right now an’ you’re a-goin’ a heap further.”
Marta forced herself to ask calmly: