When the first faint rays of dawn were tingeing the eastern sky, the boss suddenly ordered them to stop. Pointing down into a dark ravine, he indicated by signs that they were to leave the trail and ride into it. Involuntarily Jo Ann gasped. The steepness of the sharp descent terrified her. Even more alarming was the thought that this was the place where he had planned to leave them as he had the peon back in the cave.
If Dr. Blackwell or José should come along this trail they never would think of hunting down there for them. “Unless I leave some clue up here on the trail,” she told herself.
When both Jo Ann and Florence kept repeating, “No sabe—no sabe,” to all of his commands, the boss, with an angry, “Follow me, pronto,” started his horse down into the ravine. He glanced over his shoulder to see if they were following.
In the short interval in which he was not looking at them, Jo Ann jerked off her belt and tossed it back on the trail. “If José or Dr. Blackwell sees that, they’ll search all around here,” she thought.
Slipping and sliding over sharp rocks and scrubby mesquite bushes they finally succeeded in reaching the bottom of the ravine.
After they had ridden some distance out of sight of the trail, the boss leaped off his horse and ordered them to follow his example.
For an instant it seemed to Jo Ann that her heart had stopped beating; then it began pounding away so rapidly that she had difficulty in breathing.
Was this to be the end? Was this silent dark ravine the spot where Florence and Carlitos and she were to be left to die?
As soon as they had all dismounted, the boss gestured to them to take the saddles off their horses.
“No sabe—no sabe,” Jo Ann began repeating.