“You coward!” Josephine cried, her eyes blazing, “and you call yourself a man.”
Powers grinned. He secretly admired her spirit.
Two hours later they were high in the mountains and when Powers finally called a halt, the place seemed to Josephine like a natural fortress. The retreat lay in a small plateau and was reached only through a narrow defile. It commanded a view for miles around, and as familiar as the girl was with the mountains she never had seen this place. It was a more perfect retreat than Devil’s Gap, and Josephine’s heart sank when she remembered that Powers had said that only he and the halfbreed knew of the place.
Powers was watching her expression of despair as she thought of her slim chances of escaping unaided from the place, and her helplessness seemed to amuse the man.
“How do you like your cage, my pretty bird? Welcome to my home,” he said with an attempt at levity.
“You devil,” Josephine answered hotly, “don’t imagine that you can keep me here; the boys will find this place and your life won’t be worth as much as a snake’s.”
Powers laughed contemptuously and left her. The girl threw herself down on the ground completely exhausted. She lay there trying to keep back a burst of tears while she could hear the men moving about her. There was a sort of a shanty near a wall that rose on all sides of the plateau and she knew the men were preparing a meal. The smell of coffee and bacon cooking made her hungry. It was the first thought of hunger since she had started on her fateful ride.
Finally Powers came and brought her a steaming cup of coffee and a plate of bacon.
“Come, girl,” he said, with an attempt at kindness, “you must try to eat something.”
Josephine accepted the food. She knew if she was to keep up her strength she must eat, and she was almost starved. When she had finished eating, Powers pointed to the shanty.