"You brute!" cried Rhoda. "Can't you see how silly you are? You will be caught and lynched before the day is passed."
Kut-le smiled.
"Pshaw! Three Apaches can outwit a hundred white men on the trail!"
Rhoda caught her breath.
"Oh, Kut-le, how could you do this thing! How could you! I am disgraced forever! Let me go, Kut-le! Let me go! I'll not even ask you for a horse. Just let me go by myself!"
"You are better off with me. You will acknowledge that, yourself, before I am through with you."
"Better off!" Rhoda's appalled eyes cut the Indian deeper than words. "Better off! Why, Kut-le, I am a dying woman! You will just have to leave me dead beside the trail somewhere. Look at me! Look at my hands! See how emaciated I am! See how I tremble! I am a sick wreck, Kut-le. You cannot want me! Let me go! Try, try to remember all that you learned of pity from the whites! O Kut-le, let me go!"
"I haven't forgotten what I learned from the whites," replied the young man. He looked off at the desert with a quiet smile. "Now I want the whites to learn from me.
"But can't you see what a futile game you are playing? John DeWitt and Jack must be on your trail now!"
There was a cruel gleam in the Apache's eyes.