“Just the dry rot of carelessness,” he said. “The Indians have been peaceable so long that no one could believe there would ever again be trouble; and so the walls have been neglected, and everything is in as bad a shape as it can be.
“I saw the danger you would be in,” he went on. “You are young, and you are a handsome girl; some buck would take you for his squaw as soon as he saw you. That’s why I’m getting you away from there.”
She stiffened in his arms. She did not believe him.
“Let me down, please!” she requested.
“What for?”
“Because I know that you are lying, and I refuse to go farther with you.”
“Why, my dear girl——”
“What black scheme have you in mind now?” she demanded.
“May Arlington, you wrong me! I have no plan. I’m doing this because I want to help you, and because I love you.”
“You have left Mrs. McGee; and Ben Stevens is in that jail there, a prisoner and helpless.”