It was several hours before Matt regained consciousness. His first tangible feeling was one of nausea. Opening his eyes, he found himself in a bare little room, lighted by a candle planted in its own drippings on the hard earth floor.
Matt's hands and feet were tied, and his limbs felt terribly numb and cramped. As his wits slowly returned, he began to note his surroundings more in detail.
The walls of the room were of adobe clay, but they had caved in in several places and parts of the thatched roof had fallen to the floor. The litter of clay and tule thatching had been brushed aside to leave the center of the room clear.
On the floor near Matt lay his leather cap. Close to the sputtering candle, squatting tailor-fashion, a doubled elbow on one of his knees and a black pipe in his fingers, was a resolute-looking man in cowboy clothes. Alongside of him lay a broad-brimmed hat and a coiled riata.
"Where am I?" called Matt.
The man turned his grizzled face in Matt's direction.
"Oh, ho!" he chuckled. "Come back ter earth, have ye? I was allowin' it ort ter be time. Whar be ye? Why, ye're in a desarted Mexican jacal in the foot-hills o' the Phœnix Mountains, about twenty miles from the capital of Arizony Territory. Anythin' else ye're pinin' ter know?"
"Who brought me here?" demanded Matt.
"You was brought in one o' them hossless kerriges, bub. That was a hull lot o' style, now, wasn't it? I've heern tell that lots o' people pays five dollars an hour ter ride in them benzine buggies, but you got yer ride fer nothin'. Ain't ye pleased?"
"This is no time for foolishness," said Matt. "I was dragged away from Phœnix against my will, and the best thing you can do is to take these ropes off me and let me go."