“Not—not just yet—please. I’m—so—tired.” She sank back onto the blankets.
Realizing that, for the present, rest was the most important thing for her, Ross covered the girl with a blanket and set about his camp duties.
He finished unpacking his burros and turned them loose to pick at the scanty tufts of grass that grew along the seeping stream. This done, he set about preparing his own meal.
It was already dusk, and by the time he had cooked and eaten his supper darkness had settled down over the little canon. Washing his few dishes in the pool, Ross set them aside and turned his attention to finding enough firewood to keep the fire going.
In the darkness this was somewhat of a task, and Ross was absent from the camp for some little time. When he returned he saw that his strange guest had evidently fallen asleep.
Ross threw some wood on the fire and sat down with his back against a rock. Filling his pipe, he lighted it and leaned back to contemplate the events of the afternoon and evening.
His first mental reaction on finding the girl had been one of intense rage that any one, no matter what the cause or conditions, could be so utterly inhuman as to perpetrate such an act. He was still angry now, but he had cooled off to the extent that he could consider the affair calmly.
There seemed to be no off-hand explanation whatever. As far as Ross knew, there was no human habitation in all this desert waste, yet this trail up the little canon had been used frequently and recently, so somewhere up the winding trail must lie a solution to the mystery. But what it could be, or whether he could ever solve it, Ross could not imagine.
The whole affair was grotesque, bizarre. Why any one should chain a young girl to a rock wall in the midst of a heat-scorched desert was utterly incomprehensible. The girl was not gross or criminal-looking. On the contrary, she was pretty, delicate, and obviously refined. Her clothes bespoke a far different environment. How any one could be so inhuman as to subject her to such treatment was unfathomable.
Sitting there, smoking and watching the girl, mulling the strangeness of the affair over in his mind, Ross could offer himself no explanation. The only thing to do, apparently, was to wait for the girl to awaken and then wait for her to talk.