"He's gone!" she gasped.
The eyes of Dinsmore blazed. He knew exactly how to account for the absence of the man. "I might 'a' known it. The yellow coyote! Left us in the lurch to save his own hide!"
"Perhaps he's gone for help," the girl suggested faintly.
"No chance. He's playin' a lone hand—tryin' for a get-away himself," her companion said bitterly. "You'll have to take his place here. If you see anything move, no matter what it is, shoot at it."
"If I call you will you come?" she begged.
"On the jump," he promised. "Don't go to sleep. If they should come it will be up through the boulder bed. I'm leavin' you here because you can watch from cover where you can't possibly be seen. It's different on the other side."
She knew that, but as soon as he had left her the heart of the girl sank. She was alone, lost in a night of howling savages. The horrible things they did to their captives—she recalled a story whispered to her by a girl friend that it had been impossible to shake out of her mind. In the middle of the night she had more than once found herself sitting bolt upright in bed, wakened from terrible dreams of herself as a prisoner of the Apaches.
'Mona prayed, and found some comfort in her prayers. They were the frank, selfish petitions of a little child.
"God, don't let me die. I'm so young, and so frightened. Send Daddy to save me ... or Jack Roberts."
She recited the twenty-third Psalm aloud in a low voice. The fourth verse she went back to, repeating it several times.