"What—on earth—does this—mean?" she gasped, very low. She had no sense of fear of Creech. Once, when he and her father had been friends, she had been a favorite of Creech's. When a little girl she had ridden his knee many times. Between Creech and Cordts there was immeasurable distance. Yet she had been violently seized and carried out into the sage and menaced.
Creech leaned down. His gaunt face, lighted by terrible eyes, made her recoil. "Bostil ruined me—an' killed my hosses," he whispered, grimly. "An' I'm takin' you away. An' I'll hold you in ransom for the King an' Sarchedon—an' all his racers!"
"Oh!" cried Lucy, in startling surprise that yet held a pang. "Oh, Creech! ... Then you mean me no harm!"
The man straightened up and stood a moment, darkly silent, as if her query had presented a new aspect of the case. "Lucy Bostil, I'm a broken man an' wild an' full of hate. But God knows I never thought of thet—of harm to you.... No, child, I won't harm you. But you must obey an' go quietly, for there's a devil in me."
"Where will you take me?" she asked.
"Down in the canyons, where no one can track me," he said. "It'll be hard goin' fer you, child, an' hard fare.... But I'm strikin' at Bostil's heart as he has broken mine. I'll send him word. An' I'll tell him if he won't give his hosses thet I'll sell you to Cordts."
"Oh, Creech—but you wouldn't!" she whispered, and her hand went to his brawny arm.
"Lucy, in thet case I'd make as poor a blackguard as anythin' else I've been," he said, forlornly. "But I'm figgerin' Bostil will give up his hosses fer you."
"Creech, I'm afraid he won't. You'd better give me up. Let me go back. I'll never tell. I don't blame you. I think you're square. My dad is.... But, oh, don't make ME suffer! You used to—to care for me, when I was little."
"Thet ain't no use," he replied. "Don't talk no more.... Git up hyar now an' ride in front of me."