“Our old friends seem to want something!” he commented with his boyish grin.

“What are you going to do now?” asked Rhoda, with calm equal to the Apache’s.

“I can’t carry you up this wall,” suggested Kut-le.

“Very well!” returned Rhoda pleasantly.  “I am quite willing that you should leave me here.”

Kut-le’s eyes glittered.

“Rhoda, you must climb this wall with me!”

“I won’t!” replied Rhoda laconically.

“Then I shall force you to,” said the Indian, shifting his rifle and prodding Rhoda ever so gently with the barrel.

Rhoda gave Kut-le a look of scorn that he was not soon to forget and slowly mounted the first broken ledge.  The wall was composed of a series of jutting rocks and of ledges that barely offered hand or foot hold.  Up and up and up!  Kut-le was now beside her, now above her, now lifting, now pulling.  Half-way to the top, Rhoda stopped, dizzy and afraid.  Kneeling on the ledge above, with one hand thrust down to lift her, Kut-le looked into her eyes almost pleadingly.  That handsome face so close to hers affected Rhoda strangely.

“Don’t be afraid,” whispered Kut-le.  “Nothing can happen to you while I am taking care of you.”

Rhoda looked into his eyes proudly.

“I am not afraid,” she said, reaching for a fresh handhold with trembling fingers.

The jutting rocks were sharp.  Kut-le from his ledge saw Rhoda look at her hold then turn white.  Her nails were torn to the quick and bleeding.  She swayed with only an atom of gravity lacking to send her to death below.  Instantly Kut-le was back beside her, his sinewy hand between her shoulders, supporting and lifting her to the ledge above.  As they neared the top the broken surface became prickly with cactus and Rhoda winced with misery as the thorns pierced and tore her flesh.  But finally, in what actually had been an incredibly short time, they emerged on the plateau, where the two squaws huddled high above the pursuers.

“They think they have you now!” said Kut-le, as Rhoda dropped panting to the ground.  “We must move out of here before they investigate the mesa top.”

He allowed, however, a few minutes’ breathing spell for Rhoda.  She sat quietly, though her gray eyes were brilliant with excitement.  It seemed to her but a matter of a few hours now when she would be with her own.  Yet she could not but notice with that curious observance of detail which comes at moments of intensest excitement the varied colors of the distances that opened before her.  The great mesa on which she sat was a mighty peninsula of chalcedony that stretched into the desert.  It was patched by rocks of lavender, of yellow, and of green, and belled over by the intensity of the morning blue above.

“Come!” said Kut-le.  “There will be little rest for us today.”

Rhoda rose, took a few staggering steps, then sat down.