Beulah was too perfect of body, too sound of health, not to revel in such a dawn as swept across the flats next morning.  The sun caressed her throat, her bare head, the uplifted face.  As the tender light of daybreak was in the hills, so there was a lilt in her heart that found expression in her voice, her buoyant footsteps, and the shine of her eyes.  She had slept soundly in Beaudry’s blankets while he had lain down in his slicker on the other side of the fire.  Already she was quite herself again.  The hours of agony in the pit were obliterated.  Life was a wholly joyous and beautiful adventure.

She turned back to the camp where Roy was making coffee.

“Am I not to do any of the work?”

At the sound of that deep, sweet voice with its hint of a drawl the young man looked up and smiled.  “Not a bit.  All you have to do is to drink my coffee and say I’m the best cook you know.”

After they had drunk the coffee and finished the sandwiches, Roy saddled.

“They’re probably over to the left.  Don’t you think so?” Beaudry suggested.

“Yes.”

There drifted to them the sound of two shots fired in rapid succession.

Roy fired twice in answer.  They moved in the direction of the shooting.  Again the breeze brought revolver shots.  This time there were three of them.

Beaudry bad an odd feeling that this was a call for help from somebody in difficulties.  He quickened their pace.  The nature of the ground, a good deal of which was deep sand, made fast travel impossible.

“Look!” Beulah pointed forward and to the right.

At the same moment there came a shout.  “Help!  I’m in the quicksands.”

They made out the figure of a man buried to his waist in the dry wash of a creek.  A horse stood on the farther bank of the wash.  Roy deflected toward the man, Beulah at his heels.

“He must be caught in Dead Man’s Sink,” the girl explained.  “I’ve never seen it, but I know it is somewhere near here.  All my life I’ve heard of it.  Two Norwegians were caught here five years ago.  Before help reached them, they were lost.”

“Get me a rope—­quick,” the man in the sand called.

“Why, it’s Brad,” cried Beulah.

“Yep.  Saw the smoke of yore fire and got caught trying to reach you.  Can’t make it alone.  Thought I sure was a goner.  You’ll have to hurry.”

Already Roy was taking the riata from its place below the saddle-horn.  From the edge of the wash he made a cast toward the man in the quicksands.  The loop fell short.

“You’ll have to get into the bed of the stream,” suggested Beulah.

Beaudry moved across the sand a few steps and tried again.  The distance was still too great.

Already he was beginning to bog down.  The soles of his shoes disappeared in the treacherous sand.  When he moved it seemed to him that some monster was sucking at him from below.  As he dragged his feet from the sand the sunken tracks filled with mud.  He felt the quiver of the river-bed trembling at his weight.