“Creech, if I give my word not to try to get away, would you believe me?” she asked.

Creech was slow in replying.  “Reckon I would,” he said, finally.

“All right, I’ll give it.”

“An’ thet’s sense.  Now you lay down.”

Lucy did as she was bidden and pulled the blanket over her.  The place was gloomy and still.  She heard the sound of mustangs’ teeth on grass, and the soft footfalls of the men.  Presently these sounds ceased.  A cold wind blew over her face and rustled in the sage near her.  Gradually the chill passed away, and a stealing warmth took its place.  Her eyes grew tired.  What had happened to her?  With eyes closed she thought it was all a dream.  Then the feeling of the hard saddle as a pillow under her head told her she was indeed far from her comfortable little room.  What would poor Aunt Jane do in the morning when she discovered who was missing?  What would Holley do?  When would Bostil return?  It might be soon and it might be days.  And Slone—­Lucy felt sorriest for him.  For he loved her best.  She thrilled at thought of Slone on that grand horse—­on her Wildfire.  And with her mind running on and on, seemingly making sleep impossible, the thoughts at last became dreams.  Lucy awakened at dawn.  One hand ached with cold, for it had been outside the blanket.  Her hard bed had cramped her muscles.  She heard the crackling of fire and smelled cedar smoke.  In the gray of morning she saw the Creeches round a camp-fire.

Lucy got up then.  Both men saw her, but made no comment.  In that cold, gray dawn she felt her predicament more gravely.  Her hair was damp.  She had ridden nearly all night without a hat.  She had absolutely nothing of her own except what was on her body.  But Lucy thanked her lucky stars that she had worn the thick riding-suit and her boots, for otherwise, in a summer dress, her condition would soon have been miserable.

“Come an’ eat,” said Creech.  “You have sense—­an’ eat if it sticks in your throat.”

Bostil had always contended in his arguments with riders that a man should eat heartily on the start of a trip so that the finish might find him strong.  And Lucy ate, though the coarse fare sickened her.  Once she looked curiously at Joel Creech.  She felt his eyes upon her, but instantly he averted them.  He had grown more haggard and sullen than ever before.

The Creeches did not loiter over the camp tasks.  Lucy was left to herself.  The place appeared to be a kind of depression from which the desert rolled away to a bulge against the rosy east, and the rocks behind rose broken and yellow, fringed with cedars.

“Git the hosses in, if you want to,” Creech called to her, and then as Lucy started off to where the mustangs grazed she heard him curse his son.  “Come back hyar!  Leave the girl alone or I’ll rap you one!”

Lucy drove three of the mustangs into camp, where Creech began to saddle them.  The remaining one, the pack animal, Lucy found among the scrub cedars at the base of the low cliffs.  When she drove him in Creech was talking hard to Joel, who had mounted.