"He'll be all right!" panted Kut-le, running down the trail. "I've got Billy Porter down here to leave with him!"

At the foot of the trail were horses. Gagged and bound to his saddle Billy Porter sat in the moonlight with Molly on guard. Kut-le put Rhoda on a horse, then quickly thrust Porter to the ground, where the man sat helplessly.

"Oh, Billy!" cried Rhoda. "John is on the terrace! Find him! Help him!"

The last words were spoken as Kut-le turned her horse and led at a trot into the desert.

CHAPTER XX

THE RUINED MISSION

Rhoda was so confused that for a moment she could only ease herself to the pony's swift canter and wonder if her encounter with DeWitt had been but a dream after all. A short distance from the pueblo Kut-le rode in beside her. It was very dark, with the heavy blackness that just precedes the dawn, but Rhoda felt that the Indian was looking at her exultingly.

"It seemed as if I never would get Alchise and Injun Tom moved to a friend's _campos_ so that I could overtake you. I will say that that fellow Porter is game to the finish. It took me an hour to subdue him!

Now, don't worry about the two of them. With a little work they can loose themselves and help each other to safety. I saw Newman's trail ten miles or so over beyond the pueblo mesa and I told Porter just how to go to pick him up."

Rhoda laughed hysterically.

"No wonder you have such a hold on your Indians! You seem never to fail! I do believe as much of it is luck as ingenuity!"

Kut-le chuckled.

"What a jolt DeWitt will find when he comes to, and finds Porter!"

"You needn't gloat over the situation, Kut-le!" exclaimed Rhoda, half sobbing in her conflict of emotions.

"Oh, you mustn't mind anything I say," returned the young Indian. "I am crazy with joy at just hearing your voice again! Are you really sorry to be with me again? Did DeWitt mean as much to you as ever?

Tell me, Rhoda! Say just one kindly thing to me!"

"O Kut-le," cried Rhoda, "I can't! I can't! You must help me to be strong! You--who are the strongest person that I know! Can't you put yourself in my place and realize what a horrible position I am in?"

Kut-le answered slowly.

"I guess I can realize it. But the end is so great, so much worth while that nothing before that matters much, to me! Rhoda, isn't this good--the lift of the horse under your knees--the air rushing past your face--the weave and twist of the trail--don't they speak to you and doesn't your heart answer?"

"Yes," answered Rhoda simply.

The young Indian rode still closer. Dawn was lifting now, and with a gasp Rhoda saw what she had been too agonized to heed on the terrace in the moonlight. Kut-le was clothed again! He wore the khaki suit, the high-laced riding boots of the ranch days; and he wore them with the grace, the debonair ease that had so charmed Rhoda in young Cartwell.

That little sense of his difference that his Indian nakedness had kept in Rhoda's subconsciousness disappeared. She stared at his broad, graceful shoulders, at the fine outline of his head which still was bare, and she knew that her decision was going to be indescribably difficult to keep. Kut-le watched the wistful gray eyes tenderly, as if he realized the depth of anguish behind their wistfulness; yet he watched none the less resolutely, as if he had no qualms over the outcome of his plans. And Rhoda, returning his gaze, caught the depth and splendor of his eyes. And that wordless joy of life whose thrill had touched her the first time that she had met young Cartwell rushed through her veins once more. He was the youth, the splendor, the vivid wholesomeness of the desert! He was the heart itself, of the desert.

Kut-le laid his hand on hers.

"Rhoda," softly, "do you remember the moment before Porter interrupted us? Ah, dear one, you will have to prove much to erase the truth of that moment from our hearts! How much longer must I wait for you, Rhoda?"

Rhoda did not speak, but as she returned the young man's gaze there came her rare slow smile of unspeakable beauty and tenderness. Kut-le trembled; but before he could speak Rhoda seemed to see between his face and hers, DeWitt, haggard and exhausted, expending the last remnant of his strength in his fight for her. She put her hands before her face with a little sob.

Kut-le watched her in silence for a moment, then he said in his low rich voice:

"Neither DeWitt nor I want you to suffer over your decision. And DeWitt doesn't want just the sh.e.l.l of you. I have the real you! O Rhoda, the real you will belong to me if you are seven times DeWitt's wife! Can't you realize that forever and ever you are mine, no matter how you fight or what you do?"

But Rhoda scarcely heard him. She was with DeWitt, struggling across the parching sands.

"O Kut-le! Kut-le! What shall I do! What shall I do!"

Kut-le started to answer, then changed his mind.

"You poor, tired little girl," he said. "You have had a fierce time there in the desert. You look exhausted. What did you have to eat and how did you make out crossing to the mesa? By your trail you went miles out of your way."

Rhoda struggled for calm.

"We nearly died the first day," she said. "But we did very well after we reached the mesa."

Kut-le smiled to himself. It was hard even for him to realize that this plucky girl who pa.s.sed so simply over such an ordeal as he knew she must have endured could be the Rhoda of the ranch. But he said only:

"We'll make for the timber line and let you rest for a while."

At mid-morning they left the desert and began to climb a rough mountain slope. At the pinon line, Kut-le called a halt. Never before had shade seemed so good to Rhoda as it did now. She lay on the pine-needles looking up into the soft green. It was unspeakably grateful to her eyes which had been so long tortured by the desert glare. She lay thus for a long time, her mental pain for a while lost in the access of physical comfort. Shortly Molly, who had been working rapidly, brought her a steaming bowl of stew. Rhoda ate this, then with her head pillowed on her arm she fell asleep.

She was wakened by Molly's touch on her arm. It was late afternoon.

Rhoda looked up into the squaw's face and drew a quick hard breath as realization came to her.

"Molly! Molly!" she cried. "I'm in terrible, terrible trouble, Molly!"

The squaw looked worried.

"You no go away! Kut-le heap sorry while you gone!"

But Rhoda scarcely heeded the woman's voice. She rolled over with her hot face in the fragrant needles and groaned.

"O Molly! Molly! I'm in terrible trouble!"

"What trouble? You tell old Molly!"

Rhoda sat up and stared into the deep brown eyes. Just as Kut-le had become to her the splendor of the desert, so had Molly become the brooding wisdom of the desert. With sudden inspiration she grasped the Indian woman's toil-scarred hands.

"Listen, Molly! Before I knew Kut-le, I was going to marry the white man, DeWitt. And after he stole me I hated Kut-le and I hated the desert. And now, O Molly, I love both Kut-le and the desert, and I must marry the white man!"

"Why? You tell Molly why?"

"Because he is white, Molly, like me. Because he loves me so and has done so much for me! But most of all because he is white!"

Molly scowled.

"Because Kut-le is Injun, you no marry him?"