bronco-buster was already so fettered that his only possible
movement was of the jack-knife variety, nevertheless he might be

able to hitch himself along the ground to a sharp stone, there to
saw through the rope about his wrists. Estrella, her husband

held in contempt. He merely supplemented her wrist bands by one
about the ankles.

Leisurely he mounted Button and turned up the wagon trail,
leaving the two. Estrella had exhausted herself. She was

capable of nothing more in the way of emotion. Her eyes tight
closed, she inhaled in deep, trembling, long-drawn breaths, and

exhaled with the name of her Maker.
Brent Palmer, on the contrary, was by no means subdued. He had

expected to be shot in cold blood. Now he did not know what to
anticipate. His black, level brows drawn straight in defiance,

he threw his curses after Johnson's retreating figure.
The latter, however, paid no attention. He had his purposes.

Once at the top of the arroyo he took a careful survey of the
landscape, now rich with dawn. Each excrescence on the plain his

half-squinted eyes noticed, and with instant skill relegated to
its proper category of soap-weed, mesquite, cactus. At length he

swung Button in an easy lope toward what looked to be a bunch of
soap-weed in the middle distance.

But in a moment the cattle could be seen plainly. Button pricked
up his ears. He knew cattle. Now he proceeded tentatively,

lifting high his little hoofs to avoid the half-seen inequalities
of the ground and the ground's growths, wondering whether he were

to be called on to rope or to drive. When the rider had
approached to within a hundred feet, the cattle started.

Immediately Button understood that he was to pursue. No rope
swung above his head, so he sheered off and ran as fast as he

could to cut ahead of the bunch. But his rider with knee and
rein forced him in. After a moment, to his astonishment, he

found himself runningalongside a big steer. Button had never
hunted buffalo--Buck Johnson had.

The Colt's forty-five barked once, and then again. The steer
staggered, fell to his knees, recovered, and finally stopped, the

blood streaming from his nostrils. In a moment he fell heavily
on his side--dead.

Senor Johnson at once dismounted and began methodically to skin
the animal. This was not easy for he had no way of suspending

the carcass nor of rolling it from side to side. However, he was
practised at it and did a neat job. Two or three times he even

caught himself taking extra pains that the thin flesh strips
should not adhere to the inside of the pelt. Then he smiled

grimly, and ripped it loose.
After the hide had been removed he cut from the edge, around and

around, a long, narrow strip. With this he bound the whole into
a compactbundle, strapped it on behind his saddle, and

remounted. He returned to the arroyo.
Estrella still lay with her eyes closed. Brent Palmer looked up

keenly. The bronco-buster saw the green hide. A puzzled
expression crept across his face.

Roughly Johnson loosed his enemy from the wheel and dragged him
to the woman. He passed the free end of the riata about them

both, tying them close together. The girl continued to moan, out
of her wits with terror.

"What are you going to do now, you devil?" demanded Palmer, but
received no reply.

Buck Johnson spread out the rawhide. Putting forth his huge
strength, he carried to it the pair, bound together like a bale

of goods, and laid them on its cool surface. He threw across
them the edges, and then deliberately began to wind around and

around the huge and unwieldy rawhide package the strip he had cut
from the edge of the pelt.

Nor was this altogether easy. At last Brent Palmer understood.
He writhed in the struggle of desperation, foaming blasphemies.

The uncouthbundle rolled here and there. But inexorably the
other, from the advantage of his position, drew the thongs

tighter.
And then, all at once, from vituperation the bronco-buster fell

to pleading, not for life, but for death.
"For God's sake, shoot me!" he cried from within the smothering

folds of the rawhide. "If you ever had a heart in you, shoot me!
Don't leave me here to be crushed in this vise. You wouldn't do

that to a yellow dog. An Injin wouldn't do that, Buck. It's a
joke, isn't it? Don't go away and leave me, Buck. I've done you

dirt. Cut my heart out, if you want to; I won't say a word, but
don't leave me here for the sun--"

His voice was drowned in a piercingscream, as Estrella came to
herself and understood. Always the rawhide had possessed for her

an occult fascination and repulsion. She had never been able to
touch it without a shudder, and yet she had always been drawn to

experiment with it. The terror of her doom had now added to it
for her all the vague and premonitory terrors which heretofore

she had not understood.
The richness of the dawn had flowed to the west. Day was at

hand. Breezes had begun to play across the desert; the wind
devils to raise their straight columns. A first long shaft of

sunlight shot through a pass in the Chiricahuas, trembled in the
dust-moted air, and laid its warmth on the rawhide. Senor

Johnson roused himself from his gloom to speak his first words of
the episode.

"There, damn you!" said he. "I guess you'll be close enough
together now!"

He turned away to look for his horse.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE DESERT
Button was a trusty of Senor Johnson's private animals. He was

never known to leave his master in the lurch, and so was
habitually allowed certain privileges. Now, instead of remaining

exactly on the spot where he was "tied to the ground," he had
wandered out of the dry arroyo bed to the upper level of the

plains, where he knew certain bunch grasses might be found. Buck
Johnson climbed the steep wooded bank in search of him.

The pony stood not ten feet distant. At his master's abrupt
appearance he merely raised his head, a wisp of grass in the

corner of his mouth, without attempting to move away. Buck
Johnson walked confidently" target="_blank" title="ad.有信心地；自信地">confidently to him, fumbling in his side pocket

for the piece of sugar with which he habitually soothed Button's
sophisticated palate. His hand encountered Estrella's letter.

He drew it out and opened it.
"Dear Buck," it read, "I am going away. I tried to be good, but

I can't. It's too lonesome for me. I'm afraid of the horses and
the cattle and the men and the desert. I hate it all. I tried

to make you see how I felt about it, but you couldn't seem to
see. I know you'll never forgive me, but I'd go crazy here. I'm

almost crazy now. I suppose you think I'm a bad woman, but I am
not. You won't believe that. Its' true though. The desert

would make anyone bad. I don't see how you stand it. You've
been good to me, and I've really tried, but it's no use. The

country is awful. I never ought to have come. I'm sorry you are
going to think me a bad woman, for I like you and admire you, but

nothing, NOTHING could make me stay here any longer." She
signed herself simply Estrella Sands, her maiden name.