The Heart of the Desert

Rhoda wrung her hands and groaned. Only to escape--to escape! Suddenly turning, she ran down the track. Kut-le watched her, motionless, until she had run perhaps a hundred yards, then with a few mighty leaps he overtook her and gathered her to his great chest. Moaning, Rhoda lay still.

"Dear," said Kut-le, "don't exert yourself foolishly. If you must escape, lay your plans carefully. Use your brain. Don't act like a child. I love you, Rhoda!"

"I loathe you! I loathe you!" whispered the girl.

"You don't--ah--" He stopped abruptly and set the girl on the ground. They were standing beside a side-track near a desert water-tank. "I've caught my foot in a switch-frog," muttered Kut-le, keeping his hold on Rhoda with one hand while with the other he tugged at his moccasined foot.

Rhoda stood rigid.

"I hear a train!" she cried. "O dear God, I hear a train!" Then, "The other Indians are too far away to reach you before the train does," she added calmly.

"But I'll never loose my grip on you," returned the Indian grimly.

He tore at the imprisoned foot, ripping the moccasin and tearing at the road bed. The rails began to sing. Far down the track they saw a star of light Rhoda's heart stood still. This, then, was to be the end! After all the months of distant menace, death was to be upon her in a moment! This, then, was to be the solution! And with all the horror of what life might mean to her, she cried out with a sob: "Oh, not this way! Not this way!"

Kut-le gave her a quick push.

"Hurry," he said, "and try to remember good things of me!"

With a cry of joy, Rhoda jumped from the track, then stopped. There flashed across her inner vision the face of young Cartwell, debonair and dark, with unfathomable eyes; young Cartwell who had saved her life when the scorpion had stung her, who had spent hours trying to lead her back to health. Instantly she turned and staggered back to the Indian.

"I can't let a human being die like a trapped animal!" she panted, and she threw herself wildly against him.

Kut-le fell at the unexpected impact of her weight and his foot was freed! He lifted Rhoda, leaped from the track, and the second section of the tourist train thundered into the west.

"You are as fine as I thought you were--" he began. But Rhoda was a limp heap at his feet.

The girl came to her senses partially when Kut-le set her in the saddle and fastened her there with strap and blanket. But happily she was practically unconscious for the hour or two that remained till dawn. Just as day was breaking the Indians made their way across an arroyo and up a long slope to a group of cottonwoods. Here Rhoda was put to bed on a heap of blankets.