The Heart of the Desert

Kut-le shifted the Navajo that hung over his naked shoulders. He gave a short laugh that Rhoda had never heard from him before.

"Let her go with you, Jim Provenso! You know as well as I do that she is safer with an Apache! Anything else?"

"Yes, this else!" Jim's voice rose angrily. "If ever we get a chance at you, we'll hang you sky high, see? This may go with Injuns but not with whites, you dirty pup!"

Suddenly Kut-le rose and, dropping his blanket, stood before the white man in his bronze perfection.

"Provenso, you aren't fit to look at a decent woman! Don't put on dog just because you belong to the white race. You're disreputable, and you know it. Don't speak to Miss Tuttle again; you are too rotten!"

The prospector had risen and stood glaring at Kut-le.

"I'll kill you for that yet, you dirty Injun!" he shouted.

"Shucks!" sniffed the Indian. "You haven't the nerve to injure anything but a woman!"

Jim's face went purple.

"For two bits I'd knock your block off, right now."

"There isn't a cent in the camp." Kut-le turned to Rhoda. "You get the point of the conversation, I hope?"

Rhoda's eyes were blazing. She had gotten the point, and yet--Jim was a white man! Anything white was better than an Indian.

"I'd take my chances with Mr. Provenso," she said, joyfully conscious that nothing could have hurt Kut-le more than this reply.

Kut-le's lips stiffened.

"Lunch is ready," he said.

"None of your grub for mine," remarked Jim. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Alchise!" called Kut-le. "Eat something, then take this fellow out and lose him. Take the rest of the day to it. You know the next camp!"

Then he folded his arms across his chest and waited for Alchise to finish his meal. Jim stood in sullen silence for a minute. Then he seated himself on a nearby rock.

"No, you don't," he said. "If you get me out of here, you'll have to use force."

Kut-le shrugged his shoulders.

"A gun at your back will move you!"

Rhoda was looking at the white man's face with a great longing. He was rough and ugly, but he was of her own breed. Suddenly the longing for her own that she was beginning to control surged to her lips.

"I can't bear this!" she cried. "I'm going mad! I'm going mad!"

All the camp turned startled faces toward the girl, and Rhoda recovered her self-possession. She ran to Kut-le and laid her hand on his arm, lifting a lovely, pleading face to his.