Rhoda pulled her hand away gently.

"It never, never can be!"

"It shall be! Love like this comes but seldom to a human. It is the
most potent thing in the world. It shall--"

"Kut-le!" Alchise rode forward, pointing to the right.

Rhoda followed his look. It was nearly dawn. At the right was the
sheer wall of a mesa as smooth and impregnable to her eyes as a wall of
glass. Moving toward them, silent as ghosts in the veil-like dawn, and
cutting them from the mesa, was a group of horsemen.




CHAPTER IX

TOUCH AND GO

The John DeWitt who helped break camp after finding Rhoda's scarf was a
different man from the half-crazed person of the three days previous.
He had begun to hope. Somehow that white scarf with Rhoda's perfume
clinging to it was a living thing to him, a living, pulsing promise
that Rhoda was helping him to find her. Now, while Jack and Billy were
feverishly eager, he was cool and clear-headed, leaving the leadership
to Billy still, yet doing more than his share of the work in preparing
for the hard night ahead of them. The horses were well watered, their