"Bully for you!" exclaimed Kut-le, smiling at Rhoda in understanding.
"However, I guess we will move on, having gleaned this interesting
news!"

He remounted his little party. Rhoda reeled a little but she made no
protest. As they took to the trail again the sheep-herder stood by the
fire, watching, and Rhoda called to him:

"If you see them again tell them that I'm all right but that they must
hurry!"

Rhoda felt new life in her veins after the meeting with the
sheep-herder and finished the night's trail in better shape than she
had done before. Yet not the next day nor for many days did they sight
pursuers. With ingenuity that seemed diabolical, Kut-le laid his
course. He seldom moved hurriedly. Indeed, except for the fact that
the traveling was done by night, the expedition had every aspect of
unlimited leisure.

As the days passed, Rhoda forced herself to the calm of desperation.
Slowly she realized that she was in the hands of the masters of the art
of flight, an art that the very cruelty of the country abetted. But to
her utter astonishment her delirium of physical misery began to lift.
Saddle stiffness after the first two weeks left her. Though Kut-le
still fastened her to the saddle by the waist strap and rested her for
a short time every hour or so during the night's ride, the hours in the
saddle ceased to tax her strength. She was surprised to find that she
could eat--eat the wretched cooking of the squaws!

At last she laid out a definite course for herself. Every night on the