“Look, John!  See what I found on a little corner shelf!” She held in her outstretched hand a tiny jar no bigger than a wine-glass.  It was of an exquisitely polished black.  “Not even an explorer can have been here, or nothing so perfect as this would have been left!  What hands do you suppose made this!”

But DeWitt did not answer her question.

“Now, look here, Rhoda, you aren’t to do anything like starting a fire and lugging these heavy jars again!  You’re not with the Indians now.  You’ve got a man to wait on you!”

Rhoda looked at him curiously.

“But I’ve learned to like to do it!” she protested.  “Nobody can roast a rabbit to suit me but myself,” and in spite of DeWitt’s protests she spitted the rabbits and would not let him tend the fire which she said was too fine an art for his untrained hands.  In a short time the rich odor of roasting flesh rose on the air and John watched the pretty cook with admiration mingled with perplexity.  Rhoda insisting on cooking a meal!  More than that, Rhoda evidently enjoying the job!  The idea left him speechless.

An hour after Rhoda had spitted the game, John sighed with contentment as he looked at the pile of bones beside his earthen bowl.

“And they say jacks aren’t good eating!” he said.  “Why if they had been salted they would have been better than any game I ever ate!”

“You never were so hungry before,” said Rhoda.  “Still, they were well roasted, now weren’t they?”

“Your vanity is colossal, Miss Tuttle,” laughed John, “but I will admit that I never saw better roasting.”  Then he said soberly, “I believe we had better not try the trail again today, Rhoda dear.  We don’t know where to go and we’ve no supplies.  We’d better get our strength up, resting here today, and tomorrow start in good shape.”

Rhoda looked wistfully from the shade of the pueblo out over the desert.  She had become very, very tired of this endless fleeing.

“I wish the Newman ranch was just over beyond,” she said.  “John, what will you do if Kut-le comes on us here?”

DeWitt’s forehead burned a painful red.

“I have a shot left in my revolver,” he said.

Rhoda walked ever to John and put one hand on his shoulder as he sat looking up at her with somber blue eyes.

“John,” she said, “I want you to promise me that you will fire at Kut-le only in the last extremity to keep him from carrying me off, and that you will shoot only as Porter did, to lame and not to kill.”

John’s jaws came together and he returned the girl’s scrutiny with a steel-like glance.

“Why do you plead for him?” he asked finally.

“He saved my life,” she answered simply.

John rose and walked up and down restlessly.

“Rhoda, if a white man had done this thing I would shoot him as I would a dog.  What do I care for a law in a case like this!  We were men long before we had laws.  Why should this Indian be let go when he has done what a white would be shot for?”