Rhoda was astride of the pony, half sitting, half lying along his neck.  The Indians put the horses to a trot and immediately the discomfort of her position was made agony by the rough motion.  But the pain cleared her mind.

Her first thought was that she never would recover from the disgrace of this episode.  Following this thought came fury at the man who was so outraging her.  It only he would free her hands for a moment she would choke him!  Her anger would give her strength for that!  Then she fought against her fastenings.  They held her all but motionless and the sense of her helplessness brought back the fear panic.  Utterly helpless, she thought!  Flying through darkness to an end worse than death!  In the power of a naked savage!  Her fear almost robbed her of her reason.

After what seemed to her endless hours, the horses were stopped suddenly.  She felt her fastenings removed.  Then Kut-le lifted her to the ground where she tumbled, helpless, at his feet.  He stooped and took the gag from her mouth.  Immediately with what fragment of strength remained to her, she screamed again and again.  The two Indians stood stolidly watching her for a time, then Kut-le knelt in the sand beside her huddled form and laid his hand on her arm.

“There, Rhoda,” he said, “no one can hear you.  You will only make yourself sick.”

Rhoda struck his hand feebly.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried hoarsely.  “Don’t touch me, you beast!  I loathe you!  I am afraid of you!  Don’t you dare to touch me!”

At this Kut-le imprisoned both her cold hands in one of his warm palms and held them despite her struggles, while with the other hand he smoothed her tumbled hair from her eyes.

“Poor frightened little girl,” he said, in his rich voice.  “I wish I might have done otherwise.  But there was no other way.  I don’t know that I believe much in your God but I guess you do.  So I tell you, Rhoda, that by your faith in Him, you are absolutely safe in my hands!”

Rhoda caught her breath in a childlike sob while she sstill struggled to recover her hands.

“I loathe you!” she panted.  “I loathe you!  I loathe you!”

But Kut-le would not free the cold little hands.

“But do you fear me, too?  Answer me!  Do you fear me?”

The moon had risen and Rhoda looked into the face that bent above hers.  This was a naked savage with hawk-like face.  Yet the eyes were the ones that she had come to know so well, half tragic, somber, but clear and, toward her, tender, very, very tender.  With a shuddering sigh, Rhoda looked away.  But against her own volition she found herself saying: 

“I’m not afraid now!  But I loathe you, you Apache Indian!”

Something very like a smile touched the grim mouth of the Apache.

“I don’t hate you, you Caucasian!” he answered quietly.

He chafed the cold hands for a moment, in silence.  Then he lifted her to her saddle.  But Rhoda was beyond struggle, beyond even clinging to the saddle.  Kut-le caught her as she reeled.