Kut-le put Rhoda in her saddle, fastened her securely and put a Navajo about her shoulders.  The night’s misery was begun.  Whether they went up and down mountains, whether they crossed deserts, Rhoda neither knew nor cared.  The blind purpose of clinging to the saddle was the one aim of the dreadful night.  She was a little light-headed at times and with her head against the horse’s neck, she murmured John DeWitt’s name, or sitting erect she called to him wildly.  At such times Kut-le’s fingers tightened and he clinched his teeth, but he did not go to her.  When, however, the frail figure drooped silently and inertly against the waist strap he seemed to know even in the darkness.  Then and then only he lifted her down, the squaws massaged her wracked body, and she was put in the saddle again.  Over and over during the night this was repeated until at dawn Rhoda was barely conscious that after being lifted to the ground she was not remounted but was covered carefully and left in peace.

It was late in the afternoon again when Rhoda woke.  She pushed aside her blankets and tried to get up but fell back with a groan.  The stiffness of the previous days was nothing whatever to the misery that now held every muscle rigid.  The overexertion of three nights in the saddle which the massaging had so far mitigated had asserted itself and every muscle in the girl’s body seemed acutely painful.  To lift her hand to her hair, to draw a long breath, to turn her head, was almost impossible.

Rhoda looked dismally about her.  The camp this time was on the side of a mountain that lay in a series of mighty ranges, each separated from the other by a narrow strip of desert.  White and gold gleamed the snow-capped peaks.  Purple and lavender melted the shimmering desert into the lifting mesas.  Rhoda threw her arm across her eyes to hide the hateful sight, and moaned in pain at the movement.

Molly ran to her side.

“Your bones heap sick?  Molly rub ’em?” she asked eagerly.

“O Molly, if you would!” replied Rhoda gratefully, and she wondered at the skill and gentleness of the Indian woman who manipulated the aching muscles with such rapidity and firmness that in a little while Rhoda staggered stiffly to her feet.

“Molly,” she said, “I want to wash my face.”

Molly puckered up her own face in her effort to understand, and scratched her head.

“Don’t sabe that,” she said.

“Wash my face!” repeated Rhoda in astonishment.  “Of course you understand.”

Molly laughed.

“No!  You no wash!  No use!  You just get cold—­heap cold!”

“Molly!” called Kut-le’s authoritative voice.

Molly went flying toward the packs, from which she returned with a canteen and a tiny pitch-smeared basket.  Kut-le followed with a towel.  He grinned at Rhoda.

“Molly is possessed with the idea that anything as frail as you would be snuffed out like a candle by a drop of water.  You and I each possess a lone lorn towel which we must wash out ourselves till the end of the trip.  The squaws don’t know when a thing is clean.”