Rhoda looked up at DeWitt anxiously.

“You are very tired and worn, John,” she said.

“And you!” cried the man, looking down at the girl with the swinging, tireless stride.  “What miracle has come to you?”

“I never dreamed that there could be health like this!  I—­” She stopped, with head to one side.  “Do you hear anything?  What do you suppose they are doing to each other?  Oh, I hope neither of them will get killed!”

“I hope—­ They have all promised to let me deal with Kut-le!” said DeWitt grimly, pausing to listen intently.  But no sound came across the burning sands.

Rhoda started at DeWitt’s words.  Suddenly her early sense of the appalling nature of her experience returned to her.  She looked with new eyes at DeWitt’s face.  It was not the same face that she had last seen at the Newman ranch.  John had the look of a man who has passed through the fire of tragedy.  She gripped his burned fingers with both her slender hands.

“O John!” she cried, “I wasn’t worth it!  I wasn’t worth it!  Let’s get to the camp quickly, so that you can rest!  It would take a lifetime of devotion to make up for that look in your face!”

John’s quiet manner left him.

“It was a devilish thing for him to do!” he said fiercely.  “Heaven help him when I get him!” Then before Rhoda could speak he smiled grimly.  “This pace is fearful.  If you keep it up you will have sunstroke, Rhoda.  And at that, you’re standing it better than I!”

They slowed their pace.  DeWitt was breathing hard as the burning lava dust bit into his throat.

“I haven’t minded the physical discomfort,” he went on.  “It’s the mental torture that’s been killing me.  We’ve pushed hot on your trail hour after hour, day in and day out.  When they made me rest, I could only lie and listen to you sob for help until—­O my love!  My love!—­”

His voice broke and Rhoda laid her cheek against his arm for a moment.

“I know!  O John dear, I know!” she whispered.

They trudged on in silence for a time, both listening for the sound of pursuit.  Then DeWitt spoke, as if he forced himself to ask for an answer that he dreaded.

“Rhoda, did they torture you much?”

“No!  There was no torture except that of fearful hardships.  At first—­you know how weak and sick I was, John—­at first I just lived in an agony of fear and anger—­sort of a nightmare of exhaustion and frenzy.  Then at Chira I began to get strong and as my health came, the wonder of it, the—­oh, I can’t put it into words; Kut-le was—­” Rhoda paused, wondering at the reluctance with which she spoke the young Indian’s name.  “You missed us so narrowly so many times!”

“The Indian had the devil’s own luck and we always blundered,” said DeWitt.  “I have had the feeling lately that my bones would be bleaching on this stretch of Hades before you ever were heard of.  Rhoda, if I can get you safely to New York again I’ll shoot the first man who says desert to me!”