Creech paused a moment, darkly triumphant.  A hideous success showed in his strange eyes.  A long-cherished mad vengeance had reached its fruition.  Then he led the horse near to Lucy.

Warily he reached down.  He did not know Lucy’s strength was spent.  He feared she might yet escape.  With hard, quick grasp he caught her, lifted her, threw her over the King’s back.  He forced her down.

Lucy’s resistance was her only salvation, because it kept him on the track of his old threat.  She resisted all she could.  He pulled her arms down round the King’s neck and tied them close.  Then he pulled hard on the rope on her ankle and tied that to her other ankle.

Lucy realized that she was bound fast.  Creech had made good most of his threat.  And now in her mind the hope of the death she had sought changed to the hope of life that was possible.  Whatever power she had ever had over the King was in her voice.  If only Creech would slip the bridle or cut the reins—­if only Sage King could be free to run!

Lucy could turn her face far enough to see Creech.  Like a fiend he was reveling in his work.  Suddenly he picked up the gun.

“Look a-hyar!” he called, hoarsely.

With eyes on her, grinning horribly, he walked a few paces to where the long grass had not been trampled or pressed down.  The wind, whipping up out of the canyon, was still blowing hard.  Creech put the gun down in the grass and fired.

Sage King plunged.  But he was not gun-shy.  He steadied down with a pounding of heavy hoofs.  Then Lucy could see again.  A thin streak of yellow smoke rose—­a little snaky flame—­a slight crackling hiss!  Then as the wind caught the blaze there came a rushing, low roar.  Fire, like magic, raced and spread before the wind toward the forest.

Lucy had forgotten that Creech had meant to drive her into fire.  The sudden horror of it almost caused collapse.  Commotion within—­cold and quake and nausea and agony—­deadened her hearing and darkened her sight.  But Creech’s hard hands quickened her.  She could see him then, though not clearly.  His face seemed inhuman, misshapen, gray.  His hands pulled at her arms—­a last precaution to see that she was tightly bound.  Then with the deft fingers of a rider he slipped Sage King’s bridle.

Lucy could not trust her sight.  What made the King stand so still?  His ears went up—­stiff—­pointed!

Creech stepped back and laid a violent hand on Lucy’s garments.  She bent—­twisted her neck to watch him.  But her sight grew no clearer.  Still she saw he meant to strip her naked.  He braced himself for a strong, ripping pull.  His yellow teeth showed deep in his lip.  His contrasting eyes were alight with insane joy.

But he never pulled.  Something attracted his attention.  He looked.  He saw something.  The beast in him became human—­the madness changed to rationality—­the devil to a craven!  His ashen lips uttered a low, terrible cry.