The man voiced a loud guffaw and closed up again. The girl turned her horse to one side to avoid him. Again he came on in the new direction; and when he was almost upon her she brought her mount to its haunches, wheeled suddenly and spurred across the trail to the rear of the man and rode on again at right angles to her former direction, but she had widened the distance between them.

Once more the chase began, but now the man had taken down his rope and was shaking out the noose. He drew closer. Standing in his stirrups, swinging the, great noose, he waited for the right instant. Wichita tried to turn away from him but she saw that he would win that way as easily, since she was turning back toward the other four who were already preparing to intercept her.

Her horse was heavier than the pony ridden by the young puncher and that fact gave Wichita a forlorn hope. Wheeling, she spurred straight toward the man with the mad intention of riding him down. If her own horse did not fall too, she might still have a chance.

The puncher sensed instantly the thing that was in her mind; and just before the impact he drove his spurs deep into his pony's sides, and as Wichita's horse passed behind him he dropped his noose deftly to the rear over his left shoulder, and an instant later had drawn it tight about the neck of the girl's mount.

She reached forward and tried to throw off the rope, but the puncher backed away, keeping it taut; and then "Dirty" Cheetim and the three others closed in about her.

Five - THE SNAKE LOOK

GIAN-NAH-TAH entered the hogan of Shoz-Dijiji. The young war chief, awakening instantly, sprang to his feet when he saw who it was standing in the opening.

"Does Gian-nah-tah come to the hogan of Shoz-Dijiji as friend or enemy?" he asked.

"Listen, Shoz-Dijiji, and you will know," replied Gian-nah- tah. "Yesterday my heart was bad. Perhaps the fire-water of the white-eyed man made it so, but it is not of that that Gian-nah-tah has come to speak with Shoz-Dijiji. It is of the girl, Wichita."

"Shoz-Dijiji does not wish to speak of her," replied the war chief.

"But he will listen while Gian-nah-tah speaks," said the other, peremptorily. "The white-eyed skunk that sells poisoned water has ridden with four of his braves to capture the white-eyed girl that Shoz-Dijiji loves," continued Gian-nah-tah. "They follow her to Pimos Canyon, and there they will keep her in the hogan that the white fool with the strange clothing built there six summers ago. Shoz-Dijiji knows the place?"

The Black Bear did not reply. Instead he seized the cartridge belt to which his six-shooter hung and buckled it about his slim hips, took his rifle, his hackamore, ran quickly out in search of his hobbled pony.

Gian-nah-tah hastened to his own hogan for weapons. Warriors, eating their breakfasts, noted the haste of the two and questioned them. Nervous, restless, apprehensive of the results that might follow Geronimo's departure from the reservation, smarting under the injustice of the white-eyed men in taking their herds from them, many of the braves welcomed any diversion, especially one that might offer an outlet to their pent wrath against the enemy; and so it was that by the time Shoz-Dijiji had found and bridled Nejeunee he discovered that instead of riding alone to the rescue of the white girl he was one of a dozen savage warriors.

Wrapped in blankets they rode slowly, decorously, until they had passed beyond the ken of captious white eyes, six-shooters and rifles hidden beneath the folds of their blankets; then the blankets fell away, folded lengthways across the withers of their ponies, and a dozen warriors, naked but for G strings, quirted their ponies into swinging lope.

Knowing that the troops were out, the Indians followed no beaten road but rode south across the Gila and then turned southeast through the hills toward Pimos Canyon.

"Dirty" Cheetim, with a lead rope on Wichita's horse, rode beside the girl.

"Thought you was too high-toned for 'Dirty' Cheetim, eh?" he sneered. "You was too damn good to be Mrs. Cheetim, eh? Well, you ain't a-goin' to be Mrs. Cheetim. You're just a- goin' to be one 0' 'Dirty' Cheetim's girls down at the Hog Ranch. Nobody don't marry them."

Wichita Billings made no reply. She rode in silence, her eyes straight to the front. Hicks, the young puncher who had roped the girl's horse, rode a few paces to the rear. In his drink muddled brain doubts were forming as to the propriety of the venture into which Cheetim had led him. Perhaps he was more fool than knave; perhaps, sober, he might have balked at the undertaking. After all he was but half conscious of vaguely annoying questionings that might eventually have crystallized into regrets had time sufficed, but it did not.

They were winding up Pimos Canyon toward the deserted shack. "Your old man kicked me out," Cheetim was saying to the girl. "I reckon you're thinking that he'll get me for this, but he won't.