Claire spread her blankets above the tiny shelter she had made for Murray, and lay with her face to the south and Two Palms. What time it was when she wakened, she did not know; she lay for a moment wondering why she had roused, then glanced toward Murray's shelter. In the starlight she could see that he had not moved. She could hear his breathing, as it had been. Then--her gaze leaped to the desert floor, where two moving stars were drawing close. An automobile! Hope sprang within her, drew a quick, glad cry from her lips. She leaped up and arranged her dress with shaking fingers. Tom Lee was coming, then, was almost here! Hurriedly she made shift to light a tiny blaze from the fragments of her fire, to guide the arrivals. As the car came into the valley below, the sound apprised her that it was a flivver, and she became certain that Tom Lee had come. The car threaded its way up the hillside, and ten feet from Murray's car, came to a halt. Its engine was not shut off, and its headlights held Claire in the center of this scene, lighting the place dimly, but efficiently. Two dark figures leaped from the car and came toward her. A cry broke from Claire, and she drew back--not Tom Lee after all! Here was Piute Tomkins, and with him a stranger whom she did not know. But her fear vanished swiftly, and she choked down her disappointment. "I'm _so_ glad you came!" she exclaimed. "Doctor Murray has been hurt--why, what's the matter?" She halted, blankly astounded. The stranger and Piute both produced revolvers, and their manner was distinctly unfriendly. The stranger now flashed the badge of a sheriff; he was a keen-eyed man, bronzed and resolute. "You're under arrest, Miss Lee," he said. "So is Doctor Murray. That him yonder?" "Arrest?" faltered the girl, shrinking in amazement and fear. "Yep, complicity," said Piute. "The doc had a lot of opium in his room, and morphine--and you're helpin' him in his getaway! This here is the sheriff--Hennesy sent him over a-flyin'----" "But--but it's impossible!" wailed the girl, anguish in her voice. "He's ill--he's had sunstroke! And he's never had any opium----" The sheriff, who seemed to dislike his job, shook his head. "Sorry, Miss Lee, but we got the goods on him. My car broke down and we had to impress Bill Hobbs to bring us out here----" At this instant another figure came into the rays of light from the car. It was Bill Hobbs. "What's the matter, Miss Lee?" he demanded. "Where's the doc?" "He's ill--he had to fix a tire and the sun made him ill," she said weakly. "These men are trying to arrest him and me--oh, it's ridiculous!" "Gee!" breathed Willyum, staring from her to the recumbent figure beneath the blankets. Then he swung on the other two. "So that was why you had me run you out here, huh? Tryin' to make a pinch, huh? You kept darned quiet about it!" "Enough for you," snapped the sheriff. "Get busy, and help carry that man----"