Tree limbs reached down to brush Bowles off, sharp stubs threatened momentarily to snag his legs, and boulders to dash his brains out if he fell, but the lion-hearted Wa-ha-lote had asserted his mastery and Bowles could only hang on. At the bottom of the slide they crashed through a dead-limbed cedar, sending the bone-dry sticks flying in every direction; and when Bowles swung up into the saddle he was thundering across the flat and the steers were at his bits. Vague wisps of smoke, white and smelling like a blacksmith-shop, leaped up as the harried brutes skated over the rocks, and Bowles knew that his battle was won. Once in the soft sand of the creek bed they would never turn back to the heights, for their feet were worn to the quick. But it had been a hard race--even Wa-ha-lote was slowing down, and Dixie Lee was nowhere in sight. A sudden doubt assailed Bowles, and he tugged sharply at the bit; he pulled down to a walk and looked behind; then, as he saw no sign, he stopped short and let the cattle go. For a tense minute he listened while Wa-ha-lote puffed like a steamboat; then, with a grave look on his face, he turned and rode back up the hill. "O Miss Lee!" he shouted. "Dixie!" And a thin answer came from the slope above. "Catch my horse!" it said. "He's down in the gulch!" Bowles stared about and caught sight of the red roan's hide as he stood behind some trees; then, with his rope about its neck, he went spurring up the hill. Dixie Lee was lying very awkwardly among the rocks at the foot of a scrubby juniper, and at the first glance Bowles knew she was hurt. Not only was her hat gone and her stout skirt ripped and torn, but her face was very pale and her lips drawn tight together. "Horse fell with me," she said, greeting him with a fleeting smile; "hurt my knee right bad. First time I've known him to do that--say, help me out of these rocks." Very tenderly Bowles reached down and raised her to her feet; then, with one arm about his neck, she tried to hobble away, but at the second hop she paused. "Nope--hurts too bad," she said; "put me down." But Bowles did nothing of the kind. He took her up in his strong young arms and carried her down the hill. He even wished it were farther, but she spied a bed of leaves under a cedar and ordered him to put her there. Then she looked up at him curiously and for a while lay very still. "What you got there?" she inquired, as he came back holding his hat, and Bowles showed her a crownful of water that he had brought from a pool in the gulch. "Ah!" sighed Dixie, and drank out of it without scruple, long and deep. "Say, that's good," she said; "now pour some on my hands--they're all scratched up." He did that too, and loaned her his neck handkerchief to sop up the last of the wet. "Well, it's a wonder you wouldn't ask a few questions," she observed at length, bathing her grimy face with the handkerchief. "'How did it happen?' or 'How're you feeling?' or something like that!"