Steve tapped gently on the window pane with the ball of his middle finger. Instantly the sobbing was interrupted. The black head of hair lifted from the pillow to listen the better. He could guess how fearfully the heart of the girl was beating. Again he tapped on the glass. With a lithe twist of her body the girl sat up on the bed. She waited tensely for a repetition of the sound, not quite sure from where it had come. Her questing eyes found at last the source of it, a warning forefinger close to the pane that seemed to urge for silence. Rising, she moved slowly to the window, uneasy, doubtful, yet with hope beginning to stir at her heart. She formed a cup for her eyes with her palms so as to hold back the light while she peered through the glass into the darkness without. Over to the left she made out the contour of a face, a brown Mexican face with quick, eager eyes that spoke comfort to her. Her first thought was that it belonged to a friend. Hard on the heels of that she gave a little cry of joy and began with trembling fingers to raise the window. "Steve!" she cried, laughing and crying together. And as soon as she had adjusted the window she caught his hand between both of hers and pressed it hard. Steve was here. He would save her as he had before. She was all right now. "Ruth! Little Ruth!" he cried softly, in a whisper. "Did you hear? Do you know?" she asked. "Only that he brought you here, the hellhound, and that Pasquale--" He stopped, his sentence unfinished. There was no need to alarm her about that old philanderer. Time enough for that if she scratched the surface and found the savage beneath. "--Won't let me go home," she finished for him. "But what are you doing here? How did Harrison trap you?" "I had been strolling with Daisy Ellington after supper. It was not late--hardly dark yet. She stopped at the hotel to talk with Miss Winters and I started to walk home alone. I took the short cut across the empty block just below Brinker's. He was waiting among the cottonwoods there--he and two Mexicans. As soon as he stepped into the light I was afraid." "Why didn't you cry out?" "I didn't like to make a scene about nothing. And after that first moment I had no time. He caught hold of me and put his hand across my mouth. Horses were there ready saddled. He lifted me in front of him and kept my mouth covered till we were clear of the town. It didn't matter how much I screamed when we had reached the desert." "I didn't think even Harrison had the nerve to kidnap an Arizona girl and bring her across the line. If he had happened to meet a bunch of cowpunchers--" "He didn't start after me. It was you he wanted. But he found out you weren't in town and took me instead. All the way down he talked about you--boasted how he would marry me in spite of you and how he would take you and have Pasquale flay you alive." Yeager lifted a warning finger. "Remember you have a friend here. Good-night."