Across the valley below her she could see the figure of a solitary horseman, which, after a few moments she decided to be Cameron, although she had thought him miles away from there by this time. Her pony having recovered his wind, she started down the mesa toward the approaching figure, glad to see some human being in all that waste of loneliness around her. As she drew nearer, she saw that it was no white man, but an Indian, the red sash tied around his head being plainly visible at quite a distance, but undaunted, she kept on her course, presuming him to be the Indian mail-carrier who came in from the agency twice a week with the mail-sack tied behind his saddle. As the distance between them lessened, she saw with great uneasiness that it was her admirer, Chatto, and, with a sort of guilty fear in her heart, she turned off the trail and pushed her pony into a lope toward a bunch of horses grazing near, as if she wanted to look at them closer. A glance over her shoulder showed her that the Indian had also turned and was following her, and the girl, now thoroughly alarmed, urged her pony to his fullest speed. The Indian called to her to stop, but she only rode the harder. Chatto, however, was well mounted and slowly gained on the flying figure; her cowboy hat had blown from her head, but was held by the string around her neck as she urged her pony with voice and quirt. "Stop, I shoot!" called the Navajo, but she rode the faster, expecting every instant to hear the crack of his Winchester. At last he was within thirty feet of her, and she felt that her pony had done his utmost and there was no escape. Another look over her shoulder showed her that the Indian had taken down his long rawhide reata and was swinging it round and round his head preparatory for a throw at her. She remembered hearing Hull tell of Mexican and cowboy fights, where the victim was roped and pulled off his horse and across the prairie, until every semblance of human shape was dragged out of it, and her heart sank within her, for she knew by some woman's instinct that he had realized she had been fooling him, and was thirsting for revenge. Faster and faster they rode, and nearer and nearer he drew, till she could hear the "swish" of the rope through the air; she crouched low over the saddle to offer as small a mark as possible, meantime praying for deliverance, which in her heart she little thought would come. Cameron found his horses but a few miles out from the ranch, and, quickly rounding them up, started the bunch toward home on a sharp run, arriving there not long after Miss Steele had left. Questioning Mary as to the direction she had taken, he struck off again on the range in a course that he shrewdly judged would enable him, as if by accident, to meet Miss Steele on her homeward way.