As the doctor obeyed a large, soft handkerchief was laid across his eyes and bound tight. He climbed back into his saddle then, and found his stirrups. But as he picked up his rein once more he felt his hands gripped in a firm hold and brought forward to the pommel. “I’ll tie your wrists now,” said his companion. The doctor straightened and jerked his arms to his sides. “You don’t need to,” he declared. “I’ll let my eyes alone.” “Put out your hands!” came the stern command. There was nothing to do but comply. When they moved on again the doctor sat with every faculty on the alert, determined to discover which way they were travelling. But first they circled two or three times, then took a zigzag course. And after so much forethought on his guide’s part the doctor was completely turned around. So that, starting forward finally along a comparatively straight course, he did not know in what direction they were headed. Soon he forgot to note any veering to right or left. A feeling of intense nausea came over him, caused by the sway of his horse and his inability to see. The going was smooth enough for the first half-hour. Afterward it became rough, when they ceased to canter, even over short distances. At the end of the first long hour they wound down a steep and evidently narrow path. This brought them to rushing water, which they crossed when the mule and Bobby had drunk. Then a long climb began--to level ground again. At last a sharp turn was made to the left. Once more they descended. Then came a halt. “Get down,” said the guide. “I will when you let loose my hands,” returned the doctor crossly. “This is a dickens of a way to treat a white man!” When he was down and his eyes were unbound he saw that they were in the bottom of a deep cañon, for on either side of him, against the lighter background of the sky, was the black, pine-topped line of a ridge. There was a small clearing in the cañon, circled by a wall of underbrush, and at the centre of the clearing a squat shanty, beyond which showed a patch of light from a window on its farther side. Bridles were taken off and girths loosened. Then the doctor folded down the top of the feed-sack so that Bobby could eat, and left the little horse devouring his oats. Now the two men made toward the shanty and silently entered a small, low room lighted by a single kerosene lamp. The walls of the room were of rough pine boards, smoke-stained; the ceiling was of blackened cheesecloth that sagged low overhead. There was a rough board table beside the door, and two benches, as unplaned as the table, for seats. A small stove stood in one corner, rusted by the rain that had trickled down upon it from the pipe-opening in the roof; against a wall stood a bed of boards--a bed only wide enough for one person. Upon it, under a grey blanket, lay a figure.