Five minutes later, quite unexpectedly, Leach, who had passed behind Dr. Shonto, dropped the noose of a lariat over his head, binding his arms to his sides. The prospector took several turns about his body and made a knot. Then the two unbound the doctor’s ankles and helped him to his feet. Whereupon the struggle began. Shonto was a powerful man and a determined man. He had small hopes of winning, but there was always a chance and he made the most of his strength. Unable to use his hands, nevertheless he whipped about, butted with his head, tripped with his feet, turned and squirmed, and hurled himself into the kidnappers until the three were about the busiest men in several counties. But the outcome was inevitable. The lariat did not loosen, and Shonto’s huge hands did not come into play. Time and again they bore him to the ground, and, eventually, by reason of one of them having rested while the other engaged the rebellious prisoner, they wore the doctor down. Utterly exhausted, he remained passive while they lifted him to the back of his own horse and confined his ankles again by passing a rope from one to the other under the animal’s belly. Then they mounted, urged the burros forward, and, with Morley leading the doctor’s horse and Leach riding behind to see that nothing happened, they struck off down the line of buttes. Out on the open desert, they headed into the southwest in the direction of Tanburt’s Ranch. CHAPTER XXIV MARY CHOOSES A SEAT DR. INMAN SHONTO was a prisoner in a little adobe hut back of the corrals at Tanburt’s Ranch. The dun walls were a foot in thickness, the door of solid slabs of oak securely bolted, and the lone window was less than ten inches square. This hut had once been used as a place to keep milk and butter cool, and in that day was adjacent to the first house that Gus Tanburt had built on his property. The old house had been wrecked in time and a new one built, but the old adobe buttery had withstood the years. There was no escape; the thick walls and tiny window made imprisonment therein effectual. Shonto paced the floor, smoked his pipe and cigarettes, and tried to hold his temper. He had written the message, and either Leach or Morley had gone with it to the nearest telegraph station. A day and a night had passed, and Shonto had seen nobody but a halfbreed cowpuncher, who brought his meals regularly and thrust them in through the ten-inch opening. He had blankets and a couch, and was fairly comfortable. But, with the exception of the halfbreed, no one paid any attention to him.