Almost opposite where the girl had been chained the tiny trickle of water had formed a miniature pool in the rocks. Seizing a tin cup from his camp outfit, Ross hurried to this pool, scooped up a cup of water, and in an instant was kneeling at the girl's side.
Dipping his fingers in the water, he flicked it across her face, then carefully bathed her forehead, and then set to chafing her wrists.
It was fully ten minutes before the girl showed any evidence of returning consciousness. Then her eyelids began to flutter. Finally she sighed deeply, and her eyes slowly opened.
Stanley Ross thought he had never seen such a look of abject terror as now appeared in the girl's eyes. It was as though she had just awakened from a terrible dream and was still laboring under its terrorizing influence. Such a look might have appeared in the eyes of a slave girl when Nero ruled in Rome.
For a moment, consciousness battled with that nightmare that had been seething through the girl's brain and finally won. Her eyes opened wide. A half smile slowly crossed her face. Whatever might have inspired her terror, the girl evidently recognized in Ross a friend.
Her lips, dry and parched, moved with difficulty, but Ross saw that they framed the word "Water!"
Lifting her head, he dampened the girl's lips from the cup and then allowed her to drink her fill. But weakness still held sway over ‘her body, and she sank back on the blankets, exhausted. Her eyes closed again.
"Don't try to talk," advised Ross. "You just lie there and rest until I fix something for you. Then you can tell me about this thing."
For once in his life, Ross was glad that he had taken another man's advice. When he had started his desert pilgrimage an old prospector had advised him to include a few cans of soup in his outfit. Ross had demurred, seeing no use in packing superfluous weight, but the old desert rat had insisted.
Ross had included the soup. So far, he had had no use for it, but now it was to show its worth.
Collecting a few dry sticks from the stubby willows that grew around the pool, Ross soon had a tiny fire going. Opening a can of soup, he heated it over the fire and carried a cup of it to the girl.
"Oh, that's so good!" she murmured after she had drained the cup. "Thank you."
"Do you feel like talking?" asked Ross.
For a moment the girl regarded him with frank eyes. Then she shook her head wearily.
"Not—not just yet—please. I'm—so—tired." She sank back onto the blankets.
Realizing that, for the present, rest was the most important thing for her, Ross covered the girl with a blanket and set about his camp duties.
He finished unpacking his burros and turned them loose to pick at the scanty tufts of grass that grew along the seeping stream. This done, he set about preparing his own meal.
It was already dusk, and by the time he had cooked and eaten his supper darkness had settled down over the little canon. Washing his few dishes in the pool, Ross set them aside and turned his attention to finding enough firewood to keep the fire going.
In the darkness this was somewhat of a task, and Ross was absent from the camp for some little time. When he returned he saw that his strange guest had evidently fallen asleep.
Ross threw some wood on the fire and sat down with his back against a rock. Filling his pipe, he lighted it and leaned back to contemplate the events of the afternoon and evening.
His first mental reaction on finding the girl had been one of intense rage that any one, no matter what the cause or conditions, could be so utterly inhuman as to perpetrate such an act. He was still angry now, but he had cooled off to the extent that he could consider the affair calmly.
There seemed to be no off-hand explanation whatever. As far as Ross knew, there was no human habitation in all this desert waste, yet this trail up the little canon had been used frequently and recently, so somewhere up the winding trail must lie a solution to the mystery. But what it could be, or whether he could ever solve it, Ross could not imagine.
The whole affair was grotesque, bizarre. Why any one should chain a young girl to a rock wall in the midst of a heat-scorched desert was utterly incomprehensible. The girl was not gross or criminal-looking. On the contrary, she was pretty, delicate, and obviously refined. Her clothes bespoke a far different environment. How any one could be so inhuman as to subject her to such treatment was unfathomable.
Sitting there, smoking and watching the girl, mulling the strangeness of the affair over in his mind, Ross could offer himself no explanation. The only thing to do, apparently, was to wait for the girl to awaken and then wait for her to talk.
At any rate, the adventure which he had craved seemed to be at hand, Where it would lead him he had no idea.
The fire gradually burned low. The girl slept on. Ross removed the pipe from his mouth. His head nodded. In half an hour the campfire had wasted to an ember.
The man's head had sunk forward onto his breast; his body had relaxed comfortably against its support. He, too, was asleep.
Hours crept by...
With a start, Ross awoke. The first faint glow of dawn was creeping down into the little canon. It was morning.
Sheepishly, Ross rubbed his eyes, aware that he had allowed the healthy fatigue of a day in the desert to conquer his senses and bring sleep when he had intended to watch throughout the night.
Gradually the events of the evening before came back to him, and he looked across to where he had wrapped the girl in his blankets. The bed was empty!
The girl was gone!
CHAPTER THREE
ADVENTURE WITH A VENGEANCE
IN AN INSTANT Ross was on his feet, the sleep fog automatically cleared from his brain.
One glance was enough. The dawn was far enough advanced so that he could see both up and down the canon. It was patent that the girl had vanished during the darkness.
The whole affair was so utterly impossible, so unreal, so like an Arabian Nights adventure, that Ross was almost prone to believe that it had been merely a dream, a desert hallucination. Not until his eyes again sought the canon wall did he convince himself that he had not been laboring under some mental aberration.
There could be no denying his eyes, though. There were the four heavy chains fastened to the canon wall, and there were the four broken shackles, mute evidence that he had stumbled onto a situation as exotic as one of the desert's own mirages.
No, there could be no question that the girl had actually existed. Nor could there be any question that she had disappeared. The only living thing in sight was Archibald, who stood with head bowed over the dead embers of last night's fire in his usual state of ignoble dejection.
