Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/179

Rh a mockery of his first visit to Ghost Mountain. Also, he would even matters with Sheridan. He guessed that Sheridan was in love with her, it suited him to believe it. He meant to leave her a broken thing from which even a lover must turn away, wilfully to destroy the white flower of her innocence and trample it underfoot; unless he should decide to wear it for a while, a besmirched and wilted trophy to his prowess.

And he was half crazed with the last brewing of Vasquez, a brew no longer distilled by that Mexican scoundrel, but crudely mixed in laziness and the desire for quick returns.

Hollister foresaw the certainty of pursuit, the possibility of Sheridan striking his trail, though he held such a possibility remote, sure that he had drugged Juanita deep enough to hold her insensible for twenty-four hours. But he had made assurance doubly sure by posting Pedro and Ramon Guiterrez in ambush by the mountain gap. The two other members of his abduction party had departed for Pioche with enough money to still their tongues, bound to plunge into a debauch.

So he rode on with Mary Burrows confidently, towards the Painted Rocks. Her wrists were still bound, and their lashing was attached to the horn of her saddle over which her reins were draped. He had attached a leading rein to her horse's bridle. His face was still tender from the removal of the tar with which Sheridan had smeared it, inflamed by liquor, the sun and the hellish furnace stoking within his soul. He regarded his captive with a